VICIdial Remote Agents explained

A VICIdial Remote Agent is a way to send calls to a phone or extension that lives outside the dialer, without that person ever logging into the agent screen. Instead of sitting at a browser, the agent picks up a desk phone, a cell phone, or a softphone, and the system forwards calls there as if it were any other queue member. It is the right tool in two situations: routing inbound calls to someone who cannot or does not want to be tied to a computer, and running outbound auto-dial broadcast or survey campaigns where no live agent is needed at all. This guide covers what a remote agent really is, how the multi-line mechanism works, the fields you set, and where the rough edges are.

What a remote agent is, and what it is not

A standard Agent logs into the VICIdial agent screen in a browser, gets a softphone or hardphone session, and works leads or takes queue calls with full controls: dispositions, transfers, callbacks, the whole panel. A Remote agent is the opposite end of the spectrum. There is no browser session and no agent screen. You create a small record in the admin that says "forward calls for this account to this external number," and the dialer treats that number as if a live agent were logged in there. The person on the other end just answers a ringing phone.

Worth being clear about this up front: a remote agent is not required just because someone works from home or from another office. A home-based worker can log in as a normal agent over the internet and get the full screen. The remote agent path exists for the cases where you specifically do not want a screen session in the loop. If you are weighing the two, read how a remote agent differs from a standard agent, and for the from-home case in particular, how to run a VICIdial agent on a home phone. For the plain-language version of the concept, what a VICIdial remote agent is is the place to start.

The two jobs a remote agent does

The first job is inbound. A call lands on one of your DIDs, hits an inbound group, and instead of waiting for a logged-in agent it gets forwarded out to the external phone the remote agent points at. This is how you route after-hours calls to an on-call number, or send overflow to a partner office that runs traditional desk phones. Setting it up for inbound has its own rules, which we cover below and in depth in how to route inbound calls to a remote agent.

The second job is outbound. A remote agent account can be the receiving end of an auto-dial message-playing broadcast or survey Campaign. The dialer places the outbound calls, and connects answered ones to the remote agent number, which in a pure broadcast run might just be a recording or an IVR rather than a person. This is the model when you have no live closers and just need to play a message or collect a survey response at volume. The broadcast and survey use is covered separately if that is your goal.

The multi-line mechanism: R/111, R/112, R/113

This is the part that confuses people, and it is the heart of how remote agents scale. When you add a remote agent you give it a User ID Start and a Number of Lines. The User ID Start has to be a real, existing VICIdial user account. The Number of Lines tells the system how many simultaneous calls it can safely push to that external number.

Here is the mechanism. When the remote agent flips to ACTIVE, the system inserts logged-in entries by incrementing the starting user ID once per line. If the User ID Start is 111 and you set 3 lines, three accounts appear in the real-time campaign screen: R/111, R/112, and R/113. You only create the first VICIdial user account (111). You do not create separate user records for 112 and 113; the system generates those line entries itself. This is what lets a single remote agent record represent several concurrent calls, which matters during auto-dial campaigns and when a number is forwarded to a hunt group of people on a traditional phone system.

The incrementing detail and the Number of Lines field each have their own deep dives: how the incremented user IDs work, what Number of Lines controls, and a full walkthrough in setting up a multi-line remote agent.

How Status and Number of Lines decide the entries

The flow below shows how the two fields together produce the R/ line entries the dialer can send calls to.

flowchart TD
  A["Remote agent record saved"] --> B{"Status set to ACTIVE?"}
  B -->|No| C["No line entries created"]
  B -->|Yes| D["Read User ID Start"]
  D --> E["Read Number of Lines N"]
  E --> F["Insert R slash UserID"]
  F --> G{"More lines remaining?"}
  G -->|Yes| H["Increment User ID by 1"]
  H --> F
  G -->|No| I["N entries shown in real-time screen"]
  I --> J["Dialer sends calls to External Extension"]

The key fields you actually set

A remote agent record is short, but every field matters. The ones to understand:

• User ID Start, Number of Lines, and External Extension must be digits only, or the form will reject the submission. The User ID Start must match a real VICIdial user.
• Server IP — a remote agent entry is good for one specific server only. This field picks which box the entries live on.
• External Extension — the number calls forward to. It must be a full dialplan number; if your outbound rules need a 9 in front, put the 9 in here. Test it by dialing that number from a phone on the dialer first.
• Extension Group — if set to anything other than NONE, this overrides External Extension and distributes calls across a group of dialplan Extension numbers by rank, round-robin style.
• Status — ACTIVE means the system assumes it can send calls there. Flipping it back to INACTIVE can take up to a minute to actually stop calls.
• Campaign — the campaign these remote agents are logged into. For inbound, this needs to be a CLOSER campaign with inbound groups selected.

The External Extension and Campaign fields each carry enough weight to deserve their own reads: what the External Extension field expects and what the Campaign field does. The full add and edit flows live in how to add a remote agent and how to modify a remote agent.

That one-minute delay on deactivation is not a bug, it is how the assignment refresh cycle works, so build it into your runbook. If you flip a remote agent off you may still get a call or two for up to a minute after.

Inbound routing, on-hook, and CLOSER campaigns

For inbound work the remote agent belongs to a CLOSER Campaign, and you select which Ingroup entries it should receive calls from. A call comes in on a DID (direct inward dialing), lands in the inbound group, and the queue treats the remote agent as an available Closer to hand it to. The sequence is the same routing logic you already use for live closers, just with the destination being an external phone.

Two related fields control ringing behavior on inbound. On-Hook Agent, when set to Y, calls the remote agent first and does not send the customer over until the line is answered. This avoids dropping a caller onto a phone that nobody picks up. On-Hook Ring Time then sets how many seconds each attempt rings before giving up. Set it a few seconds short of however long it takes that phone to roll to voicemail, so you do not hand a live caller to an answering machine. The On-Hook behavior has its own write-up in what On-Hook Agent does.

If you want one team to handle both inbound queue calls and outbound dialing through remote agents, that blended setup is covered in setting up a remote agent for blended calls. And if you run a dialer fleet and want to evaluate the whole approach before committing, our managed VICIdial plans ship with the inbound and CLOSER plumbing already wired.

Extension groups and DID overrides

When one phone is not enough, an Extension Group lets you spread calls across several dialplan extensions. You create the group, add extensions to it, and give each one a rank so the system knows the order to try them in. Set the Extension Group on the remote agent and it overrides the single External Extension entirely, sending calls round-robin to the group. This is how you fan calls out to a small team without creating a separate remote agent per person. The concept and setup are in what VICIdial extension groups are.

There is a further layer for inbound: DID Remote Agent Extension Overrides, found under the Inbound section. This lets specific DIDs override the extension used for remote-agent routed calls coming through in-groups. The User Start there has to be a valid remote agent User Start, or you can use the ---ALL--- value to make the override apply to every call. Multiple active entries for the same DID and User Start get used round-robin. The details are in DID remote agent extension overrides.

Recording, vdremote.php, and stats

Remote agents can be recorded like any other agent, but it takes two settings working together. Set the campaign recording to ALLFORCE, and enable recording on the User page for the account. With both in place the forwarded calls get captured the same way a normal agent's would. If Call recording is a compliance requirement for you, do not assume it is on by default for remote agents, because it is not. The recording specifics are in recording remote agent calls.

There is also a lightweight web page, vdremote.php, that lets a remote agent get some control from a browser without the full agent screen. To use it the underlying user account needs a user level of 4 or greater. From there they can do basic things like set a Disposition on a call. It is the middle ground between a fully remote phone-only agent and a full agent-screen login. The login and what it offers are in logging in on vdremote.php.

For visibility, each remote agent has daily stats showing total calls and the maximum number of concurrent calls for the day, which is the easiest way to confirm your Number of Lines setting is actually being used. Deleting a remote agent, when that option is enabled, is a deliberate two-step process: click the delete link, then click the confirmation link that appears, so a single misclick cannot wipe a record.

When a managed host removes the setup pain

None of these mechanics are hard once you know them, but they assume you already have a working dialer with clean DIDs, a Dialplan that dials external numbers correctly, and a server you trust to flip remote agents on and off. Getting that base right is most of the work, and a forwarded call that never rings is almost always a dialplan or Lead routing problem under the remote agent, not the remote agent record itself. If you would rather not stand up and harden that platform yourself, our managed VICIdial hosting hands you a branded, secured dialer in under 40 seconds, with the dialplan, recording, and inbound groups ready, so the only thing left is adding the remote agent record and pointing it at a phone. From there the spokes in this cluster walk you through each field in detail.