Configuring Virtual Meeting Rooms (VMRs)

A Virtual Meeting Room (VMR) is a virtual meeting space that is always available to hold a Pexip Infinity conference. It can host any number of people from any type of device. Each VMR has one or more aliases associated with it, and participants access the conference by dialing one of these aliases.

Access to VMRs can be protected by the use of PINs or by authentication using SSO — or both. You can also use PINs to separate participants into Hosts and Guests, with different privileges. For more information, see About Pexip Infinity conferences.

To create a new VMR, go to Services > Virtual Meeting Rooms and select Add Virtual Meeting Room.

To edit an existing VMR, or to view its details (including all the aliases associated with it), go to Services > Virtual Meeting Rooms and select the name of the VMR.

As an alternative to manually creating and configuring your VMRs:

You can import Virtual Meeting Rooms and device aliases from directory information contained in a Windows Active Directory LDAP server, or any other LDAP-accessible database. For more information, see Provisioning VMRs, devices and users from Active Directory via LDAP.
You can bulk import basic VMR configuration from a CSV file. See Bulk import/export of service configuration data.
VMRs are also added by the VMR Scheduling for Exchange service; these are shown on a separate page (Services > Scheduled Conferences). For more information, see VMR Scheduling for Exchange.

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

When adding or editing Virtual Meeting Rooms, the options are:

Option	Description
Name	The name used to refer to this VMR. If you can access this VMR via a Virtual Reception then the VMR Name entered here is shown to conference participants as they are transferred into the VMR (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 VMR.
Creation time	This read-only field shows the date and time when this record was first configured.
View	The layout controls the maximum number of other participants that each participant will see, and how the participants are arranged on the screen. For more information, see Conference layouts and speaker names. Default: Large main speaker and up to 7 other participants (1+7 layout).
Show name of active speaker	When active speaker display is enabled, the display name or alias of the current speaker is shown across the bottom of their video image. Default: No.
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.
Theme	The theme for use with this VMR. For more information, see Customizing conference images and voice prompts using themes. Default: <use Default theme> (the global default theme is used).
Owner's email address	The email address of the owner of the VMR. For VMRs created using LDAP synchronization, provisioning messages for this VMR will be sent to this address. For VMRs created by manual input, CSV import, or via the API, this field is optional.
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 VMR 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 VMR, 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
Enable chat	Whether chat messaging is enabled for the conference: Use global chat setting: as per the global configuration setting. Yes: chat is enabled. No: chat is disabled. Default: Use global chat setting.
Maximum inbound call bandwidth (kbps)	Specifying a maximum inbound call bandwidth will limit the bandwidth of media received by Pexip Infinity from each individual participant dialed in to this VMR. For more information see Managing and restricting call bandwidth.
Maximum outbound call bandwidth (kbps)	Specifying a maximum outbound call bandwidth will limit the bandwidth of media sent from Pexip Infinity to each individual participant dialed in to this VMR. 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 VMR. 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.
VMR origin	This read-only field shows the name of the service (if any) used to create this VMR. For VMRs created using LDAP synchronization, this will be LDAP Sync template: followed by the name of the LDAP sync template being used. For VMRs created by manual input, CSV import, or via the API, this will be blank.
Enable direct media	Allows this VMR to use direct media between participants. When enabled, the VMR provides non-transcoded, encrypted, point-to-point calls between any two WebRTC participants. The options are: Best effort: use direct media in this VMR where possible (when there are two WebRTC participants only), otherwise use standard, transcoded media connections via a Conferencing Node. Always: allow direct media calls only — this limits all calls in this VMR to two WebRTC participants. Never: do not use direct media in this VMR. Default: Never Note that direct media is not supported if breakout rooms are also enabled for this VMR. See Direct media (end-to-end encrypted calls) for more information.
Direct media notification duration	The number of seconds to show a notification to participants before being escalated into a transcoded call, or de-escalated into a direct media call. Range: 0 to 30 seconds. Default: 0 seconds
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.
Softmute	Controls whether the Softmute* feature is enabled for this VMR. For this option to appear, and for this setting to take effect, the global Softmute setting (Platform > Global settings > Tech preview features > Enable Softmute) must be enabled. Enabled: Softmute is enabled for this VMR. Disabled: Softmute is disabled for this VMR. Default: Disabled
Denoise	Controls whether the Denoise* feature is enabled for this VMR. For this option to appear, and for this setting to take effect, the global Denoise setting (Platform > Global settings > Tech preview features > Enable Denoise) must be enabled. Enabled: Denoise is enabled for this VMR. Disabled: Denoise is disabled for this VMR. Default: Disabled
Pinning configuration	Select the pinning configuration to assign to this VMR. The list of available options contains the names of all of the pinning configurations in the theme associated with this VMR.
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 VMR to be accessible by more than one alias. For more information, see Using multiple aliases to access the same service.

Allowing end-users to manage their own VMRs

VMR settings such as Host and Guest PIN numbers and whether to display participant names are initially assigned when the VMR is created by the administrator.

The Pexip VMR self-service portal is a separately-installable component that allows end-users to manage their personal Virtual Meeting Room without having to send requests to their administrator to change the configuration or branding of their VMR.

See About the VMR self-service portal for more information.