How to cap how many callbacks an agent can hold

Some agents hoard callbacks. They reserve every promising Lead for themselves, build up a personal pile, and then never get back to half of them. The Scheduled Callbacks Active Limit setting is the campaign-level cap that stops this. It limits each Agent to a fixed number of active or live user-only callbacks, and once they hit that number, the system won't let them reserve any more.

Active versus live callbacks

The cap counts user-only callbacks in two states. An active callback is one that exists in the system but has not yet reached its trigger date and time. A live callback is a user-only Scheduled callback that has already hit its trigger time and is now sitting in the agent's Callback queue waiting to be dialed. The Active Limit counts both toward the total, so it controls the agent's whole personal backlog, not just what is overdue.

Note the word user-only. This setting only governs callbacks an agent reserves for themselves with the My Callback checkbox. ANYONE callbacks, which return to the general pool for any agent to take, are not counted against this cap.

What the agent sees when the cap is hit

flowchart TD
  A[Agent dispositions call as CALLBK] --> B{Active Limit set above 0?}
  B -->|No| C[My Callback checkbox available]
  B -->|Yes| D[Count agent active and live callbacks]
  D --> E{At or above limit?}
  E -->|No| C
  E -->|Yes| F[My Callback checkbox blocked]
  F --> G[Callback can only be set as ANYONE]

When an agent is at the cap and tries to set another callback, the My Callback checkbox is simply not selectable. They can still book the callback, but it goes in as an ANYONE callback that any agent can pick up, rather than being reserved for them. The pressure this creates is intentional: to free up a slot, the agent has to actually work down their existing live callbacks.

Setting it and the override

The field is on the campaign detail screen. Default is 0, which means the cap is disabled and agents can reserve as many callbacks as they like. Enter any number above 0 to switch it on. A value of 20 means each agent can hold at most 20 active or live user-only callbacks at once.

There is a companion setting, Scheduled Callbacks Active Limit Override, that lets the Custom User 3 field on a user's profile override the campaign cap. Default is N. Turn it on when you want a uniform cap for the floor but a higher ceiling for senior agents, and put their personal limit in Custom User 3. So you might set the campaign cap to 15 for everyone, then drop a 30 in Custom User 3 on your two best closers and flip the override on. The rest of the floor stays at 15, the closers get headroom, and you only touch the campaign setting once.

Picking a number is a judgment call. Too low and you frustrate agents who legitimately work a long callback pipeline. Too high and the cap stops doing its job. A common starting point is somewhere around what an agent can realistically clear in a few days of work, then adjust once you watch how the floor behaves. You can always raise or lower it later; the cap is only checked at the moment an agent tries to reserve a new callback, so changing it does not disturb callbacks already on the books.

If you want a clearer picture of which callbacks count as active and which count as live before you pick a number, read live versus active callbacks, and the scheduled callbacks overview ties the whole callback system together.

Keeping callbacks accountable

A sensible Active Limit keeps agents honest about the callbacks they reserve and stops good leads from rotting in a personal pile. If you are standing up a fresh VICIdial install and want these controls available out of the box, our managed dialers spin up in under 40 seconds. Take a look at our pricing to see what fits.