How to Record an Answering-Machine Message with 8168

Before VICIdial can leave a voicemail drop (Voicemail drop) on a detected machine, you need a recording to play. The fastest way to make one is to dial a special extension from a phone that is already registered to your system. No audio editor, no file uploads. Here is how extension 8168 works.

What you need first

You need a VICIdial-attached phone, meaning a softphone or deskphone that is registered to the system. The recording extension is part of the dialplan (Dialplan), so it answers from any registered endpoint. Have your script ready before you dial, because you record live.

The recording steps

1. Dial 8168 on your registered phone.
2. When prompted for a PIN, enter 4321.
3. Follow the spoken instructions to record your message.
4. Listen for the prompt ID the system reads back, then write it down. Prompt IDs start at 85100001, so your first one might be something like 85100008.

That prompt ID is the handle for your recording. You drop it straight into the Answering Machine Message field on the campaign, or pick it later from the audio chooser link.

Record it twice

A real answering machine often starts recording a beat after it answers, so the first second or two of your message can get clipped. The fix is simple: say your whole message twice in a row in the same recording, if it is not too long. If the start gets cut, the listener still hears the full message the second time through. This habit alone removes a lot of confused callbacks.

Audio format matters

Recording over the phone with 8168 produces audio in the right shape automatically. If you instead upload a file you made elsewhere, keep it in GSM 8k-8bit mono or WAV PCM 8k-16bit mono. The wrong sample rate or stereo audio can play back garbled or not at all. If text to speech (TTS (text to speech)) is enabled on your system, you can skip recording entirely and use a TTS prompt as the message.

From dial to playback

flowchart LR
  A[Dial 8168] --> B[Enter PIN 4321]
  B --> C[Record message twice]
  C --> D[Note prompt ID 8510xxxx]
  D --> E[Paste ID into Answering Machine Message field]
  E --> F[Plays to detected machine]

Once the prompt ID is in the campaign field and AMD send to vm exten is set to Y, answering machine detection (AMD (answering machine detection)) handles the rest: a detected machine gets your recording, and a live human (Live answer) goes to an agent (Agent) as normal. The recording you just made is the piece that makes the whole voicemail path work.

Writing a message worth leaving

Keep the message short and front-load the important part. Lead with who is calling and why, then your call-back number spoken slowly and repeated. Because you are recording the whole thing twice, the listener gets two chances to catch the number even if the machine clipped your opening. Pause a beat at the very start before you speak; that small gap absorbs the machine's slow start better than diving straight in.

Record in a quiet room. The phone path through 8168 is only 8k mono, so any background hiss or echo gets magnified, not hidden. If the first take has a stumble, just dial 8168 again and make a fresh one; you are not limited to a single attempt, and a clean recording is worth the extra two minutes.

Reusing and updating prompts

Each prompt ID is reusable across campaigns, so a single well-made message can serve several lists. When you need to update a message, it is cleaner to record a new one and swap the ID in the campaign field than to try to re-record over an old prompt. Keep a short note of which ID maps to which script so you are not guessing later. The audio chooser link next to the field lets you confirm you picked the right one before you save.

For the broader detection picture, read our AMD and CPD complete guide, and put your new prompt to work with how to leave a voicemail drop.

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