Hangup Xfer Recording Start: starting a recording when the agent drops the third party

Most recording settings fire at the start of a call or when an Agent hits a record button. Hangup Xfer Recording Start is different: it waits for a very specific moment in a transfer and only then begins capturing audio. If you care about what happens after the agent steps out of the picture, this is the setting that grabs it.

What it does

When this option is enabled, a recording of the session starts the moment the agent clicks the HANGUP XFER button in the transfer conference section of their interface. The default is N, for disabled, so nothing happens unless you switch it on. HANGUP XFER is the button an agent uses to drop the third party out of a transfer while keeping the rest of the session connected, so the recording begins right at that handoff point.

Think of it as event-driven recording. Rather than capturing the whole call from the first hello, it triggers on a button press deep into the transfer flow. That makes it handy when the earlier part of the conversation does not need to be recorded but the post-handoff portion does.

Where it fits in a transfer

sequenceDiagram
  participant A as Agent
  participant C as Customer
  participant T as Third Party
  A->>C: Live call in progress
  A->>T: Dials into transfer conference
  T->>A: Third party joins
  A->>T: Clicks HANGUP XFER
  Note over A,C: Recording starts now
  A->>C: Customer continues with session

The diagram shows the key beat: the agent has a live call, dials a third party into the transfer conference, and then clicks HANGUP XFER to drop that third party. That click is the trigger. Everything captured from that point forward lands in the recording.

When you would turn it on

A few common cases make this setting worth enabling:

• You only need the part of the call that happens after a specialist or verifier has been dropped, not the whole front-end conversation.
• Compliance requires a recording of the customer-facing portion that follows the handoff, but you want to keep file sizes down.
• You are pairing it with HANGUP XFER as a routine step in your transfer workflow and want recording to follow that step automatically.

Because it is tied to one button, it behaves predictably. There is no Recording delay guesswork and no need for the agent to remember a separate record click. If they use HANGUP XFER, the Call recording starts. If they never click it, nothing extra is recorded.

Pairing it with other recording options

This setting sits next to the leave-3-way recording options in the same part of the campaign screen, and they solve related but different problems. Leave-3-Way Start Recording fires when a fronter walks out of a Three-way call; Hangup Xfer Recording Start fires when an agent drops the third party with the HANGUP XFER button. You can run them together as long as you understand which button triggers which. If your concern is the silent-tail problem that the leave-3-way option can cause, that is covered in our piece on Hangup Xfer versus Hangup Both, which explains how the two hangup buttons differ.

For the full map of transfer buttons, closer handoffs, and which recording setting matches each, start with the VICIdial transfers and closers guide. And if you would rather have recording policy configured and tested for you across every campaign, check our pricing to see what managed setup includes.