When a driver calls in mid-route with a problem, someone has to decide what happens next: answer it, gather the details, or get a human on the phone. Dispatch rules are how you make that decision once instead of every time. Each rule describes a situation and tells Viki exactly what to do when a driver brings it up. You'll find them under Operations → Dispatch, on the Rules tab.
What a rule is
A rule has two halves: when it applies, and what to do about it. The "when" is written in plain language — "Whenever a driver calls in and says they have an issue with accessing a delivery area" — and Viki matches on meaning, not exact wording, so a driver saying "the gate code doesn't work" still lands on your access-code rule. The "what" is your instructions: what to tell the driver, what to ask, whether to collect specific details, and whether the call has to end up with a human.
If nothing matches, Viki doesn't improvise. It searches your company's knowledge base first, and if there's no answer there, it offers to connect the driver with dispatch.
Creating a rule
From the Rules tab, press Create New Rule. The form opens with a General Information card holding four fields:
Rule Name — a short label, like "Issue with Access Code." This is the name you'll see later on interactions and follow-ups, so make it recognizable.
Trigger — the situation that should activate the rule, described the way a driver would describe it.
Instructions — what Viki should do and say. This is the heart of the rule; be as specific as you'd be briefing a new dispatcher.
Additional Information (Optional) — background context Viki can use during the conversation but isn't required to follow step by step.
Below that are the two actions.
Forward to Dispatch means Viki handles the triage first and then transfers the driver to a human as a matter of procedure — it works through your instructions, collects anything you asked for, confirms it back to the driver, and only then hands the call over. Leave it off and Viki resolves the situation itself unless the driver asks for a person.
Create Follow-Up Item for Dispatcher produces a task for your team out of the call. Turn it on and a Data To Collect for Follow-Up Item section appears, where you press Add Field for each piece of information Viki should gather. Every field has a Field Name (for example, "Address where issue occurred") and a Field Type: Text for open-ended answers, Yes/No, Number, or Limited Options, where you type out the exact choices Viki is allowed to accept. Check Allow Multiple Answers if a driver might legitimately give more than one. Field names must be unique, and a follow-up rule needs at least one field before it will save.
Press Add Rule to save — Update Rule when you're editing an existing one. From an existing rule you can also Duplicate Dispatch Rule to start a near-copy, Disable Dispatch Rule to park it, or Delete Dispatch Rule to remove it for good.
Default rules and your own
The rules list mixes two kinds. Rules tagged Default are maintained by VoiceERP and shared across companies — you can open one to read it, but you can't edit or delete it. If a default doesn't suit your operation, use the switch on its row to turn it off for your company, or duplicate it and adjust the copy, which saves as your own. Rules tagged Custom are yours, editable and deletable. A red Follow-Up tag plus a field count tells you at a glance which rules generate work for your dispatchers.
Where rule activity shows up
The History tab on the same page is the record. Six cards across the top summarize the last 30 days — calls, the share Handled by Viki versus Forwarded to Dispatch, Pending Follow-ups, total minutes spoken, and average call duration. Below them, Recent Interactions lists each conversation with the driver's name and, underneath it, which rule handled it (or "General Knowledge,""Company Information," or "Straight to Dispatch" when no rule was involved). A Processing tag means the call just ended and Viki is still writing it up.
Open an interaction to read the summary, jump to the full conversation details, and work any follow-up: the collected fields are laid out as filled-in boxes, and you add a note and press Resolve Task when it's handled — or Reopen Task if it wasn't. Use the Unresolved, Resolved, Forwarded, and Handled by Viki filters, or Select Date Range, to narrow the list.
Those same follow-ups also surface as Dispatch Follow-Up items on the Admin Tasks page, each linking back to the interaction that created it, and they appear in the Viki Activity section of the end-of-day report with the dispatch rule that produced them and whether they're still open.
Dispatch rules govern what happens when drivers reach out to Viki; rostering, Online Drivers, and Route Assistance are covered in their own articles.