What auto dial level means in VICIdial

Auto dial level is one of the most important numbers in a VICIdial Campaign, and one of the most misunderstood. In plain terms it is how many lines the system will dial per active Agent. Get a feel for it and the rest of your dialer tuning makes a lot more sense.

Lines per agent, in one sentence

flowchart TD
  A[Auto Dial Level = lines per agent] --> B{Dial method?}
  B -->|MANUAL| C["Level fixed, agent clicks dial"]
  B -->|RATIO| D["Admin sets level manually"]
  B -->|ADAPT_HARD_LIMIT| E["VICIdial caps at this level"]
  B -->|ADAPT_TAPERED / ADAPT_AVERAGE| F["Predictive algorithm sets level"]
  D --> G[Lines opened = agents x level]
  E --> G
  F --> G
  G --> H[More lines = more drops risk]

The dial level sets how many lines VICIdial uses for each active agent. The system multiplies your active agent count by the dial level to decide how many lines that campaign can have open at once on each server. So with 5 agents and a dial level of 2.0, the campaign reaches for about 10 lines. Drop the level to 1.0 and it reaches for 5; push it to 3.0 and it reaches for 15. Higher dial level means more calls in flight, more answers waiting for agents — and more risk of a dropped call if everyone is already busy when a customer picks up. The active-agent count is counted live, so the real line total rises and falls as people log in, pause, and hang up.

What the values mean

• 0 — auto-dialing is off. Agents click to dial each number. This is the locked value under MANUAL.
• 1.0 — one line per agent. Conservative; close to a progressive feel. This is also the value INBOUND_MAN needs to keep inbound calls flowing.
• Above 1.0 — you are oversubscribing lines, betting that not every call answers at once. This is where predictive efficiency comes from, and where drops creep in if you push too hard.

Who controls it depends on the dial method

Under RATIO, you set the dial level by hand and it stays put. Under any ADAPT method — the predictive dialing family — the dialer owns the value and moves it on its own; you cannot type into the field. If you must force a value mid-shift, the ADAPT OVERRIDE checkbox lets you, but that is for genuine emergencies like a sudden swing in answer rates. The ceiling on how high the dialer can take it is the Maximum Adapt Dial Level, a separate field.

One more thing: the dial level also feeds the Hopper. VICIdial uses it to estimate how many leads to keep loaded for the next minute, so a higher dial level pulls more leads into the queue.

So what should yours be?

There is no single right number — it depends on your agent count, your list quality, and how much dropped-call risk you can tolerate. A team of 3 on a warm list wants something close to 1.0; a team of 20 on a cold list can run much higher. Picking it well is its own topic, covered in how to choose the right auto dial level, and if your drops are already high, lowering your drop rate starts here too. The full picture lives in our dialing strategies guide. When you are ready to run a campaign for real, the pricing page shows the channel headroom on each plan.