What the Rank field on an Extension Group entry does

When you build an Extension Group for a Remote agent in VICIdial, each Extension entry you add to the group has a Rank field. That single integer is what tells VICIdial which extension to try first, which to try second, and so on. Get it wrong and calls land in the wrong order; get it right and the system handles fallbacks automatically.

What Rank actually controls

Rank is an ordering field. When a call is routed to a Remote Agent that has an Extension Group assigned, VICIdial looks at all the active extension entries in that group and sorts them by Rank, ascending. The entry with the lowest Rank number gets the first call attempt. If that attempt fails or is not answered, the system moves to the next-lowest Rank, and so on.

There is no magic to the actual numbers — you can use 1, 2, 3 or 10, 20, 30. What matters is the relative order. Two entries with the same Rank number are ambiguous, so keep them unique to avoid unpredictable behavior.

A practical example

Say an agent works from home with a desk phone and a mobile as backup. You want VICIdial to always try the desk phone first and only ring the mobile if the desk phone does not answer. Set up the group like this:

1. Extension: 1001 (desk phone Dialplan entry) — Rank: 1
2. Extension: SIP/mobile-trunk (mobile backup) — Rank: 2

VICIdial will always hit rank 1 first. If the agent does not answer on the desk phone, the call proceeds to rank 2. The agent never misses a call just because one path was unavailable.

flowchart LR
  A[Incoming Call] --> B[Extension Group]
  B --> C[Rank 1: Desk Phone 1001]
  C -- No Answer --> D[Rank 2: Mobile SIP/mobile-trunk]
  D -- No Answer --> E[Rank 3: Voicemail Fallback]
  C -- Answered --> F[Call Connected]

Using Rank alongside skills-based routing

Extension Group Rank controls the order within a single agent's group. It is separate from Skills-based routing at the campaign or Ingroup level, which determines which agent a call reaches before the group logic even runs. Think of it as two layers: the inbound routing system picks the agent, then Extension Group Rank picks the endpoint for that agent.

For a broader look at how Remote Agents fit into inbound call flows, see our Remote Agents overview. And if you have not set up your Extension Group yet, What is a VICIdial Remote Agent gives you the foundational context.

If you want a hosted VICIdial environment where the Extension Group and Rank setup is already working from day one, check out VICIfast pricing.