A VICIdial remote agent is an agent entry without an agent screen. When VICIdial routes a call to it, the call is forwarded to the phone number or extension you set, and one entry can take several lines at once. VoiceOI bots run as remote agents, so an AI voice bot can take calls from your existing VICIdial campaigns while VICIdial keeps your lists, campaigns and reports.
Last reviewed by the VoiceOI team
A remote agent is a VICIdial agent entry without an agent screen. When VICIdial routes a call to it, the call is forwarded to the phone number or extension in the entry. One entry can take several lines at once, set by its Number of Lines.
VICIdial's install notes describe the original purpose: giving agents "a way to receive calls to whatever number they happen to be at". That is also how an AI voice bot can take calls from an existing VICIdial campaign, with no person at a screen.
VoiceOI bots run as VICIdial remote agents. VICIdial keeps your lists, campaigns and reports, the bot runs the conversation, and each outcome is written back as a disposition. The VoiceOI team does the integration steps and creates the VICIdial users and phones.
Quoted from VICIdial's own admin help, so you can check them against the version you run. The help also covers options for routing inbound calls to remote agents. They are left out here because VoiceOI is built for outbound campaigns and does not answer inbound calls or act as a receptionist.
| Field | What VICIdial's help says |
|---|---|
| User ID Start | "This is the starting User ID that is used when the remote agent entries are inserted into the system. This MUST be a valid User account in the system. If the Number of Lines is set higher than 1, this number is incremented by one until each line has an entry." |
| Number of Lines | "This defines how many remote agent entries the system creates, and determines how many lines it thinks it can safely send to the number below." |
| Server IP | "A remote agent entry is only good for one specific server, here is where you select which server you want." |
| External Extension | "This is the number that you want the calls forwarded to. Make sure that it is a full dial plan number and that if you need a 9 at the beginning you put it in here. Test by dialing this number from a phone on the system." |
| Extension Group | "If set to something other than NONE or empty this will override the External Extension field and use the Extension Group entries that have the same extension group ID." |
| Status | "Here is where you turn the remote agent on and off. As soon as the agent is Active the system assumes that it can send calls to it. It may take up to 30 seconds once you change the status to Inactive to stop receiving calls." |
| Campaign | "Here is where you select the campaign that these remote agents will be logged into." |
Source: VICIdial admin help text, official nightly trunk of September 30, 2026, read October 1, 2026. Field wording can change between versions.
The steps the admin help implies, in order. With VoiceOI bots the VoiceOI team does these steps for you.
The agent API has a function called ra_call_control, described as "remote agent call control: hangup/transfer calls being handled by remote agents, also options for logging a disposition and call length." It takes one of three stages: HANGUP, EXTENSIONTRANSFER (to a full number) or INGROUPTRANSFER (to an in-group). The optional status it logs is a maximum of six characters, and defaults to RAXFER if none is set (AGENT_API.txt).
The non-agent API has update_remote_agent, which can set a remote agent to ACTIVE or INACTIVE, change its campaign and change its number of lines. The API user needs a user level of 8 or higher and the "modify remote agents" permission (NON-AGENT_API.txt).
These are VICIdial's own interfaces. How VoiceOI hands a qualified call to your closers is covered on the live transfer page, and VoiceOI does not publish an API of its own.
The install notes say: "Remote Agents is only recommended for inbound calls because of the extra time needed to dial a number out to transfer the call to" (BASE_INSTALL.txt). That text was written for version 2.2.0 in January 2010, when remote agents were described as a way for agents to receive calls at whatever number they happened to be at.
Today, bots on VoiceOI take outbound campaign calls this way. The step the note describes is real, so its cost depends on your carrier, your route and your campaign. Test it on a small campaign before you scale, and keep an eye on how quickly bots pick up after the person answers.
A VoiceOI bot appears in VICIdial as a remote agent, and many bots can be provisioned in bulk. Your lists, campaigns and reports stay in VICIdial. Each bot holds one call at a time, runs the conversation from the script you built in the no-code builder, ends the call if answering machine detection hears a machine, and writes the outcome back as a disposition. Qualified calls are handed to your closers over SIP with AI-written notes (AI live transfer).
The VoiceOI team does the integration steps with you and creates the VICIdial users and phones. Pricing is prepaid per bot with no per-minute AI fee, and your carrier bills the minutes. For the full setup and tiers, see the VICIdial AI integration guide and the VICIdial AI voice bot page. If you are comparing VICIdial with other systems first, start with the open-source dialer comparison.
VoiceOI does not publish a list of supported VICIdial versions. This guide was checked against VICIdial's official documentation, so tell us which version you run before you plan a rollout.
Every quotation above comes from one of these official VICIdial documents.
Short answers on remote agent fields, limits and AI bots.
A remote agent is an agent entry that has no agent screen. VICIdial forwards the calls it routes to that entry to a phone number or extension you set, and one entry can take several lines at once. Its admin help calls the External Extension field "the number that you want the calls forwarded to".
The Number of Lines field "defines how many remote agent entries the system creates, and determines how many lines it thinks it can safely send to the number below". VoiceOI bots each hold one call at a time, so the number of bots is the number of simultaneous calls.
Yes. VoiceOI bots appear in VICIdial as remote agents, provisioned in bulk, and each call outcome is written back to VICIdial as a disposition. VICIdial keeps your lists, campaigns and reports.
VICIdial's own install notes, written for version 2.2.0 in January 2010, say remote agents are "only recommended for inbound calls because of the extra time needed to dial a number out to transfer the call to". VoiceOI runs bots on outbound campaigns this way. Whether the extra step matters depends on your carrier and route, so test a small campaign before you scale.
Set its Status to Inactive. VICIdial's help says it may take up to 30 seconds before the entry stops receiving calls. The non-agent API also has an update_remote_agent function that sets status to ACTIVE or INACTIVE.
No. VICIdial keeps dialing your lists and holding your campaign settings. VoiceOI adds bots that take the calls as remote agents, and the VoiceOI team does the integration steps, including creating the VICIdial users and phones.