Next Agent Call: how inbound picks which agent answers

Picture two agents sitting idle when a call comes in. VICIdial has to pick one. The Next Agent Call setting on the in-group is the rule it uses to break that tie. There are a lot of options, but only a handful matter for most floors, so let us focus on those and what they mean for fairness and speed.

What this setting decides

Next Agent Call lives on each Ingroup and answers a single question: of the agents currently available, who gets the next call? It does not change who is allowed to take calls, only the order in which free agents are chosen. This is the heart of the Next agent call logic, and you can set it differently for sales than for support.

The options you will actually use

Stripping the long list down to the practical ones:

• oldest_call_finish: the agent who has been waiting longest since finishing their last call gets it. Feels fair to agents and keeps the longest-idle person busy.
• oldest_call_start: orders by who was last sent a call, which spreads roughly equal call counts across a shift.
• fewest_calls: counts calls taken in this group and sends the next to whoever has the lowest count. The most direct way to even out volume.
• longest_wait_time: orders by how long the agent has been actively waiting for a call.
• random: picks an available agent at random. Simple, and over a long shift it roughly balances out.
• ring_all: rings every free agent until one answers, covered with Ring-all in mind below.

Skill and rank options

If you want your best people getting more calls, there are ranking options. inbound_group_rank orders by the rank you assign each agent for that specific group, highest first. There are also grade-based options that weigh agents by assigned probability. These let you tilt volume toward stronger agents, a basic form of Skills-based routing. Use them when not all agents are equal; stick to the even ones when they are.

A note on ring_all

ring_all rings everyone at once until a person picks up. It answers calls quickly but does not balance workload and can be noisy on a busy floor. It shines for small teams or a priority queue where speed beats fairness. For larger groups, one of the waiting-time or fewest-calls options usually keeps agents happier.

Pick the one that matches your goal: even volume, fast answers, or rewarding your strongest agents. You can always change it later and watch the difference in your reports. For how all of this fits the inbound flow, see the inbound call handling guide, and if you want rank-and-grade weighting in depth, see rank, grade, and call count routing.

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