Human vs system statuses in VICIdial

People often mix up two ideas in VICIdial: a system status and a human-answered status. They are not opposites. Every call outcome code is a system Status (lead status), the system-wide value VICIdial stores on a Lead. Whether a status is human-answered is just one flag on that status, called human_answered. Getting this distinction right matters because that single flag drives some of your most important numbers.

System statuses are the whole set

A system status is any code defined in the SYSTEM STATUSES sub-section of Admin, with a 1 to 6 character code and a 2 to 30 character description. Some are set by the dialer, like NA for no answer or DROP for a call dropped while the customer waited, and some are agent-selected dispositions like SALE or NI for not interested. The full list covers everything from NEW and QUEUE and INCALL through callbacks and answering machine flags. So system statuses are the entire vocabulary VICIdial uses to describe calls.

How each of those codes behaves on the screen is part of the wider agent screen configuration guide, since the same flags decide both display and reporting.

Human-answered is a flag, not a category

The human_answered field is used when calculating the drop percentage, or abandon rate. Setting human_answered to Y tells VICIdial to count calls with that status as human-answered. So a status is human-answered only when its flag says so, regardless of whether the code came from an agent or the dialer. A related but separate flag, Customer Contact, indicates a person answered and counts toward total human-answered calls. Mixing these up is what causes a Drop rate that looks wrong: if a code that reached a real person is not flagged human_answered, your abandon rate gets inflated.

stateDiagram-v2
  [*] --> SystemStatus
  SystemStatus --> HumanAnswered: human_answered Y
  SystemStatus --> NotHumanAnswered: human_answered N
  HumanAnswered --> CountedAsAnswered
  NotHumanAnswered --> ExcludedFromAnswered
  CountedAsAnswered --> DropRateCalc
  ExcludedFromAnswered --> DropRateCalc

The diagram shows that every status starts the same and then splits purely on the human_answered flag. Both paths still feed the drop rate calculation, which is exactly why the flag must be correct on every code you use.

Related flags you should not confuse

Several other flags sit near human_answered and get blamed for problems they do not cause. Sale decides whether a status is counted in total sales, and it is independent of human_answered, so a sale can be answered without the two flags being the same setting. DNC marks a do-not-call outcome and feeds DNC totals; it says nothing about whether a person picked up. Customer Contact specifically means the call was answered by a person and is included in total human-answered calls, which is closely tied to human_answered but exists as its own flag. Then there are codes that describe machines, like the Answering Machine flag for agent-set answering machine calls. None of these alone tells you the call reached a human for drop-rate purposes. Only human_answered set to Y does that, which is why it deserves its own attention whenever you create or edit a status.

When the difference bites

The difference matters most when you add a custom Disposition for a live person, such as a transfer or a specific objection. If you forget to set human_answered to Y, those genuine contacts vanish from your human-answered totals and your abandon rate climbs for no real reason. Our guide to modifying a VICIdial script is a good companion here, because pairing the right talk track with the right human-answered flag keeps your Agent session data clean.

Remember the simple rule: all human-answered statuses are system statuses, but only the ones flagged human_answered count toward answered calls. Keep that straight and your reports stay trustworthy. If you would rather start from a configuration where these flags are already set correctly, see VICIfast pricing for hosted VICIdial with sane defaults.