Conferencing is the ability to bridge multiple calls together so that all users can listen and talk to one another.
There are 3 main parties involved in a transfer:
- Conference Supervisor: User bridging the parties together.
- Conference Destination: ensures that all users will be bridged back together.
- Conference Target: User the call is bridging in.
As the user goes through the workflow of building an initial conferencing call there are four main steps, but various options available within each of those steps. Below we will walk through the steps of a conference and the options available to the user throughout the call flow.
- User performing the conference initiates a conference.
Note: All the buttons below have tooltips to help the user navigate which buttons perform which function.
- Once the conference has been initiated the User being conferenced will be placed into a conference hold state and the user performing the conference will see various options in terms of selecting the Conference Target. At this stage, the user performing the conference has a number of options available to them.
A: Initiate call to Speed Dial.
B: Initiate call via Dial Pad.
C: Toggle the Dial Pad Menu Closed.
D: Resume User being Conferenced.
While the call is in a Conference Hold state, other users subscribed to that line will not be able to resume the call. Other users will see the remote hold call in a private state in their activity panel.
- Once the call to the Conference Target has been initiated, the user will see the call well go through various states based on whether the call has been answered by the Conference Target yet. Once the user hears ringing and up until the point the call has been answered, the user has the option to:
A: Resume the user being conferenced.
B: Mute the call to the Conference Target.
C: Release the call to Conference Target.
- At the point that the Conference Target answers the call, the user has all options available to them prior to the far end answering the call and now the Dial Pad is available on the Conference Target leg:
A: Merge Conference.
B: Resume the user being conferenced.
C: Dial Pad.
D: Mute the call to Conference Target.
E: Release the call to Conference Target.
Note: Dial pad would be used to send digits over the Conference Target in the event the user needed to navigate a menu in order to reach the far end.
- Once the user has hit the Merge Conference option, the call well will update to show the far end information to be Conference. User will now have all options available to them in the point-to-point call except for the ability to transfer the call. In order to bridge additional parties onto the call the user would start at step one mentioned above and follow the same methodology to add users:
More details on Cloud9 conference workflow can be found in: