VICIdial soundboard button types explained

Not every entry on a VICIdial Soundboard is a play button. The Type field decides what each row becomes on the agent screen, which is how you turn a flat list of audio clips into something an Agent can actually read and use under call pressure. Without types, a board with thirty clips would be thirty identical-looking buttons; with them, you get labelled sections, deliberate spacing, and clear play buttons that an agent can scan in a glance while they keep talking to the customer.

The four Type values

There are four choices. A button is a clickable entry that plays a sound when the agent clicks it; this is the workhorse type and what most rows will be. A header is not clickable and only shows the entry's NAME, rendered as white text on a black background, so it stands out clearly as a section label rather than something an agent might click by accident. A space leaves a blank spacer with no text, useful for putting breathing room between groups so the board does not read as one dense block. The fourth option, -head2r-, is a header that extends into the second row of columns below it, so a single label can span across a two-row column section instead of just sitting above one row. That last one only makes sense on a columns-style board, since a top-down board has no second column row for it to extend into.

Only the button type plays audio, so it is the only one tied to an Audio Filename that has to exist in the Audio Store. Headers and spaces are pure presentation and need no audio file at all, which is why you can drop them in freely to shape the board. A header still uses its Audio Name to supply the label text it displays, so even a non-clickable row needs a sensible name. If you want the full tour of every soundboard field around Type, the agent screen configuration guide lays out the whole screen.

How a Type value renders

flowchart TD
  A[Soundboard entry] --> B{Type value}
  B -->|button| C[Clickable plays the audio file]
  B -->|header| D[Not clickable shows NAME white on black]
  B -->|space| E[Blank spacer no text]
  B -->|head2r| F[Header that spans into the second column row]

The diagram maps each Type to what the agent sees. Notice that -head2r- is the only header variant aware of columns, which is why it matters most when you run a multi-column board.

Putting the types to work

A clean board usually opens each section with a header, fills it with buttons, and drops a space before the next section so groups read as distinct blocks. Reserve -head2r- for column layouts where you want one label sitting above a two-row block of buttons. The header text comes from the Audio Name, so write short, scannable labels that an agent can read at a glance rather than long sentences. These types interact heavily with how the board is arranged overall, because a header is only useful if the buttons it introduces actually fall beneath it, so it helps to read soundboard layout options alongside this. Build the board inside an Agent script so it appears in the agent screen where your reps expect it, and click through every button type in a test session before you let live calls hit it.

Want a soundboard that is organized and tested before your agents ever touch it? See VICIfast pricing for a managed VICIdial that comes ready to configure.