How to rank agents so your best ones get more emails

If you want your sharpest people answering more of the inbound email, VICIdial gives you two levers on an email group: rank and grade. Both are set per agent, per group, and both decide who receives the next email — but they pull in different ways, and one of them only works if you also pick the matching routing method. Here is how to set it up so your best agents take the lion's share.

Where the controls live

Open the email group's modify screen and scroll to the bottom. There you will see a section listing every agent on the group with their rank, their grade, and the number of emails they have taken from the group today. This is your one place to assign rank and grade and to sanity-check how email is actually landing.

Just like an inbound call Ingroup, an email group routes work to whichever Agent is available, so these numbers only ever apply to people who are logged in and free.

Option one: strict order with rank

Rank gives you a hard ladder. Set the email group's routing to inbound_group_rank, then give your best agents the highest numbers. Available agents are ordered by rank, highest to lowest, and the top one gets every email until they are busy. To do this:

1. Set the group's next-agent method to inbound_group_rank.
2. Give your strongest agents the highest rank values.
3. Give backup agents lower ranks so they only catch overflow.

This is the most predictable setup and the same model as Agent rank on the call side. It pairs well with a tuned Queue priority, which decides whether this email group jumps ahead of an agent's other work in the first place.

Option two: weighted odds with grade

If a strict ladder feels too rigid — for instance you want juniors to keep getting reps — use grade instead. Set the group's routing to ingroup_grade_random and give your best agents higher grades. A higher grade gives a higher probability of getting the email, not a lock on it, so lower-graded agents still pick up real traffic. To do this:

1. Set the group's next-agent method to ingroup_grade_random.
2. Grade your top agents higher and your newer agents lower.
3. Leave grades roughly even if you want a near-balanced spread.

Decide which lever to use

The choice comes down to whether you want a guaranteed order or weighted odds. The flow below maps the decision to the routing method and the field you actually edit.

flowchart TD
  A["Want best agents to take more email"] --> B["Strict order or weighted odds?"]
  B --> C["Strict order"]
  B --> D["Weighted odds"]
  C --> E["Method inbound_group_rank"]
  D --> F["Method ingroup_grade_random"]
  E --> G["Set per-agent rank high"]
  F --> H["Set per-agent grade high"]
  G --> I["Best agents clear the queue"]
  H --> I

Confirm it is working

The email count tally is your proof. With rank, the top agents' counts should clearly lead. With grade, the spread should lean toward your higher grades without zeroing out anyone. If the numbers look flat, the most common cause is a mismatch between the field you edited and the routing method the group is using. Watching counts also keeps your team's Disposition habits honest, since every handled email closes out a Lead the same way a call does.

For the meaning of each number before you tune it, read what rank, grade, and email count mean. To compare even-load methods against priority ones, see next-agent email routing, and the full setup lives in the inbound email and chat guide.

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