What ACTIVE, INACTIVE, and EXPIRED holiday status mean

The three statuses

Every Call Time Holiday record in VICIdial carries a Holiday Status field. There are three possible values, and only one of them causes the holiday to do anything:

• ACTIVE — the holiday will fire on the holiday date. When that date and time arrive, inbound calls to any Ingroup or Call Menu attached to the parent Call Time will be routed to the After Hours option.
• INACTIVE — the holiday exists in the system but is ignored. Routing behaves exactly as if the holiday were not there. This is the default status when you first create a holiday record.
• EXPIRED — the holiday date has already passed. The system sets this automatically. An EXPIRED holiday can be inspected for audit purposes but will not affect call routing.

The default is INACTIVE — this trips people up

This is the most common mistake with Call times holiday configuration: an admin creates the holiday record, saves it, and assumes it will fire on the date. It will not, because the default status is INACTIVE. You must explicitly change the status to ACTIVE before the holiday arrives. Build this into your holiday setup checklist.

Status lifecycle

stateDiagram-v2
  [*] --> INACTIVE : Holiday created
  INACTIVE --> ACTIVE : Admin sets status to ACTIVE
  ACTIVE --> INACTIVE : Admin disables holiday
  ACTIVE --> EXPIRED : Holiday date passes
  INACTIVE --> EXPIRED : Holiday date passes while inactive
  EXPIRED --> [*] : Record deleted

EXPIRED is a terminal state set by the system. You cannot manually move a record back from EXPIRED to ACTIVE. If you need a holiday to recur next year, you create a new holiday record with a new date — and remember to set the new record to ACTIVE. Some teams create all annual holidays at the start of the year and schedule a reminder to activate each one a day or two before the date.

INACTIVE vs deleting a holiday

Keeping a holiday in INACTIVE status is different from deleting it. An INACTIVE record stays visible in the holiday list, preserving your record of when the holiday was configured, what the window was, and which Call Times it was attached to. Deletion removes the record entirely — useful for cleanup, but it wipes the audit trail. Prefer INACTIVE over deletion unless the record is truly obsolete.

Deleting a holiday is a two-step process: click DELETE THIS HOLIDAY DEFINITION once, then confirm by clicking the link again on the reload. This prevents accidental removal.

Why getting status right matters

An INACTIVE holiday on a TCPA-prohibited date means your Ingroup will accept calls that should have gone to After Hours. Depending on the holiday and the state, that could mean handling calls when your team is not staffed, or taking calls that regulators consider outside Permitted calling hours. Activating holidays correctly is a low-effort step that closes a real compliance gap. For the full picture, see the VICIdial compliance overview.

For step-by-step instructions on creating and attaching a holiday, see how to add a Call Time Holiday. For the broader context of what holidays are and when to use them, see what Call Time Holidays are and when to use them.

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