How to modify an existing VICIdial Chat Group

After a Chat Group exists, the Modify Chat Group screen is where you tune how it behaves. Almost every field can be changed here at any time, with one exception: the Group ID is locked the moment you first submit. This post walks the fields you will actually touch and what each one changes for your agents.

The fields you can edit

Open the group from the Chat Groups list to reach the Modify screen. The Group ID sits at the top, greyed out, because it can no longer be edited after the first submit. Everything below it is fair game.

• Group Name - the full name of the chat account, 2 to 30 characters. Change this any time without breaking routing.
• Group Color - the color the agent client app shows when a chat lands on this group, 2 to 7 characters. If you use a hex value, it must start with a # or the agent screen will not render correctly.
• Active - whether the group is live. Default is Y. Set it to N to stop the group taking new chats without deleting it.
• Default List ID - the list a new chat customer is dropped into if their record is not already in the system.
• Queue Priority - the order chats from this group are answered relative to the calls and chats from other groups the agent is logged into.
• Status Group Override - a Status Group to use instead of the campaign statuses for chats handled through this group.

How a modified chat flows

Your edits shape the path a chat takes from the website to the agent screen and back to a disposition.

sequenceDiagram
  participant V as Visitor
  participant D as VICIdial
  participant A as Agent
  V->>D: Starts website chat
  D->>D: Lookup lead or use Default List ID
  D->>D: Apply Queue Priority order
  D->>A: Lock agent and show lead
  A->>V: Reply to chat
  A->>D: Disposition lead
  D->>A: Agent available again

The optional URLs and screens

Further down are pieces you can leave blank until you need them. The Web Form, Web Form Two, and Web Form Three fields hold custom addresses that launch when the matching button is clicked on the agent screen. The Start Chat URL fires each time an agent receives a chat and the Dispo Chat URL fires each time one is statused, both invisible to the agent, both usable for pushing data into your own systems. You can also set the Customer Chat Screen Colors and an optional post-chat survey link the visitor sees once the session ends.

Most of the everyday tuning happens with three fields: Queue priority for who gets the chat first, the Default List ID for unknown visitors, and the Status Group Override for which dispositions an Agent sees. Each of those reshapes how a Lead moves and which Status (lead status) gets recorded. For the specifics on Group ID, Name, and Color, read what the Chat Group ID, Name, and Color do, and for the full picture of chat alongside email and voice see the VICIdial inbound email and chat guide. If running all this yourself is more than you want to manage, our managed VICIdial plans come ready to configure.