Conference calls

The IFI Voice-over-IP instrastructure provides a web-based conferencing solution. You may setup a conference by following these steps:

Point your webbrowser to the URL https://voip-internal.ifi.uzh.ch if you are connected inside the university or https://voip-external.ifi.uzh.ch if you are connected via VPN. Then click the “Conferencing” link.

You will be presented with the “Web-MeetMe” page.

Click “Add Conference” on the left side.

Login using the e-mail address configured as SIP Alias which normally corresponds to your IFI e-mail address. The password corresponds to your primary password. Both parameters can be found in the welcome e-mail / paper you received.

Now you may setup your conference. The most important parameters here are “Conference Number”, “User PIN”, “Start Time” and “Duration”. You may keep the conference number at the random value already provided. The PIN is an additional secret that callers must know to participate in the conference. Choose when the conference should start and how long it will take. It is a good idea to enter a longer duration than expected as the conference may otherwise be unexpectedly shut down when this time is exceeded.

If you define a “Moderator PIN”, you may use this PIN instead of the user PIN to participate in the conference. You then have more options available, like being able to kick participants from the conference and setting the volume. These moderator options are available by pressing the *-key on your telephone during the conference.

By clicking “Invite to conference” one or several times, you may enter the names, e-mail addresses and phone numbers of users you want to invite to this conference.

By clicking “Add Conference”, the conference is created. A preview of the intivation e-mail will be displayed which you may change if needed.

By clicking “E-Mail Participants”, all participants entered will receive an inivation e-mail. An invitation looks similar to this:

Peter Meier has invited you to the following conference call:

Conference Name:
Conference Number:  95018
Conference Password:
Start Date and Time:  Thursday Aug 09, 2007 05:36:00 PM End Date and Time:  Thursday Aug 09, 2007 06:36:00 PM
Participants:  10
--------------------------------------------------
Dial In Info :

You will then prompted for the conference and pin numbers
 
Conference Name:
Conference Owner:         108
Conference ID:            95018
Conference Password:      No password.
Start Date and Time:      Thursday Aug 09, 2007 05:36:00 PM
End Date and Time:        Thursday Aug 09, 2007 06:36:00 PM
Participants:             10
Recurrence Information:   1
--------------------------------------------------
Dial In Info :
+41 44 635 09 90 or via Voice-over-IP sip:50990@ifi.uzh.ch

Access to conferences is available by dialing the 50990 extension from within the university and IFI Voice-over-IP phones or under the external phone number +41 635 09 90. The conference may also be joined by using Voice-over-IP, available by calling sip:50990@ifi.uzh.ch. Callers will be asked for the conference number and the PIN/password, if one is set.

You may now administer your conference. By clicking „Current Conferences“ on the left side, you can get a list of all conferences currently scheduled.

By then clicking on the conference number, you can see who has already dialed in.

The list displays the users that are currently in the conference call together with their caller id, if available. By clicking on [MUTE] a user can be muted (listen only), by clicking [KICK] a user can be kicked from the conference.

The “Extend” button allows you to extend the duration of the conference if it takes longer than expected.
By clicking “End Now” all participants are kicked and the conference is closed.
Clicking the “Invite” button allows you to enter a phone number (numeric only, no SIP URI) of a particpant that may have trouble dialing in. The phone will ring and he will be immediately connected to the conference when it is picked up.