What the 85100001 prompt IDs are and where they come from

You record a prompt over the phone, accept it, and VICIdial reads back a filename like 85100001. No friendly name, no description — just a number. That number is the ID of the file you just made, and it is the value you will type into a VICIdial field to actually use the recording. This post explains where the number comes from and how it behaves so you are not left guessing which file is which.

Where 85100001 comes from

The 8168 phone recorder assigns IDs from a fixed starting point. The very first prompt you record on a system gets the ID 85100001. Every time you record another new file, the recorder increments by one — so your second is 85100002, your third is 85100003, and so on. The high starting number keeps these auto-generated IDs from clashing with other short extensions and feature codes on the box.

The increment is per recording session, not per topic. If you record three takes of the same greeting and save all three, you burn three IDs. The recorder does not know they are the same message — it just hands out the next number.

The counter is system-wide and lives on the server, not on your Extension or your login. That has one consequence worth internalizing: the number you get depends on how many prompts have ever been recorded by phone on that box, by anyone, not on how many you personally have made. On a fresh server your first file really is 85100001. On a server that has been in use for a while, your first file could be a much higher number — and that is completely normal.

How the counter advances

flowchart LR
    A[First recording] --> B[85100001]
    B --> C[Second recording]
    C --> D[85100002]
    D --> E[Third recording]
    E --> F[85100003]
    F --> G[Each new file plus one]

The ID is the filename of the audio sitting on the server. Because it is a plain numeric name, it does not carry the Recording format (WAV/MP3) or any hint about content in the label itself. That is the trade-off for the speed of recording by phone — you get a file instantly, but you own the bookkeeping. If you want named, browsable, organized audio instead, the audio library is a better home. See what the VICIdial audio store is for how that differs.

Using the ID once you have it

The 85100001-style ID is what you paste into VICIdial fields that play audio — an answering-machine message on a Campaign, a Safe Harbor message, a drop message on an Ingroup, or a Voicemail drop greeting. The field does not care that the file was made by phone; it just wants a valid prompt ID. To see the full list of places these IDs plug into, read our audio prompts, voicemail, and TTS guide.

If you would rather skip the numeric IDs entirely and bring in a named file you recorded elsewhere, the upload path is simple — see uploading an audio prompt. Either way, VICIfast hands you a dialer that is fully configured in under 40 seconds, so the recorder and the audio library are both live the moment you log in. See /pricing.