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Introduction

VICIdial is an enterprise class, open source, freely available call center suite. VICIdial can dial predictively and can also function as an automated call distributor for inbound calls, as well as blending inbound and outbound calling, or for Closer/Verifier calls coming from VICIdial fronters and even allows for remote agents that may only have a phone. VICIdial is maintained by the VICIdial Group, the commercial arm of the VICIDial project, headed up by the original author and primary maintainer, Matt Florell. All VICIdial software elements are distributed freely through the AGPLv2 with no warranty.

History

The project that ultimately gave birth to the VICIdial suite was originally called the astGUIclient project. Development of the astGUIclient project was started by Matt Florell in 2003. The astGUIclient application was created to allow for the more advanced features of Asterisk to be used by anyone using even a single-line SIP phone.

VICIdial was just one part of the project added later that offered click-to-dial from a list of leads only, and was originally added for a company called Vici Marketing. As soon as the VICIdial part was added to the astGUIclient, the number of people using astGUIclient jumped. VICIdial continued to grow slowly until 2007 when the project gained enough momentum to support full time development. In 2008 Matt Florell joined forces with other VICIdial consultants in the field, namely, James Pearson and Michael Cargile, and the commercial arm of the project was born, the VICIdial Group. The VICIdial Group is the primary maintainer of the astGUIclient/VICIdial project and is based in St. Petersburg, Florida, USA.

The Anatomy of VICIdial

VICIdial is an amalgamation of services and scripts that run on the Linux platform. The system comprises of a stable linux operating system, database server, web sever and IP PBX, all held together and controlled by Perl scripts. The call center suite has successfully been installed on various flavours of Linux but currently OpenSUSE 12.3 is the official supported operating system.

VICIdial relies heavily on real time access to data. MySQL 5.5 functions as the brain at the core of the system storing everything from static system setting to real time call centre data and system information. One of the main advantages of Vicidial is that the management and agent interfaces are web based, thus no dialer software need be installed on any computers within the call center. With the addition of a web based IP phone, such as Zoiper, only a browser is needed by the agent to utilise the entire system. Asterisk IP PBX brings the customer voice and the customer data together. The current release of VICIbox ships with Asterisk v.1.8.23.0-vici. VICIdial employs the Asterisk conferencing facilities to put customers and agents in contact with each other. Agents are logged in to the conference permanently, while customers are bridged in and bridged out of the conference as required by the call center campaign logic.

Agent Interface

The VICIdial agent screen is an interactive web page that allows the agent to interface with the VICIdial system during the process of a call. The agent may among other things, add or modify information customer lead information, conference in other parties, transfer the call, record the call on demand and many other functions necessary in a call center.

Dialler Administration

The VICIdial manager interface is a web based user interface that allows the dialler administrator to add, modify or deletes users, campaigns, lists, inbound groups(or queues), direct indial destinations(DID's), call menus a.k.a. IVR's, add voice mail boxes, configure phones and manage the music-on-hold and audio prompts in the system. Concerning dialing campaigns, the administrator can also control the call pacing and other campaign settings while a campaign is running in the call center. A manager can look at performance reports, modify individual customer lead information, listen in on agent phone calls and do many other functions that are needed to run a call center effectively.

International Support

The VICIdial agent interface has been translated into Spanish, Greek, German, French, Italian, Polish, Portuguese, Swedish, Slovak, Russian, Dutch, Traditional Chinese, and Brazillian Portuguese. The VICIdial admin interface has been translated into Spanish, French, Greek, German, Italian, and Brazillian Portuguese.