Routing a DID or call menu to VICIdial voicemail

Calls do not always arrive when an agent is on shift. After hours, on a holiday, or during an overflow spike, you still want the caller to land somewhere useful instead of a dead ring. Routing the inbound path to a voicemail box solves that: the call drops into a box, the caller leaves contact details, and you follow up later.

There are two places this routing decision usually lives in VICIdial: directly on a DID (direct inward dialing), or inside a Call menu option. Both end at the same destination — a general voicemail box you created for the purpose.

Routing straight from a DID

A DID (direct inward dialing) is an inbound number your Carrier hands to the system. Each DID has a route that decides what happens when a call hits it. Instead of pointing it at an Ingroup of agents, you point it at the voicemail box. Every call to that number now records a message — useful for a number you publish only for callbacks, or one that runs unattended. This is the simplest of the two patterns: there is no menu, no keypress, just a number that always goes to the same box, which is exactly what you want for a dedicated callback line.

Before you can target a box, the box has to exist with a valid ID and password. If you have not built it yet, the add a voicemail box steps come first.

Routing from a call menu option

A Call menu is the press-1-for-sales IVR (interactive voice response) tree callers hear. Each menu option maps a DTMF keypress to an action, and one of those actions can be a voicemail box. This is the cleaner pattern when one number serves several purposes — sales rings agents during the day, while a leave-a-message option always drops into a box.

flowchart TD
  A["Inbound call"] --> B{"Within agent hours?"}
  B -->|Yes| C["Call Menu plays options"]
  B -->|No| D["Route direct to voicemail"]
  C --> E{"Caller presses key"}
  E -->|Sales| F["Ingroup of agents"]
  E -->|Leave message| D
  D --> G["Voicemail box records"]
  G --> H["New message waiting"]

A common after-hours design ties the two together: a time check on the menu sends every call straight to the box outside working hours, and offers the live options only during the day. The greeting on the box can be a recorded message from the audio store that states your hours, so callers know when to expect a call back. Done well, a caller at 9 p.m. never hears a dead line or an empty queue — they hear your hours and leave a number, and the team picks it up first thing in the morning.

What to watch for

• The target box must be active — an inactive box refuses messages, so the caller hits a dead end.
• Make sure the box is being cleared; a drop box nobody empties is just a black hole.
• Turn on email or the summary display so new messages are actually visible.

This pattern is closely tied to the plain message-drop setup — see using a voicemail box as a message drop for how the box itself is built, and the audio prompts and voicemail guide for how greetings and TTS (text to speech) prompts fit alongside it.

After-hours coverage is one of those things that should just work from day one. On a fresh VICIdial server with DIDs, call menus, and voicemail already wired, you can have it running in under 40 seconds — see pricing.