How to modify an existing VICIdial Email Group

Once an Email Group exists, the Modify Email Group screen is where you tune everything about how it behaves — the name, the alert color, who gets mail first, and the priority it carries against your other queues. Almost every field is editable. One is not. This post covers what you can change and the one thing you can't.

The one field you cannot change

The Group ID is set in stone after the first submission. The Modify screen will show it, but you cannot edit it. If you truly need a different ID, you have to delete the whole group and recreate it. That is why getting the ID right at creation time matters.

The fields you can edit

Everything else on the Modify screen is fair game:

• Group Name — the full account name, 2 to 30 characters.
• Group Color — 2 to 7 characters; if it is a hex value it needs a leading # or the agent screen breaks.
• Active — Y or N; an inactive group takes no mail.
• Web Form / Web Form Two / Three — custom addresses launched by buttons on the agent screen.
• Next Agent Email and Queue Priority — who gets the next message and how this group ranks against your other queues.

Where each edit shows up

It helps to know which surface each field touches before you change it.

flowchart TD
  A["Modify Email Group"] --> B["Group ID (locked)"]
  A --> C["Group Name"]
  A --> D["Group Color"]
  A --> E["Active flag"]
  A --> F["Web Form buttons"]
  A --> G["Queue Priority"]
  D --> H["Agent screen alert"]
  E --> I["Parser routes mail or skips"]
  F --> H
  G --> J["Order vs other queues"]

The color and Web Form buttons surface directly in the agent app, so test those with a real Agent login after you save. The Active flag and Queue Priority change routing behind the scenes — the parser only feeds an active group, and a higher priority means it is answered before other queues the agent is on.

Routing and priority edits

Two of the most impactful editable fields control how mail is shared out. The Next Agent Email setting decides which available agent gets the next message — options range from random, to the agent who has been waiting longest, to the highest-ranked agent for this group. If you change it, watch the distribution for a shift afterward, because the same agent can suddenly start getting far more or far less mail.

Queue Priority is the other one. It sets the order in which this group's email is answered against the other queues an agent is logged into. Nudge it even one digit above a campaign or another email group and this group will always take precedence. Edit it carefully — a high priority on a busy mailbox can starve your other inbound streams.

Save and verify

After any edit, send a test message to the mailbox and watch it land. A correct setup pulls the Lead onto the agent screen, locks the Agent off other work, and waits for them to reply and Disposition it. If the color looks wrong, check for the missing # on a hex value. If mail never arrives, confirm Active is Y and the parser is still running on its one server. The bottom of the Modify screen also shows each agent's rank, grade, and the count of emails taken from this group today — a quick sanity check that the right people are receiving work.

Two edits worth understanding in depth are the color and the active flag. See what the Email Group Color does on the agent screen and what the Active field controls.

Modifying a group is low risk as long as you remember the ID is frozen and the color needs its leading # on hex. For the bigger picture of how these groups fit alongside voice queues, read the VICIdial inbound email and chat guide. Want a box where the email parser and modules are already configured? Our managed plans handle that for you.