What the Callback Queue Statuses (LIVE, SENT, EXPIRED, ORPHAN) Mean

The Preserve-Place-In-Line feature lets a caller hang up while waiting in an Ingroup queue and get a call back when their spot finally reaches the front. Each waiting caller becomes a record in the inbound Callback queue, and that record moves through a small set of statuses. If you run inbound queues, knowing what each status means saves you a lot of guessing when something looks stuck.

This post is part of our phone-based functions guide. For the setup side of the feature, see how Preserve-Place-In-Line works.

The five statuses

• LIVE - an active queued entry still holding its place in line, waiting for that spot to come up. These are the records that count as people you still owe a callback.
• SENDING - the entry has reached the front and has been handed to a specific available agent to place the outbound call. This is a brief, in-flight state.
• SENT - the callback was actually placed back to the customer. The record is done and will be archived later.
• EXPIRED - the entry aged past the Callback Queue Expire Hours setting before its turn came up, so a back-end process retired it.
• ORPHAN - the entry was queued to an agent but an error broke the handoff (for example the agent closed their browser), so it never moved off SENDING. The dial may or may not have fired, so it is flagged for you to check.

How an entry moves through the queue

stateDiagram-v2
  [*] --> LIVE
  LIVE --> SENDING: place in line reached
  LIVE --> EXPIRED: past expire hours
  SENDING --> SENT: callback placed
  SENDING --> ORPHAN: agent error
  SENT --> [*]
  EXPIRED --> [*]
  ORPHAN --> [*]

Where the statuses come from

A back-end monitoring process drives most of the transitions. It watches LIVE records, triggers the outbound call once a place in line is reached, and pushes anything older than the Callback Queue Expire Hours setting to EXPIRED. The same process enforces the Callbacks Queue Call Time window and skips any number that lands on the Internal DNC or Campaign DNC list, so a caller who has since opted out is never dialed.

A second process runs once a day. It archives the old SENT, EXPIRED, and ORPHAN records to keep the live table small, and it resets the Closing-Time-Now-Trigger if you used it the day before. So if yesterday's finished callbacks vanished from your view overnight, that is the archive doing its job, not data loss.

Watching it in real time

The Real-time report in HTML view shows a Callback Queue Calls header that counts current LIVE entries. Click SHOW IN-GROUP STATS to see which in-groups those LIVE records belong to, which is the fastest way to tell whether one queue is falling behind on callbacks. An ORPHAN sitting in the table is your cue to look at what that Agent was doing when the handoff broke - the customer may have been dialed twice, or not at all.

Turning the feature on

Two settings have to line up before any of these statuses appear. First, the agents' campaign In-Group Manual Dial must be MANUAL_DIAL or BOTH. Second, at least one in-group Wait Time, Estimated Hold Time, or Closing Time Action option must be set to PRESS_CALLBACK_QUEUE so callers can opt into a callback. The walkthrough in the Preserve-Place-In-Line setup guide covers the exact fields.

Want a managed VICIdial box with inbound callback queues ready to go? Check VICIfast pricing - we provision a dedicated server in under 40 seconds and you bring your own carrier.