What the Chat Group ID, Name, and Color do

Every VICIdial Chat Group needs three fields before you can submit it: Group ID, Group Name, and Group Color. They look simple, but each has a rule that bites if you ignore it. The ID is permanent once set, the Name is a free-form label, and the Color has a hex quirk that will silently break the agent screen. Here is what each one actually controls.

Group ID: short, unique, and permanent

The Group ID is the short internal name of the inbound chat group. It must be between 2 and 20 characters with no spaces. It also has to be unique across the whole system: it cannot match any other Chat ID, In-Group, or campaign you already have. That uniqueness rule matters because the dialer routes on the ID, so a collision with an existing in-group or campaign would make the routing ambiguous. Once you click Submit the first time, the ID is frozen.

Group Name: the human label

The Group Name is the full name of the chat account, between 2 and 30 characters. Unlike the ID, this one stays editable forever, so it is the field to use for a friendly description like Website Sales Chat or After Hours Support. Changing it later does not affect routing or break anything tied to the group.

Group Color: the hex gotcha

The Group Color is the color the agent client app shows when a chat comes in on this group, so agents can tell at a glance which queue a session belongs to. It must be 2 to 7 characters. If you enter a hex color value, it has to start with a # at the beginning of the string, or the agent screen will not work properly. That single # is the most common slip on this field: a value like ff8800 looks fine in the box but breaks the rendering, while #ff8800 works. A named color short enough to fit, like blue or teal, sidesteps the hex rule entirely.

Here is how the three fields differ in editability.

flowchart TD
  A["Submit new Chat Group"] --> B["Group ID locked permanently"]
  A --> C["Group Name stays editable"]
  A --> D["Group Color stays editable"]
  D --> E{"Hex color used?"}
  E -->|Yes| F["Must start with #"]
  E -->|No| G["2 to 7 chars is enough"]

Why these three are required

VICIdial blocks the Submit until all three are filled because each does a distinct job. The ID gives the system a unique key to route on, the Name gives your staff something readable, and the Color gives the Agent a visual cue at the moment a chat lands. The rest of the fields, like the Default List ID and Queue priority, can be set afterward.

Get these three right and the rest of the setup is downhill. A clean ID means you never have to delete and rebuild, a clear Name keeps your Ingroup list readable, and a valid Color keeps the agent screen working so every Lead shows up the way it should. For the full walkthrough of the remaining fields, read how to modify an existing VICIdial Chat Group, and for the wider inbound picture see the VICIdial inbound email and chat guide. Want chat configured without the fiddly bits? Our managed VICIdial plans hand you a working inbound stack from day one.