Rebuilding your call scripts in VICIdial

Your call center's scripts are the single most agent-facing part of the dialer. If an agent opens VICIdial on day one and the script panel shows a blank box or a broken variable, confidence in the new system drops immediately. Rebuilding scripts correctly in VICIdial is a two-to-three hour task per script, not a last-minute item.

How VICIdial agent scripts work

The Agent script in VICIdial is an HTML-capable text block that renders in a panel on the agent screen alongside the caller information. Scripts are created in the admin area under "Scripts" and then attached to a Campaign or Ingroup. When a call connects, VICIdial renders the script and substitutes any variable tokens with live values from the lead record.

This is a meaningful improvement over platforms that show the script as a static PDF or a separate browser tab. The script lives inside the agent screen so the agent never has to switch windows.

Variable substitution from lead fields

VICIdial uses a double-brace token syntax to pull values from the Lead record into the script at render time. Common tokens include --A-- (first name), --B-- (last name), --C-- (address1), and tokens for the standard lead fields. If you use Custom field columns in your lead list, those map to --custom_field_name-- tokens.

Before you start rebuilding, export one sample lead from your Lead list and identify which fields your existing script references by name. Map each one to the corresponding VICIdial token. Document this mapping - it will save time when a script breaks and you need to figure out which token is wrong.

Building the script in the admin panel

1. Go to Admin > Scripts > Add New Script.
2. Give it a short internal name (no spaces) and paste in your script content.
3. Replace your old platform's variable syntax with VICIdial tokens (e.g., {first_name} becomes --A--).
4. Use basic HTML tags for formatting - bold for emphasis, line breaks for paragraph spacing. Avoid JavaScript; the script panel does not execute it.
5. Save the script, then go to the campaign or ingroup record and set the Script field to your new script name.

flowchart TD
    A[Old platform script text] --> B[Identify variable tokens]
    B --> C[Map to VICIdial token names]
    C --> D[Paste into Admin Script editor]
    D --> E[Attach to Campaign or Ingroup]
    E --> F[Log in as test agent]
    F --> G[Dial a test lead]
    G --> H{Variables render correctly?}
    H -- Yes --> I[Script ready for production]
    H -- No --> J[Fix token mapping]
    J --> G

Testing on a live agent screen

The only reliable test is to log in as an agent, dial a real (test) lead, and confirm the script renders with correct values in the panel. Check every variable token - a missing field in the lead record renders as an empty string, not an error, so it is easy to miss unless you look specifically for blank substitutions.

If you have multiple Campaign types with different scripts, run a test call per campaign before declaring the rebuild complete. Scripts are one of the easiest things to get wrong silently.

Script setup is one step in the broader migration process covered in our complete VICIdial migration guide. For agent training context see retraining agents for VICIdial. VICIfast managed plans include a pre-configured VICIdial instance ready for script setup on day one - see pricing for options.