Daily Phone Number Call Limit: capping calls per number

Here is a problem that catches a lot of new VICIdial operators: the same phone number is on three different lead records. You set a per-lead daily limit, feel safe, and then realize you have dialed that one number three times in a morning because each record counted separately. The Daily Phone Number Call Limit is the setting that closes that gap. It counts by number, not by record. Here is how it works and when you actually need it.

Per lead vs per number

The ordinary Daily Call Count Limit counts attempts against a single Lead record. If a phone number appears on more than one record — duplicates, the same person loaded twice, a shared business line — each record has its own daily counter, and the number can get dialed once per record per day. Daily Phone Number Call Limit System-wide counts differently: it tracks attempts against the phone number itself, across every lead in the campaign that carries it. Hit the cap once and that number sits out for the rest of the day no matter how many records it lives on.

What happens at the limit

When a number reaches its daily ceiling, VICIdial flips the lead's called-since-last-reset flag to Y and quietly skips it the next time it would be selected. There is no error and no agent sees anything — the number just stops being dialed until the day rolls over and your lists reset. Default is 0, meaning the feature is off. You turn it on by setting it to the maximum number of calls you will allow per number per day.

If you raise the limit partway through the day, leads already frozen at the old number stay frozen until a list reset. So plan the cap before the shift rather than nudging it mid-day.

When you need it

Reach for this when your data has duplicates you cannot fully clean, when several leads legitimately share a number (a head office, a household), or when you have a compliance reason to guarantee a number is never called more than a set number of times in a day regardless of how it was loaded. It is a safety net against the embarrassing and risky habit of over-dialing one person. It is not a replacement for keeping your lists clean and your DNC (do not call) handling tight — it is a backstop for when reality is messier than your data.

A heads-up on alt-number dialing

If you dial Alternate phone number numbers — calling a lead's secondary numbers after the main one — test this combination before trusting it. Auto-alt-number features can interact with per-number daily counting in ways that are not always obvious, so watch a small campaign first and confirm the counts behave the way you expect.

This limit is one of several call-count controls VICIdial gives you; the Call Count Limit vs Daily Call Count Limit explainer covers the per-lead side, and the VICIdial dialing strategies guide shows how the pieces fit. To run all of this on a managed box with sensible defaults, see our plans.