No Hopper Dialing mode explained

Most VICIdial campaigns rely on the hopper — a small buffer that pre-loads the next batch of leads so the dialer always has someone to call. No Hopper Dialing switches that buffer off for a campaign. It exists for a specific purpose, and turning it on comes with trade-offs you should know about before you flip the switch.

What the hopper normally does

The Hopper is a fast holding area that VICIdial refills every minute, pulling leads from your lists based on your campaign rules. It is what keeps a predictive campaign supplied without scanning the whole lead database on every call. When you enable No Hopper Dialing, that refill stops running for the campaign and leads are pulled differently.

When you can use it

No Hopper Dialing is only available on the MANUAL and INBOUND_MAN dial methods. Auto-dial methods need the hopper to feed them, so the option is off the table there. The main reason to turn it on is to enable Owner Only Dialing — keeping leads tied to a specific rep — which requires No Hopper Dialing as a prerequisite. If you are doing Manual dialing (click to dial) where each agent works their own book of accounts, this is the mode that makes it possible.

What stops working

This is the part that surprises people. With No Hopper Dialing on, several features that depend on the hopper refill go quiet:

• Lead recycling — automatically re-queuing busy or no-answer leads no longer runs.
• Auto-alt-number dialing — trying a lead's secondary numbers stops.
• List mix and Xth-NEW list ordering — the controls that blend lists and interleave new leads no longer apply.

If you depend on Lead recycling or Alternate phone number dialing, No Hopper Dialing is probably not for you — you would be trading those away to get owner-based routing.

How leads get dialed without it

With the hopper off, the campaign does not pre-stage a batch every minute. Instead, when an agent is ready for a number, the system looks up the next eligible lead directly — typically the one tied to that agent through ownership rules. That is exactly why this mode pairs with manual and owner-based dialing: the agent, not a buffer, is driving when the next call goes out. It is a slower, more deliberate rhythm than predictive, and that is the point for relationship-style calling.

There is a related setting worth knowing: you can let agents log in even when no leads are sitting in the hopper. In a No Hopper campaign that is normal, since the hopper is empty by design, so do not be alarmed by an empty hopper count on these campaigns — it is expected, not a fault.

A caution on big lead sets

Avoid this mode if you have a very large lead database — say, over 100,000 leads. Without the hopper buffering things, the system works harder to find the next number to dial, and that can drag on performance with a huge pile of leads. For smaller, owner-assigned books it is fine; for massive cold-calling lists, keep the hopper running. If you are not sure whether your set is too big, start small: try it on one campaign with a contained list before you make it your default.

For how the hopper fits the rest of your dialing setup, see the VICIdial dialing strategies guide, and if pacing or drops are on your mind, how to lower your VICIdial drop rate is the companion read.

Running owner-assigned books and want a box set up for it? See our plans.