How to set up a manual-dial VICIdial campaign

Sometimes you do not want the dialer making decisions — you want an agent to look at each lead, decide, and dial it themselves. That is a manual dialing campaign, and it is the right tool for high-value leads, compliance-sensitive lists, and teams too small for predictive pacing. Setting one up is quick. Here is the whole thing.

Set the dial method to MANUAL

On the Campaign Detail screen, change the dial method to MANUAL. This locks the auto dial level at 0, which is the whole point: no automatic calls go out. Agents click to dial each number from the lead list, and they stay in control of every call. The predictive-only fields — drop percentage limit, adapt intensity modifier, dial level difference target — simply do not apply in this mode, so you can leave them at their defaults and ignore them. The same goes for the concurrent transfers setting and the available-only tally; none of that machinery runs when nothing is being auto-dialed.

Handle the manual dial prefix

There is a Manual Dial Prefix field separate from the normal Dial Prefix. It is optional. Leave it empty and your manual calls use the campaign's regular prefix. Fill it in only when you want manual calls — the MANUAL DIAL feature, Dial Next Number, manual alt-number dialing, scheduled user callbacks — to route out through a different path than your auto calls, for example through a different carrier or a different caller-ID route. It is independent of the three-way prefix, so transfers keep using their own path regardless of what you set here.

Decide on the caller ID

Manual mode opens a nice extra option for caller ID. With Custom Caller ID, MANUAL campaigns can use a USER_CUSTOM selection — a number stored in an agent's User Custom field — as the outbound caller ID on the calls that agent places. That is handy when different agents need to show different local numbers. Otherwise the Campaign Caller ID applies as usual.

Load leads and start dialing

Point a list at the campaign so agents have something to call. You can optionally turn on Manual Dial Hopper Check, which deletes any matching number sitting in the hopper before a manual call goes out, so the same lead does not get hit twice. Then agents log in, click to dial through the list, and set a disposition on each call as they go.

If you want inbound calls handled between manual dials, that is a different mode — INBOUND_MAN — not pure MANUAL, so do not confuse the two when you are picking a method. Pure MANUAL is purely outbound, agent-paced, and nothing rings unless an agent clicks it. And if you are still deciding whether manual is the right fit at all, the trade-offs are spelled out in when to use manual dialing, with the bigger picture in our dialing strategies guide.

Even a manual desk needs a server with clean audio and enough channels for your team — see what each plan includes on the pricing page.