How to record agents who don't use the VICIdial agent screen

Some teams have agents who dial directly from a desk phone or a third-party Softphone without ever opening the VICIdial agent screen. Standard campaign recording settings don't fire for those calls. The fix is agi-NVA_recording.agi — a purpose-built AGI (Asterisk Gateway Interface) that adds Call recording and database logging to any extension or Call Menu.

Before you start

• Confirm the agi-NVA_recording.agi file is present in your AGI directory (usually /usr/share/asterisk/agi-bin/).
• Decide whether you want call_log entries, user_call_log entries, or both — and whether the phone number dialed needs to match a lead in vicidial_list.
• Know your logging preference: NONE, STDERR, FILE, or BOTH.

Basic recording dialplan entry

Add these lines to your extensions.conf in the appropriate context, before the Goto or Dial that routes the call:

exten => _X.,1,AGI(agi-NVA_recording.agi,BOTH------Y---N---Y---N)

exten => _X.,n,Goto(default,${EXTEN},1)

This logs to both file and STDERR, enables user_call_log, disables call_log (correct for outbound), and turns on audio recording.

Inbound call to agent example

For inbound calls arriving at extension 5678, where you also need a call_log entry:

exten => 5678,1,AGI(agi-NVA_recording.agi,BOTH------Y---Y---Y---N)

Parameter 4 (call_log) is now Y because this is an inbound call. For Call Menu use, drop the same agi-NVA_recording.agi line as the Call Menu's AGI field, with the parameter string as the argument.

Adding lead lookup and NVA list insertion

flowchart TD
  A[Agent dials number] --> B[NVA_recording AGI]
  B --> C{Search vicidial_list?}
  C -->|N| D[Record and continue]
  C -->|Y - found| E[Run NVA Call URL]
  E --> F[Record and continue]
  C -->|Y - not found| G{Error on miss?}
  G -->|Y| H[Hangup call]
  G -->|N| I{Insert into NVA list?}
  I -->|Y| J[Create lead record]
  I -->|N| K[Record and continue]

When you enable phone-number search (parameter 9 = Y), the script looks up the dialed number in vicidial_list assuming 10-digit numbers. If a match is found, you can fire an NVA Call URL (parameter 12). If no match is found, you can auto-insert a new lead into a designated list (parameter 13) with overrides for list ID, phone code, and status.

Full example with lookup, NVA Call URL, and error on miss:

agi-NVA_recording.agi,BOTH------Y---N---Y---N---N---N---Y---ALLLISTS---Y---Y

**Heads up:** Double-logging (parameter 6) is only for inbound Call Menu forwarded calls. If you enable it on a regular outbound extension you will get duplicate rows in call_log.

Using a dial prefix to route through the AGI

If agents dial with a prefix (for example 94 before a 1NXXNXXXXXX number), you can use the System Settings Custom Dialplan to redirect those calls into the defaultlog context first, then let NVA_recording sit at the top of that context:

exten => _941NXXNXXXXXX,1,Goto(defaultlog,9${EXTEN:2},1)

For a full explanation of how VICIdial handles recording in general, read VICIdial call recording explained. If you need to understand when campaign recording kicks in versus AGI-driven recording, see VICIdial campaign recording modes.

VICIfast configures and maintains your dialplan for you. See VICIfast pricing to get started.