Where you can use a phone-recorded prompt in VICIdial

Recording a prompt by dialing 8168 only gives you a file. The useful part is plugging that file into the spots where VICIdial actually plays audio to a caller. The good news: one phone-recorded prompt can feed quite a few different fields. This post lists where those IDs go so you know what you can do with a recording once you have its number.

The fields that accept a prompt ID

Across the Campaigns and In-Groups screens, several fields take a prompt ID directly. Drop the 85100001-style ID into any of these and the recording plays where that field controls audio:

• Answering Machine Message field on the Campaigns screen — the audio played when the dialer detects an answering machine.
• Safe Harbor Exten on the Campaigns screen — the recorded Safe Harbor message played when no agent is available in time.
• Drop Exten on the In-Groups screen — what an inbound caller hears when the call is dropped.
• The after-hours message for an Ingroup — played when callers reach you outside your hours.
• The agent alert message for an In-Group — the tone or clip that signals an Agent a new call is coming.
• Several places in the Campaign Survey options, for survey-style call flows.

The same ID can also be reused in more than one place at once. If you record a single "thanks for calling, we are closed" clip, nothing stops you from pointing both an after-hours message and a drop field at it. There is no exclusive ownership of a prompt — a file is just sitting on the server, and any field that accepts a prompt ID can reference it. That makes phone recording handy for quick, shared announcements you want consistent across several campaigns.

Because the fields live on different screens, it helps to record first and place second. Make all the clips you need in one 8168 session, jot down each ID, then visit the Campaigns and In-Groups screens and paste the right number into each field. Working that way beats hopping between the phone and the admin interface one prompt at a time.

How one recording reaches a caller

flowchart TD
    A[Record via 8168] --> B[Prompt ID 85100001]
    B --> C{Paste ID into a field}
    C --> D[Answering Machine Message]
    C --> E[Safe Harbor Exten]
    C --> F[In-Group Drop Exten]
    C --> G[After-hours message]
    C --> H[Agent alert message]
    D --> I[Caller hears your audio]
    E --> I
    F --> I
    G --> I

What it is not for

A phone-recorded prompt is a single clip, so it is a poor fit for things that need long, looping, or layered audio. It is not Music on hold — hold music is configured separately and expects a continuous track. It is also not a substitute for a typed-text greeting; if you want the system to speak generated text instead of a recording, that is TTS (text to speech), a different path entirely. And while these prompts can announce things to a caller, they are unrelated to Call recording, which captures the live conversation rather than playing a clip.

For a richer greeting where the audio must be exactly right, record it properly and bring it in as a file — see uploading an audio prompt to VICIdial. For the whole map of every audio surface and where each one applies, read our audio prompts, voicemail, and TTS guide.

VICIfast provisions a fully configured dialer in under 40 seconds, with every one of these fields ready to take a prompt ID the moment you log in. See /pricing for plans.