How to add a new VICIdial user

Every person who logs in to your dialer needs their own account, whether they are an Agent taking calls or a manager running reports. In VICIdial, creating that account starts on the Add A New User screen. This post walks through the four fields you must fill in, the naming rules that trip people up, and what to expect once the account exists.

Open the Add A New User screen

From the admin interface, click the Users link in the left menu to reach the Users List. This is the full listing of every active account with their user ID, name, level and group. At the top of that section you will find the ADD A NEW USER link. Click it to open the add form.

Like most add-new-record forms in VICIdial, this one is intentionally short. It only asks for the bare minimum so you are not scrolling through dozens of options just to create a record. The full set of settings appears after you submit.

Fill in the four required fields

The submission will be rejected unless all four of these are set:

• User Number — the login ID, between 2 and 20 characters. No spaces and no punctuation. We strongly recommend digits only, because numeric IDs are required for the dial-in and dial-by-extension features. User Numbers must be unique and you cannot change them later without deleting and recreating the account.
• Password — at least 2 characters, letters and numbers only. If your system enables the User Password Minimum Length setting, it must be longer. Longer passwords are always the safest choice.
• Full Name — at least 2 characters. This is the human-readable name shown in reports and the real-time view.
• User Group — the User group this account belongs to. The group controls which campaigns the account can touch, whether the Timeclock is required before login, and shift rules.

One naming rule catches almost everyone: never start a User Number with a leading zero. Leading zeroes have been known to cause problems, so begin with a positive integer instead.

The add-a-user workflow

flowchart TD
  A[Open Users List] --> B[Click ADD A NEW USER]
  B --> C[Enter User Number]
  C --> D[Set Password and Full Name]
  D --> E[Pick User Group]
  E --> F[Submit the form]
  F --> G[Full modify screen opens]
  G --> H[Tune agent and admin options]

What happens after you submit

Once the form is accepted, VICIdial reloads into the full Modify User screen for the new account. Here you can set the User Level (it must be at least 1 to log in as an Agent), choose a default phone login, set the Active flag, and tune the agent interface options that shape how a call session behaves. Account settings that affect a live Agent session only take effect at the next login, so changes made while someone is logged in will not apply until they log out and back in.

If the new person will be answering inbound calls, remember they need User Level 2 or higher and the right Ingroup assignments before they can take queue traffic. For a closer-style account, set User Level appropriately and confirm group permissions for the Campaign they will work.

Adding users one at a time is simple once you know the four required fields. For the bigger picture on how accounts, groups and permissions fit together, see our guide to VICIdial users and groups. If you would rather clone an existing account than build one from scratch, read how to copy a VICIdial user. Every VICIfast plan ships a fully managed dialer with unlimited user accounts, so you can scale your team without touching the server — see our pricing for details.