Filter

A filter is a rule that tells VICIdial which leads to dial and which to leave alone. You attach it to a campaign, and from then on only the records that match the rule get fed to your agents. Everything else just sits in the list, untouched.

The reason filters exist is that one list almost never matches one job. You might load 50,000 leads but only want to call Texas today, or only people you've never reached, or only records added in the last week. Instead of splitting the data into separate lists, you write a filter once and let it carve out the slice you want.

Under the hood a filter is a short SQL-style condition against the lead fields — things like state, call count, time zone, or a custom column. That sounds technical, but in practice you copy a working example and change one value. Common filters look like:

• Only certain states or area codes — useful for matching your caller ID to the region.
• Skip leads you've already called too many times.
• Only fresh leads, or only ones with a specific disposition from before.

A filter is one of three things that decide who actually gets dialed: the filter narrows the list, the hopper holds the next batch of numbers ready to call, and call times make sure you only dial when it's legal in the lead's time zone. Filters are a targeting tool, not a compliance tool — a filter can exclude opted-out numbers, but your dnc list is what you trust to keep them off the phone for good.