VICIdial soundboard layout options explained

The Layout field decides how an agent Soundboard arranges its play buttons inside the agent screen. A soundboard is a panel of clickable audio buttons that lets a human Agent play recorded clips, like legal disclaimers or scripted greetings, on demand during a live call. Get the layout right and agents find the button they need in a second; get it wrong and they hunt through a wall of buttons while the customer waits on the line. Boards can stay tiny, with just a couple of disclaimer buttons, or grow into large control panels with a hundred or more buttons, and Layout is the single field that keeps either extreme usable.

The two layout choices

Layout has exactly two values, and the default is default. The -default- layout builds from the top down, filling the agent script frame one row after another as you add buttons. It is the simplest choice and works well for short boards. The -columns- layout instead arranges buttons into separated columns of buttons, which is what you want once a board grows past a handful of entries and you need to scan it like a menu rather than a long list.

When you choose -columns-, one extra setting comes into play: Columns Limit. This sets the maximum number of columns per row section, so you can keep a wide board readable instead of letting it sprawl across the whole frame. If you leave it unbounded, a long board can spread so wide that agents have to scroll sideways, which defeats the point. The board still lives inside an Agent script that you embed, so its overall width is bounded by the script frame you give it, and the columns flow within that boundary. The -default- layout, by contrast, ignores Columns Limit entirely because it never splits into separate columns in the first place; it just keeps stacking rows downward until it runs out of entries. For the bigger picture of how these screen pieces fit together, see the agent screen configuration guide.

agent screen configuration guide covers the surrounding fields if you are setting up a board for the first time.

How the layout decision flows

flowchart TD
  A[Set Layout field] --> B{Which value}
  B -->|default| C[Build top down filling the script frame]
  B -->|columns| D[Arrange buttons into separated columns]
  D --> E[Apply Columns Limit for max columns per row]
  C --> F[Agent sees the board in the script frame]
  E --> F

The diagram shows the single decision the Layout field makes. Pick default and buttons stack top to bottom. Pick columns and the same buttons get grouped into columns, with Columns Limit capping how many sit side by side in each row section.

When to use each one

Use -default- for small boards: a few legal disclaimers, a couple of greetings, done. The top-down flow means the first entry you rank sits at the top and everything else falls in underneath, which is exactly what a short list wants. Use -columns- when you have many buttons or want to group them visually, for example one column of openers and another of objection rebuttals, with a Columns Limit that keeps the rows from growing too wide. Columns shine for the busy boards that can replace much of what an agent would otherwise say out loud. Layout pairs closely with the button order fields, so once you settle on columns you will want to read about how the layout actually places each entry over in soundboard Rank and Horz. The two settings work together: Layout sets the overall shape, and Rank and Horz place each button within that shape. Whichever you choose, remember the board has to render inside the script frame the Agent is already looking at, so test it at the width your agents actually use rather than on a wide admin monitor.

If you would rather have the soundboard, scripting, and agent screen tuned for you on a managed, ready-to-run dialer, take a look at VICIfast pricing and skip the layout trial and error.