How to copy a DID

If you have a working DID (direct inward dialing) and you need a second number that behaves the same way, you do not have to fill the whole form out again. VICIdial lets you copy an existing DID, taking all its routing settings across to a new one in a single step. DID is short for Direct Inward Dialing, the record that catches an inbound call and routes it.

What copying gives you

The Copy A DID page clones every setting from a source DID into a brand new one. That includes the route, the target Ingroup or Agent, the call handle method, the recording choice, and any caller ID cleanup rules. You only supply three things: a new DID extension, a new name, and the source DID to copy from.

This is useful in more cases than you might expect. Picture a marketing team that buys a fresh tracking number for each campaign but wants every one of them to land in the same sales queue, recorded the same way, with the same caller ID handling. Building each by hand is slow and easy to get wrong. Copying means you set those rules once, then stamp them onto every new number in seconds. The clone is a full, independent DID afterwards, so you can tweak one without touching the others.

The steps

1. Open the inbound section and find the Copy A DID page.
2. Enter the new DID extension, matching exactly what your carrier will send for that number.
3. Give the new DID a name you will recognise.
4. Pick the source DID whose settings you want to inherit, then submit.

flowchart TD
  A[Source DID] --> B[Copy A DID page]
  C[New extension] --> B
  D[New name] --> B
  B --> E[New DID created]
  E --> F[Same route as source]
  E --> G[Same handle method]
  E --> H[Same recording choice]

One thing copying does not do is invent a new phone number with your Carrier. The DID record is purely the routing side that lives on your dialer. You still have to arrange the actual number with whoever provides your lines, and make sure they forward calls to the system with the same digits you typed into the new extension. The copy handles the dialer; the carrier handles the line. Keep those two jobs separate in your head and the setup stays simple.

Check the result

After the copy, open the new DID and confirm the route points where you expect. If you pointed the source at an in-group, the clone now feeds the same one. The new extension cannot be edited later, so double-check it before you rely on it, the same rule that applies to any DID in the Dialplan. It is also worth a quick test call once the number is live with the carrier, just to confirm the digits the carrier sends really do match the new extension you typed.

If you have not yet built the queue these numbers feed, our walk-through on how to add a VICIdial in-group covers it. To see how the in-group on the other end queues and answers those calls, read our inbound call handling guide. And if you want several numbers all feeding one queue, see how to point multiple DIDs at one in-group.

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