What the Random Order setting does for Music On Hold

When a caller waits on hold in VICIdial, the audio they hear comes from a Music on hold class — a named group of audio files (your hold music or a recorded message) that VICIdial feeds to Asterisk. Each class has a setting called Random Order, and it controls one thing: whether those files play in the order you set or in a shuffled order each time. It sounds small, but it changes what every caller hears the moment they get parked, so it is worth understanding before you flip it.

What Random Order actually changes

A Music On Hold class can hold more than one file. When you add files, each one gets a Rank — a number that sets the play order. The Random Order setting decides whether VICIdial honors that Rank or ignores it:

• Random Order = N — the files play in the exact Rank order you set, top to bottom, then loop. Track 1 always plays first.
• Random Order = Y — Asterisk shuffles the files, so the first track a caller hears is unpredictable and the loop order changes.

That is the whole behavior. With one file in the class, Random Order makes no audible difference at all — there is nothing to shuffle. It only matters once you have two or more tracks.

How VICIdial picks the next track

When a caller is parked — sitting in a queue or held during a transfer — Asterisk grabs the class and asks for the next file. The setting decides the path:

flowchart TD
  A[Caller put on hold] --> B{Random Order set to Y}
  B -- Yes --> C[Shuffle files in class]
  B -- No --> D[Use saved Rank order]
  C --> E[Pick a random track]
  D --> F[Play track at Rank 1]
  E --> G[Caller hears audio]
  F --> G
  G --> H[Track ends, pick next, loop]

Whichever path runs, the audio is delivered as One-way audio — the caller hears the music but cannot be heard, which is exactly what you want for a hold experience. The files themselves still have to be valid 8kHz audio in the right Recording format (WAV/MP3), because VICIdial hands them straight to Asterisk to play.

When to turn it on

Turn Random Order on when your class holds several interchangeable music tracks and you do not want every caller hearing the same song first all day. Shuffling makes a small playlist feel larger and less repetitive to callers who wait often.

Leave it off when order matters. If your class starts with a short "thanks for holding, an agent will be with you shortly" message and then music, you almost certainly want that message first every time — so keep Random Order at N and let your Rank do its job.

Where the files come from is its own topic — every file in a class must already live in the audio store. If you have not set that up yet, start with how to set up the VICIdial audio store, then come back and build your class.

Random Order is one knob among many in VICIdial's audio system. For the full picture — hold music, prompts, voicemail, and TTS (text to speech) — read our guide to VICIdial audio prompts, voicemail, and TTS.

VICIfast ships a fully configured dialer with the audio store and Music On Hold ready to go, so you can drop in your tracks and pick an order on day one. See our pricing to get started.