What the Active field on an Email Group controls

The Active field on a VICIdial Email Group is a simple Y or N switch, but it decides whether the group does anything at all. It is the difference between a group that pulls mail to your agents and a group that quietly sits idle. This post explains exactly what each setting does and when you'd flip it.

Y means take email, N means don't

When Active is set to Y, the group is live: the email parser checks its mailbox and routes arriving messages to an available Agent. When it is set to N, the group is inactive and takes no email at all — the parser skips it. The default on a new group is Y, so a freshly created group is live the moment the parser next runs.

When to set it to N

Turning a group off without deleting it is useful in a few real situations:

• A seasonal mailbox that should only run during a campaign period.
• A group you are still configuring and don't want receiving live mail yet.
• Pausing an inbox during maintenance without losing its ID, color, or rank history.

Because setting N leaves the whole configuration intact, it is far safer than deleting — and remember, deleting and recreating is the only way to reclaim a Group ID, so you almost always want N instead.

Where the switch sits in the flow

The parser checks the Active flag before it does anything else with a group.

flowchart TD
  A["Parser runs (1 server)"] --> B["Look at Email Group"]
  B --> C{"Active = Y?"}
  C -->|No| D["Skip group, no mail pulled"]
  C -->|Yes| E["Check mailbox"]
  E --> F{"New email?"}
  F -->|No| G["Wait for next run"]
  F -->|Yes| H["Route to available agent"]
  H --> I["Lead pulled, agent locked"]

Active vs Queue Priority

Don't confuse Active with priority. Active is a yes/no on whether the group runs at all. Queue Priority decides the order in which a running group's email is answered relative to your other queues an Agent is on. A group can be active but low priority, meaning it takes mail but yields to busier inbound streams. Once a message does reach an agent, the matching Lead is pulled up and they finish by applying a Disposition — same as any inbound call.

A clean way to stage a new group

The default of Y is convenient, but if you are building a group you are not ready to run yet, set Active to N right after you create it. That lets you finish the color, the Web Form buttons, and the routing fields in peace, with no chance of a live email landing on a half-configured screen. When everything checks out, flip it to Y and the very next parser run brings it to life.

• Create the group, then immediately set Active to N.
• Configure color, Web Forms, Next Agent Email, and Queue Priority.
• Test with a real agent login, then set Active to Y to go live.

The Active flag is the cleanest way to pause and resume an inbox without losing anything. For the related routing controls, read how Email Group Queue Priority works, and for the broader setup see the VICIdial inbound email and chat guide. To skip the parser setup entirely, take a look at our managed VICIdial pricing.