How to add a new inbound in-group

Adding an in-group is one of the friendlier tasks in VICIdial. You fill in two required fields, save, and you have a working bucket for inbound calls. The catch is that one of those fields can never be changed once you save it, so it pays to slow down for the thirty seconds it takes to pick a good name.

Where to start

From the admin screen, open the IN-GROUPS section using the link on the left, then click the link at the top to add a new one. You land on a short form. If you are fuzzy on what an Ingroup actually is before you fill this in, it is the bucket that connects a phone number to your Agent pool.

The two fields you must get right

Two values are required, and the submission will be rejected without them:

• Group ID: a short code from 2 to 20 characters, letters, numbers, and underscores only. No spaces or punctuation. It must be unique across every in-group and every campaign, and it is locked for life once saved.
• Group Name: a description from 2 to 30 characters. No dashes, plus signs, or spaces. This one you can edit later, so it is the safer place to be descriptive.

Because the ID is permanent, pick something you will still understand in a year, like SALES_IN or SUPPORT_TIER1. If you ever need to change it, your only option is to delete the in-group and rebuild it under a new ID.

The copy shortcut

If you already have an in-group tuned the way you like, there is a copy option. Enter a new Group ID and name, point it at the source in-group, and every other setting carries over. This is the fastest way to spin up a second queue that behaves like the first, then change only the one or two fields that differ.

After you save

Saving the form creates the bucket but does not send it any calls yet. Two more things have to happen: a campaign must allow the in-group so agents can pull from it, and a DID (direct inward dialing) or transfer must feed calls into it. Until a campaign allows it, the list will show a red NA in the Active column.

Next you will likely want to flip the Ingroup on and confirm agents can see it, which is covered in activating and deactivating an in-group. For the bigger picture of how calls travel from a number to a person, the inbound call handling guide ties it together.

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