What a Filter Phone Group is

Sometimes you want to treat certain callers differently the moment they reach your number, based purely on who is calling. Maybe your best clients should skip the menu, or a handful of nuisance numbers should be sent somewhere else. VICIdial handles this with a Filter Phone Group, and it is simpler than it sounds.

The short definition

A Filter phone group is just a named list of phone numbers. On its own it does nothing. Its power comes from being attached to a number you own. When an incoming call arrives, VICIdial can compare the caller's number against the list and, if it finds a match, route that call to a special destination instead of the normal one.

The match is made on CID (caller ID), the caller ID delivered with the call. That is the same as the ANI, the automatic number identification your carrier passes along telling you which line is calling. If that number is in the group, the filter fires. The group itself holds nothing but numbers, so there is no per-caller logic to maintain. You add or remove a number and the routing behavior changes the moment the next call from it arrives.

How it connects to your number

A Filter Phone Group only does its job when a DID (direct inward dialing), the number people dial to reach you, is told to use it. On the DID's setup screen there is a filter setting. Set it to use a group, and the system will check incoming caller IDs against that group's list before routing. If a caller matches, the call goes to the filter's chosen location. If not, the call follows the DID's normal route. Because the check happens before the rest of the routing, a matched caller never even hears the menu they would otherwise reach. That is the whole point: certain people get a different path the moment their call lands.

flowchart TD
  A[Call hits DID] --> B{Filter set to group}
  B -->|No| C[Normal DID route]
  B -->|Yes| D[Check caller ID vs group]
  D --> E{Number in group}
  E -->|Yes| F[Filter destination]
  E -->|No| C

What people use it for

Two patterns cover most of the use. The first is VIP routing: put your important callers' numbers in a group and send them straight to a priority Ingroup, skipping the general menu and the wait. Repeat customers notice when they do not have to press three keys to reach a person. The second is blocking: gather numbers you never want to reach an agent and route them to a hangup or a recording, which trims the junk calls that waste agent time. That is different from a formal DNC (do not call) list, which governs who you are allowed to call outbound. A filter group decides what happens to inbound calls, so the two never overlap in practice.

If you are still sorting out how inbound numbers route in general, start with our inbound call handling guide, and brush up on what a VICIdial DID is since the two work hand in hand.

Want a dialer where these inbound tools are already in place? Our managed VICIdial hosting gives you a working box so you can start grouping numbers right away.