How to add a new VICIdial user group

A VICIdial user group is the admin entity that bundles agents together so they share one set of rules. Instead of editing every agent one by one, you set login permissions, shift enforcement, and screen options once at the group level, and every member inherits them. Adding a group is the first thing you do before you start creating agents, because every agent record has to belong to a group.

Where to find the Add screen

From the admin left sidebar, open the User Groups section. You land on a list of every group in the system showing its group ID, name, and a link into each one. At the top of that list is an ADD USER GROUP link. Click it and you get a small form with two required fields.

The two fields you cannot skip

The submission is rejected unless both of these are filled in correctly:

• User Group (the ID) — a short name between 2 and 20 characters. No spaces and no punctuation. This is the key the rest of the system references, so keep it terse and predictable, like sales_uk or qa_team.
• Description — a human-readable label up to 40 characters. This is what managers actually read in reports, so make it clear.

Two more rules to remember: you cannot reuse a group ID that already exists, and the ID is fixed once saved. Pick it carefully now so you are not migrating agents later.

The flow from click to saved group

flowchart TD
  A[User Groups list] --> B[Click ADD USER GROUP]
  B --> C[Enter group ID]
  C --> D[Enter description]
  D --> E{ID 2 to 20 chars no spaces}
  E -->|valid| F[Submit accepted]
  E -->|invalid| G[Rejected fix and retry]
  F --> H[Group ready for agents]

Set defaults before you add agents

Once the group exists it opens straight into the modify screen, where the real configuration lives. This is where you decide which Campaign list members may log into, whether shift enforcement is on, and which other groups appear in the agent sidebar. Setting these now means every agent you create afterward inherits sane defaults, so you avoid going back to clean up each record by hand later.

A common starting point is to leave Allowed Campaigns as ALL-CAMPAIGNS for a brand-new team and tighten it later, but if you run separate clients on one box you should scope it from day one. The same thinking applies to who a team can see and transfer to: a tight group keeps an Agent focused on their own queue rather than the whole floor. If your agents handle live transfers into a shared Ingroup, make sure the relevant viewable groups are included so the transfer dropdown actually shows the right colleagues.

Naming groups you will not regret

Because the group ID is locked once saved and is referenced all over the system, spend a moment on a naming scheme before you start. A few habits that pay off on a busy box:

• Encode the client or team in the ID, like acme_sales or qa_team, so the group is self-explanatory in reports.
• Stick to lowercase letters, numbers, and underscores. No spaces, no punctuation, and stay inside the 2-to-20 character limit.
• Keep the description plain language, since that is the label managers actually scan when they filter reports by group.

If you are setting up several teams at once, create all the groups first, get their defaults right, and only then start adding agents. Building groups in a batch keeps your scoping consistent and means you are not inventing a naming rule halfway through.

What comes next

With the group created you are ready to populate it. The full picture of how groups fit alongside users, permissions, and multi-team layouts lives in the VICIdial users and groups guide. When you are ready to add the people, follow how to add a VICIdial user and assign each one to the group you just built.

If you would rather skip the server build entirely and have a hardened dialer handed to you in under 40 seconds, see our pricing page for managed VICIdial plans.