What the Admin User Group field on a record does

Scattered across VICIdial's admin records — voicemail boxes, inbound DID (direct inward dialing) entries, call menus, and more — you will find a small field labeled Admin User Group. It is easy to skip past, but on a shared box it is one of the most useful fields there is. It controls who, on the admin side, is even allowed to see that record. The same field shows up on so many record types precisely because the problem it solves is everywhere: on a multi-team system, not every manager should see every piece of configuration.

Take a voicemail box as the concrete example. When you modify one, the Admin User Group field sits among the other settings, and its description is plain: it is the administrative user group for that record, and it allows admin viewing of the record to be restricted by user group. The default is the --ALL-- value, which lets any admin user view it. Every record type that carries this field behaves the same way, so once you understand it on one screen you understand it on all of them.

What the field actually does

The Admin User Group field ties a single record to one administrative User group. Once set, only admin users whose own group can view that group are allowed to open or edit the record. The default is the --ALL-- value, which means any admin user can view the record. Narrow it to a specific group and the record effectively disappears for admins outside that group.

This is a viewing restriction layered on top of normal permissions, not a replacement for them. A manager still needs the underlying permission to edit a record type at all; the Admin User Group field just decides whether this particular record is in their world.

How visibility is decided

flowchart TD
  A[Admin opens a record] --> B[Read record Admin User Group]
  B --> C{Value is ALL}
  C -->|Yes| D[Any admin may view]
  C -->|No| E{Admin group can view that group}
  E -->|Yes| F[Admin may view and edit]
  E -->|No| G[Record hidden from admin]

Why it matters on a shared dialer

If you run two programs on one box, you can stamp each client's voicemail boxes, DID routes, and similar records with that client's admin group. A manager for Client A then sees only Client A's records in the admin lists. It keeps the admin screens uncluttered and, more importantly, stops one client's manager from accidentally editing another's setup — including sensitive routing like a Voicemail drop destination. The uncluttered part is not just cosmetic: a manager scanning a list of fifty voicemail boxes for the three that belong to them is a manager who will eventually open the wrong one.

The field also interacts with the Allowed User Groups list on the group itself. An admin can view a record stamped with a particular group only if their own group is allowed to see that group in the first place. So the Admin User Group field on the record and the Allowed User Groups list on the group are two halves of the same lock — the record names the key it requires, and the group decides which keys an admin carries.

Note: leaving the field at --ALL-- is the right call for records everyone should manage, like a shared after-hours Call menu. Only tighten it where separation actually buys you something, or you will create records that one team can no longer find.

The Admin User Group field works hand in hand with the per-user permission flags. To see which admins can touch user records in the first place, read the modify-users permission. For the full model of how groups carve up a multi-team system, see our users and groups guide.

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