Scheduling a VICIdial Drop List: run times, weekdays, month days

A Drop List does nothing on its own. The schedule is what makes it run, and it is the part people get subtly wrong, ending up with a job that either never fires or sweeps up the wrong window of calls. Four fields control timing: Run Times, Run Weekdays, Run Month Days, and Gather Minutes. Here is what each one actually does.

The big rule up front: either Run Weekdays or Run Month Days must be set, or the job will never run automatically. Run Times alone is not enough; it tells the job at what time of day to fire, but not on which days.

Run Times: the clock

Run Times is a list of times in HHMM format, separated by dashes, for when the job should fire. It works just like list reset times. For example, 0900-1300-1700 runs the job at 9 AM, 1 PM, and 5 PM. Each run gathers all the matching dropped calls since the last time the process ran, so more frequent runs mean smaller, fresher batches.

If you already use scheduled resets, this format will look familiar. The mechanics line up closely with scheduled list resets, which use the same dash-separated 24-hour times.

Run Weekdays vs Run Month Days: the calendar

Run Weekdays sets which days of the week the job runs, for jobs that follow your normal operating week. Run Month Days sets specific days of the month in DD format, dash-separated, for jobs tied to a calendar date rather than a weekday, like a monthly recovery sweep on the 1st and 15th. You set one or the other depending on the rhythm you want.

flowchart TD
  A[Scheduled minute arrives] --> B{Weekdays or Month Days set?}
  B -->|Neither| C[Job never runs]
  B -->|Set| D{Today matches a run day?}
  D -->|No| E[Skip]
  D -->|Yes| F{Current time in Run Times?}
  F -->|No| E
  F -->|Yes| G[Gather drops since last run]
  G --> H[Insert new leads]

The chart shows the gates in order. First, at least one calendar field must be set or nothing happens. Then today has to match a run day, and the current time has to match a run time. Only when all three line up does the job gather and insert. Miss any gate and the run is skipped silently.

Gather Minutes: the look-back window

Gather Minutes controls how far back from the run time the job looks for dropped calls. If set to a number greater than 0, the process gathers drops from that many minutes before the run. The default is 0, which disables the explicit window and falls back to gathering since the last run.

Use Gather Minutes when you want a fixed window that does not depend on when the job last ran. For instance, a job at the top of every hour with Gather Minutes set to 60 always looks back exactly one hour. That predictability matters if you ever pause and resume the job, because a since-last-run window can balloon after a gap.

Matching the schedule to the work

Tighter schedules keep recovered leads fresh, which matters because a caller you ring back within the hour is far more likely to remember why they called than one you reach three days later. But more frequent runs also mean more outbound volume to manage, so balance the cadence against your agent capacity, your Drop rate on the outbound side, and your Abandonment rate targets. A queue that drops heavily at lunch might warrant a midday run; a quiet line might only need one sweep a day.

Each recovered Lead is only as valuable as how quickly you act on it, so let the schedule reflect that. For how Drop Lists fit the wider lead workflow, see the lists and leads guide.

Run your dialer on your schedule

Drop List scheduling is one more knob you control fully on a dedicated box. VICIfast provisions yours in under 40 seconds. See our pricing to start.