How to name recordings by campaign, date, and phone number

A recording you cannot find quickly is almost as bad as one you never made. The Campaign Rec Filename field lets you bake the campaign, the date, and the customer phone number straight into each file name, so a year from now you can locate a call without opening anything. This is a short recipe for a naming scheme that holds up under volume.

The recipe

Set the Campaign Rec Filename field to CAMPAIGN_TINYDATE_CUSTPHONE. CAMPAIGN inserts the campaign ID, TINYDATE inserts a compact date and time, and CUSTPHONE inserts the customer number. The result looks like TESTCAMP_51020103108_3125551212. That single string tells you which Campaign the call belonged to, roughly when it happened, and who was on the other end. This applies when Campaign Recording is set to ONDEMAND or ALLCALLS, the two modes that honor the filename field.

If you prefer a full timestamp over the compact one, swap TINYDATE for FULLDATE and you get a name like 20051020-103108_3125551212 instead. FULLDATE is easier for a human to read; TINYDATE is shorter, which matters because of the length limit covered below. You can also add EPOCH if you want a value that sorts perfectly by time regardless of formatting, though it is less friendly to read at a glance. Whichever date variable you pick, keep it consistent across all your campaigns so files line up the same way everywhere.

Picking the order that matches your search

flowchart TD
  A[How will you search] --> B{Primary key}
  B -->|By campaign| C[Lead with CAMPAIGN]
  B -->|By agent| D[Lead with AGENT]
  B -->|By number| E[Lead with CUSTPHONE]
  C --> F[Add date variable]
  D --> F
  E --> F
  F --> G[Add CUSTPHONE or LEADID]
  G --> H[Confirm under 90 chars]

Order matters because files sort and group by the leading characters. If your supervisors pull recordings by campaign, lead with CAMPAIGN so every file from one campaign clusters together. If they hunt by Agent instead, put AGENT first. If you reconcile against a Lead record in your CRM, lead with LEADID. The point is to match the filename to the question people actually ask when they go looking.

Watch the length limit

The finished filename has to be under 90 characters. CAMPAIGN_TINYDATE_CUSTPHONE is comfortably short, but it is easy to overrun if you start stacking extras like VENDORLEADCODE or a long campaign ID on top. Test with your real campaign name, not a placeholder, because a short test value can hide a real one that pushes you over. When you are close to the edge, drop FULLDATE for TINYDATE and trim any variable that does not earn its place. Remember the field is the one that applies when Campaign Recording is ONDEMAND or ALLCALLS, so confirm the campaign is in one of those modes before you spend time tuning the pattern.

One more thing to know: customer phone numbers can be sensitive, so storing them in plain filenames may run into a GDPR or retention policy in some regions. If that is a concern, lead with CAMPAIGN and LEADID and skip CUSTPHONE, since the lead record already ties back to the number internally.

For the complete list of variables you can plug into the field, including the POST processing set, see every Campaign Rec Filename variable. The bigger picture of how recording is configured lives in our call recording guide.

A clean naming scheme saves real time on every audit and dispute. If you want a dialer where this is sane by default, check our pricing and we will get you set up.