VICIdial Timeclock AUTOLOGOUT explained

AUTOLOGOUT is the label VICIdial puts on a Timeclock record when the system clocked the user out for them, rather than the user doing it. The Timeclock is the feature that tracks when each user is on and off the clock, and this marker tells you, at a glance, that a particular shift ended automatically instead of by hand.

When a record gets the AUTOLOGOUT mark

A record is marked AUTOLOGOUT when a force logout by the system happens at Timeclock End of Day. End of Day is a System Setting that names a single time each day when VICIdial sweeps through everyone still on the clock and logs them out, because no Timeclock record may run longer than 24 hours. Any user caught in that sweep gets a logout time stamped automatically, and that record carries the AUTOLOGOUT label. The full mechanics of the sweep are in the Timeclock End of Day setting.

The star marker

Alongside the AUTOLOGOUT label, the record shows a star next to its ID. That star is a general flag for any record that is not pristine: it appears both on a record that was edited by a manager and on one the system force-logged-out. So when you see a star, the record was touched somehow, and the AUTOLOGOUT label tells you which kind of touch it was.

flowchart TD
  A[Shift ends] --> B{How did it end?}
  B -- User clocked out --> C[Clean record, no star]
  B -- Manager edited it --> D[Star on record ID]
  B -- System forced logout --> E[Star on record ID]
  E --> F[Marked AUTOLOGOUT]
  D --> G[No AUTOLOGOUT label]

The diagram sorts the three ways a record can look. A shift the user closed themselves is clean, with no star. A shift a manager edited gets a star but no AUTOLOGOUT. A shift the system closed at End of Day gets both the star and the AUTOLOGOUT label. The star answers was this record changed; the AUTOLOGOUT label answers was it the system that changed it.

Why AUTOLOGOUT shows up at all

A steady trickle of AUTOLOGOUT records usually means agents are forgetting to clock out at the end of their shifts. One or two is normal; a page full of them is a habit worth fixing, because each one is a shift whose real end time you do not actually know. The system stamped the End of Day time, not the moment the agent truly stopped working, so the logged hours may be wrong.

That is why the marker is useful for payroll review. When you scan a date range and spot the AUTOLOGOUT records, you know exactly which shifts need a manager to set the real logout time. The original logged values are preserved untouched in the audit log, described in the Timeclock audit log, so correcting the active record never destroys the record of what the system actually did.

Fixing an AUTOLOGOUT record

Correcting one is the same as any other edit. Open the record from the User Stats page, click its ID, change the logout time to the real value, and add a note saying why. The system will check that the new logout is after the login and within 24 hours before it lets you save. The walkthrough is in how to edit Timeclock records. Because an AUTOLOGOUT record already has both a login and a logout, it is editable right away; an open Timeclock shift, by contrast, cannot be edited until the Agent is clocked out.

For the whole feature in context, including how each shift maps to an Agent session, see the scheduled callbacks and timeclock guide. Reviewing AUTOLOGOUT records is the same admin habit as reviewing callbacks by campaign, user, or list. If you would rather not run any of this yourself, VICIfast provisions a hardened VICIdial server with the Timeclock and End of Day handling ready in under 40 seconds. See our pricing for plan details.