How to modify an existing VICIdial filter

Once a Lead filter exists, most edits are easy — except one. You can reshape almost everything about a Filter after the fact, but the Filter ID is set in stone. Knowing that line up front saves you from a frustrating dead end, because there is no rename button hiding anywhere on the screen.

Open the filter from the list

Go to the Filters section from the admin menu. The list shows every filter by its ID and name, each with a link to its modification page. Click the filter you want and you land on the Modify Filter screen, where the saved values are filled in and ready to edit. Everything you change here takes effect the next time the lead pull runs, so it pays to know which fields are safe to touch.

What you can change

• Filter Name: rewrite the descriptive label any time, up to 30 characters.
• Filter Comments: update the notes, up to 255 characters.
• Admin User Group: widen it back to --ALL-- or narrow it to one group to control which admins can view the filter.
• Filter SQL: rewrite the rule itself — this is the edit you will make most often.

What you cannot change

Why so strict? The ID is how campaigns and users reference the filter internally. If it could change, every reference to it could silently break. Locking the ID keeps those links solid, at the cost of a delete-and-recreate when you really need a different code.

Edit the SQL safely, then re-test

flowchart TD
  A[Open filter from the list] --> B[Edit name comments or SQL]
  B --> C[Submit the change]
  C --> D[Run TEST ON CAMPAIGN again]
  D -->|Leads remain| E[Change is safe]
  D -->|Zero leads| F[Revert or loosen the SQL]

When you touch the SQL, treat it like changing a live setting, because it is. The next time the Hopper loads on any Campaign using this filter, your new rule takes effect immediately. So after every SQL edit, scroll to the TEST ON CAMPAIGN form and run it against the campaign that uses the filter. The count tells you whether leads still survive the new rule before your agents feel it.

A small typo can swing the result hard — flipping a value, or accidentally excluding every Called status you meant to keep, can drop the pool to nothing. Re-testing catches that in seconds instead of in a confusing quiet shift. Make the change, test it, and only then walk away.

For where filters sit alongside scorecards, reviews, and the rest of your call-quality setup, the quality-control guide ties it together, and the QC setup walkthrough covers the surrounding configuration.

VICIfast hands you a managed VICIdial box where editing filters and re-testing is all in the admin, live in under 40 seconds. See our plans and pricing.