How to enable stereo call recording on a campaign

Enabling stereo recording on a campaign comes down to two fields that have to agree with each other. You pick a channel mode that decides which voices get captured, and you set a separate filename for the stereo files. Miss the filename and the feature silently does nothing, which is the part that catches most operators the first time.

Step one: set the channel mode

Open the campaign you want to record and find the Stereo Call Recordings setting. By default it is DISABLED. Change it to one of the active modes: CUSTOMER_ONLY records only the customer and leaves the agent side silent, CUSTOMER_MUTE records only the agent and leaves the customer side silent, and BOTH_CHANNELS captures everything with the agent on the left and the customer on the right. Most teams that want full Stereo recording for review pick BOTH_CHANNELS. The full breakdown of each mode lives in the channel modes guide.

Step two: set a stereo filename

The Stereo Rec Filename field is required. The feature will not write anything for calls on this campaign until you populate it, and it cannot be set to the same value as your normal Campaign Rec Filename. The default is S_FULLDATE_CUSTPHONE, which gives you the date, the customer phone number, and an S prefix so the stereo files are easy to spot next to your standard ones. The same dynamic variables you use for regular filenames work here too, so you can build something like S_CAMPAIGN_CUSTPHONE if you prefer to sort by campaign.

Keep the stereo name distinct on purpose. If it matched your standard Call recording filename, the two files would fight over the same name and you would lose one of them. The system blocks that collision by refusing to accept an identical value, which is a nice guardrail but also the reason the field cannot just be left blank.

Step three: decide agent control

flowchart TD
  A[Open campaign] --> B[Set Stereo Call Recordings mode]
  B --> C[Enter unique Stereo Rec Filename]
  C --> D{Filename same as standard}
  D -->|Yes| E[Rejected fix the name]
  D -->|No| F[Set Stereo Recording Agent Control]
  F --> G[Place a test call]
  G --> H[Confirm stereo file written]

Once stereo is on, the Stereo Recording Agent Control setting decides how much say the Agent has over it. NEVER disables stereo recording on the client entirely. ONDEMAND lets the agent start and stop it. ALLCALLS starts it automatically whenever a call reaches the agent. ALLFORCE, which is the default, starts it on every call and gives the agent no button to stop it. For most quality programs you want ALLFORCE so coverage is consistent and not left to the agent's memory.

Confirm it works

Place one test call on the campaign, hang up, and look for the stereo file next to the standard one. If you only see the mono file, the stereo filename is almost certainly blank or duplicated, so go back and fix it. Before you roll this out widely, size your disk against your expected volume because the extra two-channel files add up, and set a Recording retention policy that keeps storage in check. The broader recording setup, including how all of this ties together, is covered in the call recording overview.

If you would rather not manage the dialplan plumbing behind any of this, a hosted VICIfast instance ships with stereo recording ready to switch on. See our pricing for what that runs.