How to live-monitor agents from your mobile phone

VICIdial lets you listen to any active agent through your personal cellphone, with no softphone or desktop software needed. You create a dedicated Phones entry that points at your mobile number, set the right user permissions, turn on the API (application programming interface), and then use the Real-Time Report to place a blind-monitor call whenever you need to check in on the floor. This guide walks the full setup from the Phones form through to clicking your first LISTEN link.

Step 1 — Create the monitor Phones entry

Go to Admin → PHONES → ADD A NEW PHONE. This creates a special Extension record that the system will call when you trigger monitoring. Set the Phone Type to External and the Client Protocol to EXTERNAL. Give the extension a short, memorable name such as monitor_cell — you will type this exact string into the Real-Time Report later, so keep it short and avoid spaces.

In the Dialplan Number field, enter your mobile number exactly as you would dial it from a phone on your system. If your system requires a leading 9 to reach an outside line, include it: 9 + 1 + area code + number — for example, 917275551234. Leave the Phone IP and Computer IP fields blank; external phones do not register over SIP, so there is no IP address to record. Set Server IP to your server's local address, and set Status to ACTIVE with Active Account set to Y.

You will also need to fill in the Voicemail Box field (8300 is a safe default if you have no specific mailbox), and set the Outbound Caller ID to a number you will recognise on your cellphone so you know to answer when monitoring calls arrive. Set Full Name to something human-readable like manager cell. Set Local GMT to your timezone offset, such as -5 for Eastern Standard — VICIdial does not apply DST adjustment automatically.

Step 2 — Check your user account permissions

Your VICIdial user account must be level 7 or above. Open Admin → User Modification for your account and confirm that Agent API Access is set to 1 and View Reports is set to 1. The Agent API access is what allows the Real-Time Report to place outbound calls on your behalf when you click LISTEN. Without it, clicks do nothing even if the column is visible.

You also need the system-wide API to be active. Check Admin → System Settings and confirm that the API is enabled. If it is off, the Real-Time Report will not be able to make the outbound monitoring call regardless of your user-level settings.

Step 3 — Configure the Real-Time Report and start monitoring

Open the Real-Time Report and click the Choose Report Display Options link at the top. Select the Campaign or campaigns you want to view in the report. In the Monitor drop-down, select MONITOR. In the Phone field, type the extension name you used for your Phones entry — monitor_cell in this example. Submit the options form to save the settings.

A LISTEN column now appears next to the active agent rows. Click the LISTEN link next to any agent and VICIdial dials the number stored in your Phones entry. When you answer your cellphone, you are silently bridged into that agent's audio — neither the agent nor the customer can hear you. When you are done, hang up and click LISTEN on a different agent to start a fresh session. There is no limit on how many sessions you open in sequence.

sequenceDiagram
  participant M as Manager
  participant RTR as Real-Time Report
  participant SYS as VICIdial System
  participant CELL as Manager Cellphone
  participant AG as Agent Call
  M->>RTR: Click LISTEN next to agent
  RTR->>SYS: API request with monitor_cell extension
  SYS->>CELL: Dial manager cellphone number
  CELL-->>M: Phone rings
  M->>CELL: Answer
  SYS->>AG: Bridge manager audio into agent channel
  M->>M: Listens silently to agent
  M->>CELL: Hang up when done
  SYS->>AG: Removes monitor bridge

What to do next

The Phones entry fields are covered step by step in how to add a cellphone Phones entry for monitoring, and the full picture of how remote and external phones work together is in VICIdial remote agents explained. If you want a pre-configured dialer without building the infrastructure yourself, our managed VICIdial plans give you a running system in under 40 seconds.