How to modify a VICIdial voicemail box

If you've only ever seen the add-voicemail form, the modify screen can be a surprise. The add form has five fields. The modify screen has a dozen. Nothing changed about your box — VICIdial just hides the advanced options on the add form to keep it short, then reveals everything once the record exists.

So the rule is simple: create a box with the basics, save it, then come back to modify for the real tuning. This post walks the full modify screen field by field so you know what each one does before you touch it.

Add screen vs modify screen

The add form only asks for Voicemail ID, Password, Name, Email, and Active. That's enough for a valid record. Everything else — greeting, time zone, retention behaviour, summary display, message counters — only appears after you submit. If you're standing up a brand-new box, start with adding the box first, then circle back here.

What the full screen lets you change

Reach the screen by clicking MODIFY next to any box on the Show Voicemail Entries list. Here's the field set you'll see:

• Voicemail ID and Password — the numbers-only identifier and the dial-in password. Both still required; the ID can't duplicate any phone or box on the system.
• Name and Email — the box label and the optional address messages get sent to.
• Active — turns the box on or off. An inactive box won't take new messages and won't let anyone check existing ones.
• Admin User Group — restricts which admin users can view this record. Default is --ALL--, which lets any admin see it.
• Delete Voicemail After Email — removes the message from the box once it's emailed out. Default is N.
• Show VM on Summary Screen — surfaces this box's name and counts on the admin login summary. Default is N.
• Voicemail Greeting — pick a greeting from the audio store. This needs Allow Voicemail Greeting Chooser enabled in System Settings first.
• Voicemail Zone — the time zone stamped on each message when it's logged. Defaults to the System Settings value.
• Voicemail Options — advanced extra settings. Leave it blank unless you know exactly what you're setting.
• New Messages and Old Messages — read-only counters showing how many messages currently sit on the Asterisk server for this box.

The order things appear in

Thinking of it as a two-stage flow saves confusion. The first stage is the minimum to exist. The second stage is everything that controls behaviour. The greeting field is the clearest example: you can't choose a TTS (text to speech) greeting (text rendered to speech) or an uploaded clip on the add form at all, because the chooser only renders on the modify screen.

flowchart LR
  A["Add form: 5 fields"] --> B["Submit and save"]
  B --> C["Record now exists"]
  C --> D["Modify screen unlocks"]
  D --> E["Greeting and Zone"]
  D --> F["Delete-after-email and Summary"]
  D --> G["Admin Group and Options"]
  D --> H["New / Old counters"]

A few of these fields connect to the rest of your setup. The greeting reads from the same audio store your IVR (interactive voice response) prompts and Call menu clips come from, so a custom greeting is just another uploaded file. The whole greeting and prompt picture is laid out in our audio prompts and voicemail guide if you want the full context.

Once you understand the modify screen, managing voicemail across a fleet of boxes stops being mysterious — every box follows the same two-stage pattern. If you don't have a VICIdial server to practise on yet, we can stand up a dedicated, secured one in under 40 seconds; see pricing and you'll have a real box to modify within the minute.