How to cap a user's manual-dial calls per day and per hour

When an agent works in manual mode they place calls by clicking the DIAL NEXT NUMBER button, which pulls a fresh lead from the Hopper and dials it. Two per-user fields let you cap how often they can do that: Max Manual Dial Hopper Calls limits the count per day, and Max Manual Dial Hopper Calls Per Hour limits it per hour. Both apply across every campaign the agent logs into, not just one.

What counts as a hopper call

A hopper call here means exactly one thing: a call placed because the agent clicked DIAL NEXT NUMBER. It is a Manual dialing (click to dial) action, distinct from a Predictive dialing call that the system pushes to the agent automatically. So these caps only govern the calls the agent chooses to launch, which is precisely the behaviour you want to govern when you are worried about pacing or compliance windows.

The daily cap

Set Max Manual Dial Hopper Calls to a number greater than 0 and it becomes the most manual hopper calls the agent can place in one day, totalled across all campaigns. When they hit the ceiling and click DIAL NEXT NUMBER again, the agent screen simply tells them there are no more leads to dial. A value of 0 disables the cap. The daily total clears overnight.

The per-hour cap

Max Manual Dial Hopper Calls Per Hour works the same way but on a rolling hourly budget. Once the agent reaches the hourly limit, DIAL NEXT NUMBER again returns the no-more-leads message until the clock ticks over. The per-hour totals reset at the top of every hour, so an agent throttled at 11:58 gets a fresh budget at 12:00. Again, 0 disables it. You can set both fields at once: the hourly cap smooths out bursts while the daily cap holds the overall line.

flowchart TD
  A[Agent clicks DIAL NEXT NUMBER] --> B{Hourly cap reached}
  B -->|yes| C[Show no more leads]
  B -->|no| D{Daily cap reached}
  D -->|yes| C
  D -->|no| E[Pull lead from hopper]
  E --> F[Place manual call]
  F --> G[Increment hourly and daily count]
  C --> H[Hourly count resets at top of hour]

Why operators use these

The most common reason is keeping manual-dial activity inside a defensible rhythm. If your compliance posture leans on manual dialing for certain Lead segments, an unbounded agent clicking through a list at machine speed undercuts that argument. A per-hour cap forces a human pace. The daily cap, meanwhile, is handy for quota work or for limiting a new hire while they learn the ropes.

Because both fields are per-user, you can give your seasoned closers a generous ceiling and keep tighter reins on contractors, all without touching campaign-level Dialer pacing. That granularity is the whole point of putting the control on the user record.

Where this fits

These caps live alongside the rest of the agent throttles. For the full picture of how per-user fields layer on top of campaign and group settings, see the VICIdial users and groups guide. If you are creating the agent in the first place, our piece on how to add a VICIdial user covers the surrounding fields.

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