Inbound: ingroups, DIDs, and call menus

When someone calls your number, three pieces decide what happens next: the DID (the phone number itself), an optional call menu (the "press 1 for sales" recording), and the in-group (the queue your agents staff). All three live on the Inbounds tab of your server. This guide builds the whole chain, click by click. About ten minutes.

Open the Inbounds tab

1. Click Servers in the left sidebar.
2. Click your server’s name in the list.
3. A row of tabs appears under "VICIdial Management & Reporting". Click Inbounds.

Four pills sit at the top: In-groups (queues that receive calls), DIDs (your inbound phone numbers), Call Menus (IVRs), and Filter Phone Groups (caller-ID blocklists). Each pill has its own table with a search box, a CSV export, and a New button on the right.

Step 1 — Create an in-group (the queue)

An in-group is a queue. Calls wait in it until an agent who is a member picks up.

1. On the In-groups pill, click + New in-group, top-right of the table.
2. In Group ID, type a short code like SALES_QUEUE. Two to twenty characters: A–Z, 0–9 and underscore. It is permanent — you can rename the display name later, never the ID.
3. In Display name, type what agents should see, like "Sales Queue".
4. Click Create in-group. The queue is created with sensible defaults (priority 50, longest-wait routing, 60-second drop service level) and its settings panel opens.

The settings panel slides in from the right with tabs down the left. The ones you will actually use: Basic Details (name, color, queue priority, and Next agent call — who gets the next call when several agents are free), Agents (who staffs the queue), Routing & Hold (how long callers wait and what happens when nobody answers), and Recording & After-hours (recording mode and where calls go outside your hours). Change any field and a Save button appears in the top bar — nothing is written until you click it.

Put agents in the queue

1. Click the in-group’s ID in the table (the underlined code) to open its panel.
2. Click Agents in the left rail.
3. Click + Add agent. Type the agent’s VICIdial username in the first box.
4. The four small boxes are rank (who gets called first), weight (relative share of calls), grade (skill tier), and a daily call cap — the default -1 means no cap. For a first setup, leave them as they are.
5. Click Save agents. Repeat for every agent who should answer this queue.

An agent can belong to several in-groups at once — rank decides which queue wins when two are waiting. The green switch in the table pauses the whole queue: callers stop entering it, but your settings stay put.

Step 2 — Add a DID (the phone number)

A DID is the inbound number callers dial. Each one routes to exactly one destination.

1. Click the DIDs pill.
2. Click + New DID, top-right.
3. In Phone number, type the number exactly as your carrier sends it — usually with the country code, like 18005551234. Digits only, four to thirty characters (it also accepts *, # and +).
4. In Description, type something you will recognize, like "Main support line".
5. Under Route to, pick where calls go: In-group (queue), Call menu (IVR), Extension, Specific agent, External phone, or Voicemail. For a first setup, pick In-group (queue).
6. Click Create DID. The number’s settings panel opens.

To finish the wiring, click the number in the table, then click Routing in the left rail. The Route to dropdown is here too, and the fields below it change with your choice — pick In-group and an In-group dropdown appears where you choose the queue from step 1. Voicemail (no greeting) is an extra route that only exists in this panel, not in the create dialog. Remember to click Save in the top bar after changing anything.

Two more tabs worth knowing on the DID panel. Filters checks the caller’s number the moment a call lands and diverts matches — to a hang-up, another in-group, a call menu, or an extension (this is where Filter Phone Groups plug in, see below). Repeat callers diverts people who already called in (or were called) within a number of days you set — handy for stopping serial callers from jumping the queue. Nothing there applies until you click Apply.

Step 3 — Build a call menu (the IVR)

A call menu plays a greeting and routes on the digit the caller presses. Point a DID at it (Route to → Call menu (IVR)) and it answers instead of a queue.

1. Click the Call Menus pill.
2. Click + New menu, top-right.
3. In Menu ID, type a code like MAIN_IVR (2–50 characters, A–Z, 0–9, underscore — permanent). In Display name, type "Main IVR".
4. Click Create menu. An empty IVR is created and its panel opens.
5. On Basic Details, pick a Greeting prompt — the recording callers hear, like "press 1 for support, 2 for sales". Prompts come from your audio store, so upload the recording on the Audios tab first if you have not yet. Set Timeout (seconds) — how long the menu waits for a key press — and optionally a Timeout prompt and an Invalid prompt. Click Save.

Now the part that makes it an IVR — the Options (IVR keys) tab. Each row binds one key to a destination:

1. Click Options (IVR keys) in the left rail.
2. Click + Add option.
3. In the first box, type the digit: 1–9, 0, * or #. The special values TIMEOUT (caller pressed nothing) and INVALID (caller pressed an undefined key) also work.
4. In the dropdown, pick the destination: In-group, Nested call menu (another IVR), Extension, Voicemail, DID, AGI script, or Hangup.
5. In Route value, type the target — for In-group, the queue’s ID like SALES_IN. Add a Description so future-you remembers what the key does.
6. Click Save options. Options have their own save button, separate from the one in the top bar.

Call menus have no on/off switch — a menu answers as soon as a DID routes to it. The trash icon on the menu’s row deletes it for real (owner accounts only, with a confirmation). The Time check tab can send out-of-hours callers to the timeout prompt instead of offering the menu.

Step 4 — Block nuisance callers (Filter Phone Groups)

A filter phone group is a named list of caller-ID numbers. Point a DID’s filter at one and matching callers are diverted before they ever reach your agents.

1. Click the Filter Phone Groups pill.
2. Click + New group. Give it an ID (2–20 characters, permanent) and a name, then click Create.
3. The group’s panel opens. Paste numbers into the Add numbers box — one per line or comma-separated, formatting is cleaned automatically — and click Add. Or click Upload CSV / TXT to load a file.
4. Click the DIDs pill, open your number, and go to the Filters tab.
5. Under Filter inbound calls, pick Block-list — filter phone group(s), choose your group, and set When a match is found (a polite hang-up is the default). Click Save.

Useful extras on the Filter Phone Groups pill: Look up a number finds which groups contain a number (and can remove it from all of them at once), and inside a group the Empty and Download buttons clear or export its numbers.

Good to know

• Saves write straight to your server and take effect immediately. The tables re-sync from the box about every 30 seconds, so a fresh change can take half a minute to appear in the list — or click Refresh to see it now.
• The Delete button on in-groups and DIDs does not erase anything — it pauses them (same as flipping the switch off). Call menus are the opposite: deleting one is real and permanent.
• Group IDs, menu IDs, filter-group IDs and DID numbers are forever. Display names and descriptions can change any time, so put the effort there.
• Type the DID exactly as your carrier delivers it. If calls land but never route, a missing country code in the pattern is the usual suspect — check with your trunk provider what format they send.
• An active queue with no agents staffed does not answer: callers hit the no-agent flow or the drop action after the queue’s drop seconds. Paused agents count as not staffed.
• IVR greetings must exist in your audio store before you can pick them — upload recordings on the Audios tab first.
• A route called Campaign exists in VICIdial (it shows up in the DIDs route filter) but cannot be set from this screen — use the campaign’s own inbound settings or ask support.
• The screenshots use our demo server’s fictional 555-01XX numbers and queues. Your server shows your own numbers, groups and agents.