Stereo Recording Agent Control explained: NEVER to ALLFORCE

Once you turn on Stereo recording for a campaign, VICIdial asks a follow-up question: who decides when stereo recording actually runs — you or the agent? That is exactly what Stereo Recording Agent Control answers.

The four modes at a glance

The field sits inside your Campaign settings, just below the Stereo Call Recordings selector. You will see four options.

• NEVER — stereo recording is disabled at the agent screen regardless of the campaign-level stereo setting.
• ONDEMAND — the agent sees a recording button and can start or stop the stereo recording at any point during the call.
• ALLCALLS — stereo recording starts automatically when a call reaches the agent, and the agent can stop it if needed.
• ALLFORCE — the default. Stereo recording starts automatically and the agent has no option to stop it.

How each mode behaves in practice

NEVER is useful when you enable Stereo Call Recordings at the campaign level only for specific inbound groups but want to suppress it on outbound agents in the same system. The stereo file never gets written.

ONDEMAND mirrors how the base On-demand recording mode works for standard recordings. Agents hit a button to capture the part of the conversation that matters — useful for teams that handle mixed calls where not every exchange needs a separate stereo file.

ALLCALLS gives you automatic capture with an escape hatch. If an agent needs to pause or stop stereo recording — for example, to take a payment on a PCI-sensitive campaign — they can. Pair this with DTMF muting if you need to suppress card digits rather than stop the recording entirely.

ALLFORCE removes agent discretion completely. Every call gets a stereo file from answer to hang-up. This is the VICIdial default because most compliance-driven contact centers want no gaps in the stereo record.

Which mode controls what

flowchart TD
  A[Stereo Call Recordings enabled] --> B{Agent Control mode}
  B -->|NEVER| C[No stereo file written]
  B -->|ONDEMAND| D[Agent starts and stops stereo]
  B -->|ALLCALLS| E[Auto-starts, agent can stop]
  B -->|ALLFORCE| F[Auto-starts, agent cannot stop]

Gotcha: the prerequisite step

**Gotcha:** Stereo Recording Agent Control only does anything when Stereo Call Recordings is set to a value other than DISABLED. If stereo is still DISABLED, this field is ignored entirely — the agent control mode has nothing to control.

Also remember that the Stereo Rec Filename field must be populated before stereo recordings will actually write to disk. A misconfigured filename is the most common reason stereo files go missing even when the mode looks correct.

Picking the right mode for your team

Use ALLFORCE for regulated industries where the stereo track feeds a QA or voice-analytics platform and gaps would create compliance exposure. Use ONDEMAND for internal coaching programs where agents flag calls themselves. Use ALLCALLS when you trust agents to exercise judgment but want a safe default of recording everything.

For a full picture of how stereo fits into VICIdial's recording stack, see VICIdial call recording explained. For the channel modes that control which audio ends up on each side of the stereo file, see VICIdial stereo recording channel modes.

If you are ready to set up a hosted VICIdial environment where stereo recording is enabled from day one, see VICIfast pricing.