What the On-Hook Agent setting on a Remote Agent does

By default, when VICIdial sends a call to a Remote agent, it dials the external number and immediately bridges the waiting customer — even if the phone rings out or goes to voicemail. The On-Hook Agent setting changes that behavior entirely. It tells the system to call the Remote agent first, and only connect the customer once a human has picked up.

What On-Hook Agent actually does

On-Hook Agent is a flag on the Remote Agent modify screen, set to Y or N. The default is N (disabled). It only applies to inbound calls — it has no effect on outbound dial campaigns.

When set to Y, the call flow changes like this: VICIdial picks up the call from the Ingroup queue, then dials the Remote Agent's external number. The customer stays on hold. Only after the external number is answered does VICIdial bridge the two legs together and the customer hears the agent.

When set to N (the default), VICIdial dials the external number and immediately bridges the customer in parallel. If the phone rings and goes to Voicemail drop, the customer hears the voicemail greeting.

The problem it solves

flowchart TD
    A[Call arrives from in-group] --> B{On-Hook Agent = Y?}
    B -- No --> C[Dial external + bridge customer immediately]
    C --> D{External phone answered?}
    D -- No --> E[Customer hears voicemail or rings out]
    D -- Yes --> F[Call connected]
    B -- Yes --> G[Dial external number only]
    G --> H{External phone answered?}
    H -- No --> I[Retry or move to next agent]
    H -- Yes --> J[Bridge customer in now]
    J --> F

The flowchart above shows why On-Hook Agent = Y protects the customer experience. Without it, a Remote Agent whose external phone is unattended, dead, or forwarded to voicemail will silently dump your caller into the agent's personal voicemail box — which is confusing and unprofessional.

When to use it — and when not to

• Use On-Hook Agent = Y when your remote agents are not guaranteed to be at their phones at all times, or when any voicemail risk is unacceptable.
• Use On-Hook Agent = N when agents are always available and you want the fastest possible call connection with the least added latency.
• On-Hook Agent = Y adds a brief extra step (dialing the agent, waiting for answer) before the customer hears a human voice. This can add a few seconds to the perceived answer time, so pair it with reasonable queue hold music and an honest estimated hold time message.

The companion setting On-Hook Ring Time controls how many seconds VICIdial will let the external phone ring before giving up and trying a different agent (or returning the call to the Call queue). That's covered in its own post.

For the full picture of how Remote Agents work in inbound routing, read VICIdial Remote Agents Explained. If you're comparing the Remote Agent approach to standard logged-in agents, see Remote Agent vs Standard Agent.

On a managed VICIdial platform you get these inbound routing controls fully available from day one. See VICIfast's pricing plans to get started.