Conferencing
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General
The conference account provides access to a voice conference mixer. In order to reduce the accumulating of noise in the conference, it performs simple voice activity detection (VAD) before mixing an audio stream into the conference.
The PBX may have several simultaneous conferences. They may be in different domains, different conference rooms or they may be different scheduled conferences (available since version 2.0.3).
The conference feature of the PBX can not compare to the dedicated conference solutions that support white boarding, video, speaker management and so on. However, you can easily establish conferences with a reasonable number of participants that fulfill the usual requirements in business environments.
To enter a conference, you just have to dial the conference account number. The number is also available from a trunk, and you can go into a conference through the auto attendant.
If you want to bring someone into a conference, you can establish a call to the participant as a regular call and then blind transfer the call into the conference account.
Initiating a ad-hoc conference
There are three modes to initiate an ad-hoc conference:
- If you don’t assign a conference PIN code, you can just ask all participants to dial into the conference extension. While this is very simple, unauthorized users may also dial into the conference. However, for small offices this is a simple solution.
- You may assign a conference PIN, then the caller must first enter the conference PIN. This will keep unauthorized callers outside. However keep in mind that this is providing only weak security, and make sure that you change the PIN from time to time.
- If you want to invite external participants into the conference, you may first call them up and then blind transfer them into the conference. If you are using a PIN, make sure that you tell the guest the code, as he has to enter this code during entering the conference.
Initiating a scheduled conference
In order to schedule a conference, you must log in as user (see Scheduling Conferences).
As administrator, you should choose an understandable the name of the conference mixer (e.g. "Company A conference mixer (2106171234 Ext 654)". This text will be used in conference invitation emails.
When the PBX sends invitations for the conference, it prefers tel: alias names for the conference. If you have a DID number for the conference room, you should definitively include this number in the list of alias names for the account.
Settings
The identity settings are the same as the settings for the extension identity, see Extension Identity.
The available fields depend on the selected mode (see description above). In the ad-hoc mode, the conference account offers a PIN as a simple abuse protection mechanism. The conference name is used to describe the conference.
Dialog Permissions are described in Dialog Permissions.
In the scheduled conference mode, you must enter the number of digits that the PBX will use to generate access codes.
