The VoiceOI built-in dialer: lead lists, carriers, DNC list and limits

Only if the VoiceOI team switched it on. It is not self-serve, and only the organization Admin sees the Dialer sidebar group (Realtime, Missions, Lead Lists, Carriers, Nodes, Bot Fleet, DNC, Filters, AMD Tuning). VICIdial accounts see Remote Agents instead. See Which setup do you have.

1. 1

   Switch it on

   VoiceOI team

   The team enables it, sets up the dialing server and creates your bots.

2. 2

   Connect a carrier

   Both

   You send your provider’s SIP details. See Carriers.

3. 3

   Load a list and create a mission

   You

   See Lead lists and The mission form.

4. 4

   Start the bots, then the mission

   You

   Start the bots on Bot Fleet, then press Start on the mission and watch Realtime.

About once a second, for every running mission, the dialer starts calls for pending leads, up to ready bots times the dial level and designed to stay within the Call Speed (CPS) cap. Asterisk is the phone software on your dialing server, which the Nodes page calls a node.

1. It takes pending leads from the mission’s list, not necessarily in file order, for each ready bot (started, free, on your dialing server). With none, nothing dials.
2. If the DNC list is active for your account, it skips and marks dnc_skipped any lead that matches exactly. Ask the team to confirm it is active.
3. The call goes through the mission’s carrier with the dial prefix in front. A number of 11 digits starting with 1 loses that 1 first; if your carrier needs it, the team sets it in the Dialplan Entry.
4. On answer, Asterisk listens first and ends the call if it is sure the answer is a machine. Otherwise a bot runs your script.
5. When the bot finishes, the lead gets a result and is called again only if you recycle the list. An unanswered, busy, carrier-failed, machine or transferred call may record no result and leave the lead marked as dialing.

Pause stops new calls; calls already ringing or talking continue. A mission whose list has run out calls again once leads are added by an import or a recycle, so press Pause before you load more.

The mission form

A mission is the built-in dialer’s campaign. Dialer > Missions (titled Campaigns) is the dialer’s own screen, separate from the staff-only Campaigns page in the main menu. Choose New Campaign. A card has Start, Pause, Edit, Results (opens Call History, not filtered) and a trash button that deletes the mission, not its list. A new mission is paused.

Open Dialer > Lead Lists, create a list, choose Import Leads on its row, map your columns and press Start Import.

1. 1

   Create the list

   You

   Choose Create New List. Every list is named New Lead List and cannot be renamed, so tell them apart by the ID under the name and Date Created.

2. 2

   Import and map

   You

   Use a .csv, .txt or .tsv file up to 100 MB with column names in row 1. In the Import Leads Wizard, map Phone Number (required) and optionally Country/Area Code, First Name, Last Name and State.

3. 3

   Check the count

   You

   The wizard says Leads imported even when nothing was added. Lead Count and AVAILABLE are totals saved at import that rise again if you import twice, so ask the team to confirm how many leads are ready before you press Start.

Delete a list and its leads with Delete List in the three-dot menu. That can also delete a mission that uses it, so note the mission settings first.

What does Recycle Leads do?

In the three-dot menu, Recycle Leads puts leads that have a recorded result back in the queue, and a running mission calls them again. It skips leads on a call or still marked as dialing, which unanswered, busy, carrier-failed, machine and transferred calls can leave. If calls are missing, ask the team to check the list.

On Dialer > Carriers (titled Carrier Connections). You can use your own SIP carrier, such as a Twilio or Telnyx SIP trunk, if it meets the requirements on the Handbook tab below. Check your carrier’s rules for automated and AI-voice calling. VoiceOI also offers its own carrier service, sold separately from the bots. For the full steps, see Integrations and carriers.

• The team writes the Dialplan Entry with you, so do not paste one from another system. The dial prefix is the text between _ and the first dot: _9. gives 9, but _X. gives a prefix that cannot be dialed, and calls fail.
• Your carrier must accept calls from your dialing servers. Ask the team for the addresses.
• Ask the team to confirm a saved carrier is live. To test, load a list holding only your own number, create a mission and press Start, then Pause after the call.
• Use only caller ID numbers you own or are authorized to use. See Whose caller ID is shown.

Bot Fleet (titled Bot Management) lists your bots, which the team creates for your plan. A bot handles one call at a time. You use Start, Stop, Start Selected and Stop Selected, and the team handles Add Bot, Bulk Create, Edit and the delete buttons. The grey Ready box shows on any bot not on a call, even a stopped one, so read the status beside it.

Nodes (titled Telephony Cluster) lists the dialing servers with Online or Offline, Active Calls, Bot Slots and the last Heartbeat. If a server shows Offline, tell the team. Use Sync Telemetry to refresh the cards, and leave Link Server and delete to the team, because deleting a server link stops all bots on that node.

Open Dialer > DNC (titled DNC (Do Not Call) List) to hold numbers for the built-in dialer to check. Ask the VoiceOI team to confirm the list is active for your account before you rely on it. Only the built-in dialer reads it, and calls that VICIdial places never do. See the DNC list page.

Asterisk listens to an answered call before the bot speaks, and ends it if it is sure the answer is a machine. Otherwise a bot gets it, and the script can still end it with an AM Detect step or a rule in the Machines (Voicemail/Beeps) category on Immediate Hangups, logged as AM. A rule in the DNC Keywords (Profanity/Abuse) category logs DNC. A machine that Asterisk ends first may not be logged as AM or appear in Call Logs, and its lead can stay marked as dialing. Detection is not perfect, so a person can be cut off. See What happens when a bot reaches voicemail.

Dialer > AMD Tuning (titled AMD Engine Tuning) holds account-wide sliders, mostly in milliseconds, such as Initial Silence and Total Analysis Time. The slider that counts words is not applied, and the two notes at the bottom are fixed text, so do not rely on the calibration advice or assume a change applies at once. Config Synced means the setting is saved on your account, so ask the team to confirm it is live. Change one slider at a time by a small step, and compare similar batches of calls.

Dialer > Realtime (titled Live Monitoring, not Live Monitor): pick a running mission under Live Control: Select Campaign to set its Current Dial Level, the box that sets the pace. After a save it shows the mission form’s number again, not the level in use, and leaving the box saves whatever it shows, even if you typed nothing. Dial Level Adjusted is the only confirmation, so ask the team to confirm the level in use.

Call History has no sidebar link. Open it from a mission’s Results button. It opens on Transfers Only, which usually shows nothing, so choose All Call Logs.

• Columns: Date & Time, Customer, Campaign, Status (the lead’s status, such as called, machine or failed), Duration, Recording and Result (the call’s code).
• It shows only the newest 50 calls, with no paging, and search matches the number or name saved with the lead. For older calls, dates or an export, use Call Logs, where only an Admin login can export. Export CSV here does nothing.
• Calls the built-in dialer places can have a recording: Listen plays it, otherwise the column reads No Audio, and nothing is purged automatically. Recording notices and consent stay with you. See Recording and monitoring.