What a Group Alias lets agents pick for manual-call caller ID

Letting the agent choose the number

A Group Alias is an optional feature that gives agents a dropdown of outbound caller IDs to pick from when they place a manual call. Each alias holds one caller ID, and you can build several so the agent has a real menu. It also applies to three-way calls, which means the number an agent shows when looping in a third party can be chosen on the spot rather than fixed by the campaign.

This is specifically about Manual dialing (click to dial) and Three-way call scenarios. Auto-dialed calls take their number from the campaign or a CID Group; the Group Alias is the tool for the calls an agent dials by hand.

The fields

• Group Alias ID: 2 to 20 characters, no spaces or special characters. This is the identifier agents see.
• Group Alias Name: 2 to 50 characters, a human-readable description.
• Admin User Group: scopes who can view and manage the record. The default --ALL-- lets any admin see it; set a specific group to keep a team's aliases out of another team's view.
• Caller ID Number: digits only, the number actually sent on the call.
• Caller ID Name: a name to send with the call. Note: in practice this only carries on Canadian PRI circuits; in the US and most of the world the displayed name comes from a separate carrier-side lookup, so do not rely on this field to control how your name appears.

flowchart TD
  A["Agent starts manual or three way call"] --> B{"Group Alias offered?"}
  B -->|No| C["Campaign caller ID used"]
  B -->|Yes| D["Agent picks alias from menu"]
  D --> E["Alias caller ID number sent"]
  E --> F{"On Canadian PRI?"}
  F -->|Yes| G["Alias name travels with call"]
  F -->|No| H["Carrier lookup sets displayed name"]

Why teams use it

Group Aliases are useful when one agent works several brands or regions and needs to present a matching local number when calling out by hand. They are a legitimate, owned-number version of presenting the right CID (caller ID), not Caller ID spoofing with someone else's identity. Because each alias is scoped by User group, you can give the East team one set of numbers and the West team another, and neither sees the other's options. Pair that with manual-call permissions so only the agents who should be hand-dialing have the menu at all.

Picture an agent who handles two product lines that each have their own published phone number. When that agent calls a customer back by hand, the customer should see the number tied to the product they bought, not a generic main line. With two aliases in place, the agent picks the right one from the dropdown at dial time and the call goes out with the matching caller ID. The same applies on a three-way call, where the agent is bridging a customer to a specialist and wants the outbound leg to present a sensible, recognizable number rather than whatever the campaign happens to use. None of this changes the carrier or the routing underneath; the alias only decides which of your owned numbers is sent.

Keep the alias list short and meaningful. A menu with twenty near-identical numbers slows agents down and invites mistakes, while a tight set of two or three clearly named options gets picked correctly every time. Name each alias for the brand or region it represents, not for the digits, so the agent reads a label and not a phone number under call pressure.

Scoping aliases by user group is the same multi-team thinking that runs through the rest of your setup. The VICIdial users and groups multi-team guide shows how user groups gate everything from campaigns to caller IDs.

A Group Alias only matters for agents who are allowed to place manual calls in the first place. See how the agent manual-call permission works to decide who gets the menu.

Want caller IDs, aliases, and carriers set up for you? Launch a VICIfast dialer and be live in under 40 seconds.