DID Route options: in-group, call menu, agent, or voicemail

Every DID (direct inward dialing) in VICIdial has one job: decide where an inbound call goes. That decision lives in a single field called DID Route. Pick the wrong one and your call ends up in the wrong place, so it helps to know what each route does before you choose.

The five routes

• IN_GROUP sends the call to an Ingroup, a pool of agents who share the queue. This is the route for any real inbound team.
• AGENT sends the call to one specific logged-in agent. If that agent is not available, a separate fallback action takes over.
• CALLMENU sends the call to a recorded menu, the dialer version of an IVR (interactive voice response), where the caller presses a key to pick a department.
• VOICEMAIL drops the call straight into a voicemail box, useful for an after-hours or overflow number.
• EXTEN sends the call to any extension and context in the Dialplan, including custom Asterisk-based menus. EXTEN is the default route for a fresh DID.

There is also a PHONE route that sends the call to a specific phone entry defined in the system, handy when you want a number to ring one physical desk phone rather than a queue.

What comes with each route

Picking a route is not the end of it. The screen changes to show the fields that route needs. IN_GROUP reveals an In-Group ID, a call handle method, and an agent search method. The handle method controls how the lead record is matched: CID creates a fresh lead for every call from the inbound caller ID, while the lookup variants try to find an existing record so a repeat caller is not duplicated. The agent search method decides which server's agents get the call, with LB load balancing across the whole system as the default.

AGENT brings its own set: the user ID to send to, an in-group that supplies the queue settings while the caller waits, and an unavailable action for when the agent is not logged in. VOICEMAIL asks for a mailbox. CALLMENU asks for the menu to play. EXTEN asks for an extension and a context. So the route is really a switch that decides which other fields you have to fill in.

flowchart TD
  A[Inbound call hits DID] --> B{DID Route}
  B -->|IN_GROUP| C[Agent queue]
  B -->|AGENT| D[One logged in agent]
  B -->|CALLMENU| E[Recorded menu]
  B -->|VOICEMAIL| F[Mailbox]
  B -->|EXTEN| G[Dialplan extension]
  B -->|PHONE| H[Specific phone]

How to choose

If a team answers the number, use IN_GROUP. If the caller should pick a department first, use CALLMENU and let it hand off to in-groups behind each option. Use AGENT only for a number that belongs to one person, and VOICEMAIL for a line that should just take messages. Leave EXTEN for custom dialplan work you have built yourself.

For the most common choice, see how to point a DID at an in-group, and for the menu path read our walk-through on adding a VICIdial in-group before you wire the route. The full inbound picture is in our inbound call handling guide.

Skip the server build and get routing right away with our managed VICIdial hosting, live in under a minute.