Active Account vs Status on a VICIdial phone

A VICIdial phone entry has two separate fields that both sound like on/off switches: Active Account and Status. They are not the same thing, and mixing them up is a common reason a phone does not behave as expected.

Both live on the phone record alongside the login and Phone registration settings, so it is worth knowing which one to check when something is off.

What Active Account controls

Active Account decides whether the phone shows up in the list of selectable phones in the GUI client. It is the simpler of the two: it governs visibility in that picker. Turn it off and the phone drops out of the list an agent or admin chooses from.

What Status controls

Status is the field that actually gates access. Only two values let the GUI clients work at all:

• ACTIVE allows the GUI clients to work.
• ADMIN allows the GUI clients to work and also grants access to the administrative web site.
• Any other status blocks GUI client and admin web access entirely.

Reading the two together

flowchart TD
  A[Phone entry] --> B{Active Account}
  B -- No --> C[Hidden from GUI phone list]
  B -- Yes --> D{Status value}
  D -- ACTIVE --> E[GUI clients work]
  D -- ADMIN --> F[GUI plus admin web access]
  D -- Other --> G[Access blocked]

Think of Active Account as listing and Status as permission. A working phone normally has Active Account on and Status set to ACTIVE, while a phone you also want to reach the admin site uses ADMIN. The two are independent of the Dialplan number and of how the SIP (Session Initiation Protocol) device registers, so a registered phone with the wrong Status still will not let its Agent in.

For where these fields sit in the larger record, see the phones and aliases guide, and for the concept of a phone entry overall read what a phone entry is.

If you would rather not chase two toggles to bring a phone online, VICIfast provisions working phones for you. See pricing.