Lead loader

The lead loader is the VICIdial tool you use to get contact data into the system. You upload a file, usually a CSV or tab-delimited export, and the loader reads each row as one lead and drops it into a lead list you choose. After that, the dialer can start calling those records. It is the front door for almost all of your data, so getting comfortable with it pays off quickly.

The important step is column mapping. Your file has columns like name, phone, and city, and the loader asks you to match each one to a VICIdial database field. Get the phone column right or nothing dials. You can also map extra columns to a custom field or to a vendor lead code so you keep your own tracking values sitting right alongside the standard fields.

Options worth setting

• Turn on duplicate check so the same number does not load twice and get called twice
• Set the gmt offset handling so calls land inside legal hours for each record
• Map a secondary column to an alt phone so you have a backup number to try

After a load, always check the count the loader reports against the number of rows in your file. A big gap usually means rows were rejected for bad phone formatting or skipped by the duplicate check. Do not guess; open the file, fix the bad rows, and reload. Loading clean data once is far less painful than untangling a messy lead list later.

Once data is in, the hopper pulls from the list and your agents start dialing. Plan your list structure and any custom field columns before the first load, because adjusting field layout after thousands of records exist is much more work than doing it up front. A few minutes of mapping discipline at the start saves hours of cleanup later, and it keeps your reports trustworthy because every record shares the same fields. When a load looks wrong, reload it clean rather than patching rows by hand inside the lead list.