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Manually dialing out to a participant from a conference

The Pexip Infinity platform allows you to manually dial out to participants from a conference, on an ad-hoc basis. When you dial out to a participant in this way, a call is placed to their endpoint from the Virtual Meeting Room or Virtual Auditorium. If and when they answer the call, they will join the conference as either a Host or Guest, depending on the option that you selected. Participants joining the conference in this way will not go through the IVR screen and will not have to enter a PIN.

The participant could also take the form of a dedicated multimedia stream to enterprise CDN (Content Delivery Network) streaming and recording services such as Wowza, Adobe, VBrick, and Microsoft Azure, and to public streaming services such as YouTube. Any Pexip conference can be streamed as a live event to an unlimited number of viewers, and can automatically be recorded and stored for later consumption. For more information, see Streaming a conference over YouTube.

Note that Gateway Routing Rules are never applied when dialing out from a conference to a new participant. Gateway rules are only applied when Pexip Infinity receives an incoming call request.

The ability to manually dial out to a participant is enabled by default. You can disable this setting by going to the Global settings page (Platform configuration > Global settings) and clearing the Enable outbound calls checkbox (note that this will also disable calls made via the Pexip Distributed Gateway).

Both Administrators and conference hosts can manually add a participant to a conference. Administrators can do so Using the Administrator interface, and hosts can do so Using Infinity Connect. These options are described below. The Pexip Infinity API can also be implemented by third party applications to dial a participant into a conference - for more information, see Management command API.

You can also configure a Virtual Meeting Room or Virtual Auditorium so that one or more participants are dialed out to automatically whenever a conference starts. For more information, see Automatically dialing out to a participant from a conference.

If your environment includes a PSTN gateway or uses an ITSP (Internet telephony service provider), consider the potential for toll fraud if you have Gateway Routing Rules that can route calls to the PSTN gateway or ITSP, or if you allow conference participants to dial out to other participants via the PSTN gateway or ITSP. See PSTN gateways and toll fraud for more information.

Using the Administrator interface

You can use the Pexip Infinity Administrator interface to dial out to a participant from a Virtual Meeting Room or Virtual Auditorium. If and when the call is answered, that endpoint will join the conference.

To dial out to a participant using the Administrator interface:

  1. Select the Virtual Meeting Room or Virtual Auditorium to dial the participant from. You can do this in any of the following ways:
    • Go to Service configuration > Virtual Meeting Rooms and select the name of the Virtual Meeting Room.
    • Go to Service configuration > Virtual Auditoriums and select the name of the Virtual Auditorium.
    • If the conference that you wish to dial out from is already in progress, go to Status > Conferences and select the name of the Virtual Meeting Room or Virtual Auditorium being used.
  2. At the bottom left of the screen, select Dial out to participant.

  3. Complete the following fields:

    Field Description
    System location

    Select the system location from which the call will be placed. If there is more than one Conferencing Node in that location, Pexip Infinity will choose the most appropriate.

    The system location determines which H.323 gatekeeper or SIP proxy to use to route the call.
    Service alias This lists all the aliases that have been configured for the selected Virtual Meeting Room or Virtual Auditorium. The participant will see the incoming call as coming from the selected alias.
    Destination alias The alias of the endpoint/participant that you want to dial.
    Protocol The signaling protocol to use when dialing the participant. Select either SIP, H.323, or if the endpoint is a Lync / Skype for Business client, select MS-SIP. The RTMP protocol is typically used when adding a streaming participant. Note that if the call is to a registered device, Pexip Infinity will instead use the protocol that the device used to make the registration.
    Role Select whether you want the participant to join the conference as a Host or Guest.
    DTMF sequence

    An optional DTMF sequence to be transmitted after the call to the dialed participant starts.

    A DTMF sequence can include:

    • the digits 0-9
    • * (asterisk)
    • # (hash)
    • , (comma).

    The DTMF tones will be sent 3 seconds after the call connects, one at a time, every 0.5 seconds. A comma is a special digit that represents a 2 second pause (multiple commas can be used if a longer pause is needed).

    For example, if you are dialing an audio bridge and want to enter conference number 666 followed by #, pause for six seconds and then supply conference PIN 1234 followed by #, you would configure 666#,,,1234# as your DTMF sequence.
    Streaming

    Identifies the dialed participant as a streaming or recording device. See Streaming a conference over YouTube for more information.
    Call capability

    Allows you to limit the media content of the call. The participant being called will not be able to escalate beyond the selected capability. For more information, see Controlling media capability.

    Default: Main video + presentation.
  4. Select Dial out to participant.

A message Initiated dial out to participant will appear at the top of the screen.

To confirm whether the participant has joined the conference:

  1. Go to Status > Conferences.
  2. Select the name of the Virtual Meeting Room or Virtual Auditorium.
  3. Select the Participants tab.

The participant will appear in the list.

Using Infinity Connect

If you have Host privileges, you can use the Infinity Connect desktop client, the Infinity Connect Web App, or the Infinity Connect Mobile client for Android to dial out to participants from the Virtual Meeting Room or Virtual Auditorium you are in. When you use this feature, a call is placed to the participant and if and when they answer the call, they will join the conference directly (they will not go through the IVR screen and will not have to enter a PIN).

To dial out to a participant using Infinity Connect, from within a Virtual Meeting Room or Virtual Auditorium:

  1. At the top left of the screen, select the menu icon and then select Add a new participant.
  2. At the prompt, enter the address of the person you want to dial.
  3. If you want to use a protocol other than SIP (the default) select either H.323 or Lync/Skype. RTMP is typically used when connecting to a streaming or recording service.
  4. Select whether you want the participant to have Host or Guest privileges.
  5. Select OK.

A call will be placed from the Virtual Meeting Room or Virtual Auditorium to the participant and they will appear in the participant list with the "calling" icon next to their avatar while their endpoint is ringing. If and when the participant answers the call they will join the conference; if they do not answer, or do not accept the call, they will disappear from the participant list.

Using the Infinity Connect Mobile client for iOS

In order to use this feature:

  • You must have Host privileges.
  • In some cases, your administrator must have enabled this functionality. See Enabling and disabling SIP, H.323, WebRTC and RTMP for more information.
  • You must have agreed to allow the Infinity Connect Mobile client to access your contacts.

You can use the Infinity Connect Mobile client to dial out to participants from the Virtual Meeting Room or Virtual Auditorium you are in. When you use this feature, a call is placed to the participant and if and when they answer the call, they will join the conference as a Guest participant (or as a normal participant, if the conference has no PIN). Participants joining the conference in this way will not go through the IVR screen and will not have to enter a PIN.

To dial out to a participant using the Infinity Connect Mobile client for iOS:

  1. From within the conference, select on the left of the Participants section.

    The following screen will appear:

  2. Select from the available options:
    • to call some already in your Contacts, select Contacts
    • to call someone you have recently called from the Pexip App, select Recents
    • to call anyone else, select Enter Manually and enter the number or URI to dial.

A call will be placed from the Virtual Meeting Room or Virtual Auditorium to the participant. If and when the participant answers the call they will join the conference and appear on the participant list.

© 2016 Pexip AS - software version 11