Configuring Virtual Auditoriums

A Virtual Auditoriums is a virtual meeting space that is optimized for use by a small number of Hosts and a large number of Guests. It can host any number of people from any type of device. Each Virtual Auditorium has one or more aliases associated with it, and participants access the conference by dialing one of these aliases. You use of PINs to assign differing Host and Guest privileges to conference participants (see About PINs, Hosts and Guests). Access to Virtual Auditoriums can be controlled by PINs or by authentication using SSO — or both.

To create a new Virtual Auditorium, go to Services > Virtual Auditoriums and select Add Virtual Auditorium.

To edit an existing Virtual Auditorium, or to view its details (including all the aliases associated with it), go to Services > Virtual Auditoriums and click on the name of the Virtual Auditorium.

You cannot convert an existing Virtual Meeting Room into a Virtual Auditorium. Instead, you must create a new Virtual Auditorium and reassign the existing aliases to it. For more information, see Changing from a Virtual Meeting Room to a Virtual Auditorium and vice versa.

Any changes you make to Virtual Auditorium configuration will be replicated to all Conferencing Nodes within around 90 seconds and will be applied to any subsequent conferences in that Virtual Auditorium. If there are any conferences already in place that use the Virtual Auditorium, any attempts to join it after the configuration has been replicated may be affected by the new configuration settings. For this reason, we do not recommend changing Virtual Auditorium configuration while a conference is in progress because this will lead to an inconsistent user experience.

When adding or editing Virtual Auditoriums, the options are:

Option Description
Name

The name used to refer to this Virtual Auditorium.

If you can access this Virtual Auditorium via a Virtual Reception then the Virtual Auditorium Name entered here is shown to conference participants as they are transferred into the Virtual Auditorium (it is overlaid onto the virtual_reception_connecting splash screen of the theme associated with the Virtual Reception that is transferring the call).

Description A description of the Virtual Auditorium.
Creation time This read-only field shows the date and time when this record was first configured.
Host view

The maximum number of other participants that Hosts will see, and the layout used to show them. For more information, see Conference layouts and speaker names.

Default: Large main speaker and up to 7 other participants (1+7 layout).

Guest view

The maximum number of Host participants that each Guest will see, and the layout used to show them. For more information, see Conference layouts and speaker names.

Default: Large Host speaker and up to 7 other Hosts (1+7 layout).

Show names of participants

If participant name overlays are enabled, the display names or aliases of all participants are shown in a text overlay along the bottom of their video image. For more information, see Showing the names of active speakers and participants.

Default: No.

Mute all Guests

When enabled, Guest participants will be muted when they first join the conference. After the conference has started, Hosts can use the Connect app to unmute Guests, either individually or as a group.

Default: No.

Lock presenter as main speaker

When a presentation is being shown, whether the main speaker position shows the presenter or the current speaker. For more information, see Conference layouts and speaker names.

Yes: When a presentation is being shown, the main speaker position will always show the video image from the endpoint that is showing the presentation, even if others are speaking.

No: When a presentation is being shown the main speaker position will be voice-switched as usual.

Default: No.

Theme

The theme for use with this Virtual Auditorium. For more information, see Customizing conference images and voice prompts using themes.

Default: <use Default theme> (the global default theme is used).

Participant authentication
Host PIN
This optional field allows you to set a secure access code that must be entered by participants before they can access the service.

If Allow Guests is set to Yes, then the Host PIN applies to the conference Host(s) only.

For more information, see About PINs, Hosts and Guests.

  • PINs must use the digits 0-9 only.
  • PINs may optionally end with #.
  • PINs must be between 4–20 digits long, including any #.
Allow Guests

Yes: the conference can have two types of participants: Hosts and Guests. You must configure a Host PIN to be used by the Hosts. You can optionally configure a Guest PIN; if you do not configure a Guest PIN, Guests can join without a PIN, but the meeting will not start until the first Host has joined.

No: all participants have Host privileges.

Default: No.

Guest PIN

This optional field allows you to set a secure access code that must be entered by Guests before they can use the service.

For more information, see About PINs, Hosts and Guests.

  • Host PINs and Guest PINs must be different.
  • PINs must use the digits 0-9 only.
  • PINs may optionally end with #.
  • PINs must be between 4–20 digits long, including any #.
  • If the Host PIN ends in # and a Guest PIN is used, the Guest PIN must also end with #.
  • If # is not used, Host PINs and Guest PINs must have the same number of digits.
  • You cannot configure a Guest PIN unless you have already configured a Host PIN.
Host Identity Provider Group

The set of Identity Providers to be offered to Hosts to authenticate with, in order to use the service. If this is blank, Hosts are not required to authenticate.

For more information, see see About participant authentication.

Default: none selected

Guest Identity Provider Group

The set of Identity Providers to be offered to Guests to authenticate with, in order to use the service. If this is blank, Guests are not required to authenticate.

For more information, see About participant authentication.

Default: none selected

Other participants

(Available when an Identity Provider Group has been selected)

Determines whether participants joining a SSO-protected service from devices other than the Connect web app (for example SIP or H.323 endpoints) are allowed to dial in to the service.

  • Disallow all: these devices are placed in a waiting room where they must wait to be admitted by a Host.
  • Allow if trusted: these devices may join the service if they are locally registered. They must still enter a Host PIN or Guest PIN if either is required. All other devices are placed in a waiting room where they must wait to be admitted by a Host.

For more information, see About participant authentication.

Default: Disallow all

Advanced options
Breakout Rooms *

Allows this Virtual Auditorium to send its participants into different breakout rooms.

This is a technology preview feature and is enabled via Platform > Global settings > Tech preview features > Enable Breakout Rooms, and then on a per VMR / Virtual Auditorium basis.

See Breakout rooms for more information.

Automatically dialed participants

When a conference begins in this Virtual Auditorium, a call will be placed automatically to any participants selected here. To add an Automatically Dialed Participant that is not already on the list, select the icon to the right of the selection fields.

For more information, see Automatically dialing out to a participant from a conference.

Guests can present

Controls whether the Guests in the conference are allowed to present content.

  • Yes: Guests and Hosts can present into the conference
  • No: only Hosts can present

Default: Yes

Guests can see other guests

Controls whether Guests see other Guests when the last Host leaves the conference.

  • Yes: Guests will see other Guests when the last Host leaves.
  • No: Guests see a "Welcome to the lobby" splash screen (the theme screen key is inlobby).

Note that:

  • This does not effect the behavior at the start of a meeting — Guests always still see the "Waiting for the host" screen.
  • The Guests-only timeout setting still applies and will end the meeting for everybody after the configured timeout period.
  • However, if Guests are sent to a breakout room and there are no Hosts present in the breakout room then it does apply immediately — Guests are shown the "Welcome to the lobby" splash screen until a Host joins the breakout room, and Guests will only see Hosts (as usual for a Virtual Auditorium).

Default: Yes

Enable chat

Whether chat messaging is enabled for the conference:

Default: Use global chat setting.

Maximum inbound call bandwidth (kbps) Enter a value in this field to limit the bandwidth of media being received by Pexip Infinity from each individual participant dialed in to this Virtual Auditorium. For more information see Managing and restricting call bandwidth.
Maximum outbound call bandwidth (kbps) Enter a value in this field to limit the bandwidth of media being sent from Pexip Infinity to each individual participant dialed in to this Virtual Auditorium. For more information see Managing and restricting call bandwidth.
Conference capabilities

Allows you to limit the media content of the conference. For more information, see Controlling media capability.

Default: Main video + presentation.

Maximum call quality

Controls the maximum call quality for participants connecting to this service:

  • Use global setting: use the global maximum call quality setting.
  • SD: each participant is limited to SD quality.
  • HD: each participant is limited to HD (720p) quality.
  • Full HD (1080p): allows any endpoint capable of Full HD to send and receive its main video at 1080p.

Default: Use global setting

See Setting and limiting call quality for more information.

Media encryption

Controls the media encryption requirements for participants connecting to this service.

  • Use global setting: use the global media encryption setting.
  • Best effort: each participant will use media encryption if their device supports it, otherwise the connection will be unencrypted.
  • Required: all participants (including RTMP participants) must use media encryption.
  • No encryption: all H.323, SIP and MS-SIP participants must use unencrypted media. (RTMP participants will use encryption if their device supports it, otherwise the connection will be unencrypted.)

Default: Use global setting

Participant limit This optional field allows you to limit the number of participants allowed to join this Virtual Auditorium. For more information see Limiting the number of participants.
Service tag This optional field lets you assign a unique identifier to this service, which you can then use to track use of the service.
Live Captions

When enabled, participants using the Connect web app are given the option to turn on the live captions for conferences using this service.

  • Use global live captions setting: as per global configuration setting.
  • Yes: live captions may be enabled.
  • No: live captions cannot be enabled.

Default: Use global live captions setting

This is a technology preview feature and can be enabled via Platform > Global settings > Tech preview features > Live captions, and then on a per VMR or per Call Routing Rule basis. See Global Settings for more information.

Aliases
Alias: #1
Alias

The alias that, when received by Pexip Infinity, is used to route the call to this service.

The alias entered here must match the alias as it is received by Pexip Infinity. Wildcards and regular expressions are not supported.

In most cases, the alias received by Pexip Infinity is the same as the alias that the participant used to call the service, but there are some exceptions, described in About aliases and access numbers.

You may also want to define multiple aliases for the same service to ensure that it can be accessed by devices and protocols that enforce specific alias formats — for more information, see Using multiple aliases to access the same service.

Description An optional description of the alias. This is useful if you have more than one alias for a service. Note that this description may be displayed to end users on registered Connect apps who are performing a directory search.
Add another Alias Select this option if you want the Virtual Auditorium to be accessible by more than one alias. For more information, see Using multiple aliases to access the same service.

Changing from a Virtual Meeting Room to a Virtual Auditorium and vice versa

While it is not possible to change an existing Virtual Meeting Room to a Virtual Auditorium (and vice versa), you can change the service to which an alias is routed. For example, if your sales team already have a Virtual Meeting Room with an alias meet.sales@example.com and you want these conferences to take advantage of the features available to a Virtual Auditorium instead, then:

  1. Set up a new Virtual Auditorium (Services > Virtual Auditoriums > Add Virtual Auditorium) with the appropriate configuration, but do not configure any aliases.
  2. Save the new Virtual Auditorium.
  3. Go to the Aliases page (Services > Aliases) and select the alias of the existing Virtual Meeting Room.
  4. From the Service name drop-down list, select the name of the new Virtual Auditorium.
  5. Repeat for all aliases belonging to the existing Virtual Meeting Room.

All calls made to any of the aliases that previously belonged to the Virtual Meeting Room will now be routed to the Virtual Auditorium. The Virtual Meeting Room will still exist, but will not have any aliases, so no calls can be made to it.