How to add a call menu

A call menu is VICIdial's name for an IVR (interactive voice response), the "press 1 for sales" greeting that routes callers without an agent. Adding one is quick once you know the naming rules and the order to fill the fields in.

Create the menu

1. In the inbound section, click "Add a New Call Menu."
2. Enter a Menu ID and a Menu Name. Both are required or the form will not save.
3. Submit, then open the menu to add your greeting and options.

The Menu ID has rules. It must be 2 to 50 characters, and it can only contain letters, numbers, underscores, and dashes. No spaces, no other punctuation. The Menu Name is just a friendly description for your own reference.

Set the greeting and timing

The Menu Prompt field holds the audio file that plays first. You can list several prompts separated by a pipe character and they play in order. Menu Timeout is how many seconds the menu waits for a keypress; set it to 0 and there is no wait after the prompt. Menu Repeat controls how many times the menu replays if the caller makes no valid choice, defaulting to 1.

There are separate prompts for when the menu times out and when the caller presses an invalid key, both default to playing nothing. Filling them in is good manners, but the menu works without them.

Wire up the keypresses

Each option pairs an Option Value with an Option Route. The Option Value is the key the caller presses: 0 through 9, star, pound, or A through D. The Option Route is the destination, and your choices are CALLMENU, INGROUP, DID, HANGUP, EXTENSION, PHONE, VOICEMAIL, and VMAIL_NO_INST. The Option Route Value then names the specific target, for example the inbound group ID or the menu ID you are routing to.

Two special values matter: TIMEOUT sets what happens when the caller enters nothing, and INVALID sets what happens when they press an undefined key. Route those to a safe destination, like back into an Ingroup, so no caller is left stranded. The keypress itself arrives as a DTMF tone, which the menu matches to your option list.

When you map an option to INGROUP, you set a few extra fields beyond just the group: the handle method that decides how the lead is found or created, the search method for picking the next agent, and which list and campaign a new lead should land in. If you are unsure, leaving the search method on its load-balanced default is the safe choice and matches how most queues are run.

flowchart TD
  A[Add New Call Menu] --> B[Set Menu ID and Name]
  B --> C[Set Menu Prompt]
  C --> D[Set Timeout and Repeat]
  D --> E[Add Option Values]
  E --> F[Pick Option Route per key]
  F --> G[Set TIMEOUT and INVALID]
  G --> H[Submit and test]

When the menu is built, point a DID (direct inward dialing) at it by setting that DID's route to CALLMENU, then call in and walk every option. Most options route into an inbound group, so make sure those groups exist first. Start with adding an inbound group, and see the full path in the inbound call handling guide.

Recording prompts and testing routes is much smoother on a running system. If you want a box ready to take inbound calls in under a minute, see our managed VICIdial hosting.