How to Scrub Inactive Lists for Cellphones in VICIdial

Scrubbing a list for cellphones means checking every number in it against known mobile ranges so you can tell mobiles apart from landlines. In VICIdial this runs through the NANPA batch updater, and it only works if the DNC.COM batch cellphone filter service is configured on your system. This post walks the whole job end to end.

Why bother scrubbing at all

The honest answer is risk. Auto-dialing a cellphone without the right consent is a different legal exposure than calling a landline, and TCPA rules in the United States treat mobiles as the higher-risk category. If your data is old or came from a vendor you do not fully trust, you do not actually know which records are mobiles. A scrub tells you, and once you know, you can apply your Cellphone calling rule with confidence instead of guessing. It is the same instinct behind keeping a clean DNC (do not call) list: do the homework before you dial, not after a complaint.

Step 1 set the list inactive

VICIdial will not let you scrub a list agents are dialing. A Lead list is only eligible when its Active flag is set to N. So your first move is to open the list and switch Active to N. After that it appears in the Inactive Lists picker on the NANPA page. If a list is missing from the picker, this is almost always why.

flowchart TD
  A[Open list and set Active N] --> B[Go to NANPA batch updater]
  B --> C[Select the inactive list]
  C --> D[Choose Field to Update]
  D --> E{Cellphone Landline Invalid or NONE}
  E -- NONE --> F[Result written to Country Code]
  E -- Named field --> G[Result written to that field]
  F --> H[Run scrub and watch progress]
  G --> H
  H --> I[Check View Past Scrubs]

Step 2 pick the Field to Update

The Field to Update setting decides where the scrub result lands on each Lead. Your choices are Cellphone, Landline, or Invalid, which stamp the matching classification onto the record. If you pick NONE, VICIdial falls back to a default field called Country_Code. Most people want a named field so the result is easy to query later, so choose deliberately here rather than leaving it on NONE by accident.

Step 3 run it and watch

With the list and field chosen, start the scrub. It shows up in the Currently running NANPA scrubs log at the top of the page. That log gives you Start Time, Leads Count, Filter Count, a Status Line, Time to Complete, the Field Updated, and the Field Excluded. The Status Line is your live progress indicator, so keep an eye on it for a big list. You can also set Time until Activation first if you would rather the work runs overnight instead of immediately.

Step 4 review past scrubs

When a scrub finishes, click View Past Scrubs at the bottom of the page. The history shows the same columns as the live log plus the total leads in each category, so you can confirm how many records came back Cellphone, Landline, or Invalid. That count is your evidence the scrub actually ran and what it found.

After a scrub, you usually want to dial the cleaned records again. Reactivate the list and run a List reset so previously called statuses are cleared and the freshly classified leads get worked. Our walkthrough of bulk updating lead status pairs well here when you want to act on the scrub results in bulk. For the full set of list-level admin tools this lives among, see our overview of VICIdial's admin bulk tools.

Standing up VICIdial and wiring in a paid scrub service is real work. If you would rather skip the install entirely and start with a managed dialer that is live in under 40 seconds, see VICIfast pricing.