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Bulk import/export of service configuration

If you want to configure your Pexip Infinity platform with a large number of Virtual Meeting Rooms, Virtual Auditoriums or Virtual Receptions, you can import the configuration for each of those services from a CSV file.

This feature allows you to import all configuration apart from the Automatically Dialed Participants (ADPs) to be associated with each service. These can be imported separately; see Bulk import/export of Automatically dialed participants (ADPs). You can also import the aliases that devices are allowed to register with; see Bulk import/export of device aliases.

You can import Virtual Meeting Rooms from directory information contained in a Windows Active Directory LDAP server, or any other LDAP-accessible database. For more information, see Provisioning VMRs and devices from Active Directory via LDAP.

You can also export all of your existing Virtual Meeting Room, Virtual Auditorium or Virtual Reception configuration data to a CSV file. You may want to do this for backup purposes or to transfer configuration between, for example, a test system and a production system.

Preparing the CSV file for import

Header row

A header row in the CSV file is optional. If included, it should use exactly the same text for each field name as shown in the following sections, although the order of the fields may vary.

Format

The data in the CSV file must use the following format, and fields must be in the same order as shown (unless you have used a header file):

Virtual Meeting Room

name,description,pin,allow_guests,guest_pin,alias_alias,alias_description,tag,max_callrate_in,max_callrate_out,call_type,host_view,enable_overlay_text,ivr_theme_name,participant_limit,primary_owner_email_address

Virtual Auditorium

name,description,pin,allow_guests,guest_pin,alias_alias,alias_description,tag,max_callrate_in,max_callrate_out,call_type,host_view,guest_view,force_presenter_into_main,enable_overlay_text,ivr_theme_name,participant_limit,mute_all_guests

Virtual Reception

name,description,alias_alias,alias_description,tag,max_callrate_in,max_callrate_out,call_type,ivr_theme_name,mssip_proxy_name,match_string,replace_string,system_location_name

where:

name

The name used to refer to this Virtual Meeting Room, Virtual Auditorium or Virtual Reception.

This field cannot be left blank.
description An optional description of the Virtual Meeting Room, Virtual Auditorium or Virtual Reception.
pin

(Virtual Meeting Room and Virtual Auditorium only)

This optional field allows you to set a secure access code that must be entered by participants before they can join the conference.

If a Guest PIN has also been set, then the PIN will apply to the conference Host(s) only.

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

(Virtual Meeting Room and Virtual Auditorium only)

Determines whether the conference will allow participants with Guest privileges. For more information, see About PINs, Hosts and Guests.

  • true — the conference has two types of participants: Hosts and Guests. The pin to be used by Hosts must be specified. A guest_pin can optionally be specified; if a guest_pin is not specified, Guests can join without a PIN.
  • false — all participants have Host privileges

Default: false
guest_pin

(Virtual Meeting Room and Virtual Auditorium only)

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

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

The alias that, when received by Pexip Infinity, will cause it to route the call to this service (Virtual Meeting Room, Virtual Auditorium, Virtual Reception or Test Call Service).

The alias entered here must match exactly 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 will be the same as the alias that the conference participant dialed from their endpoint, but there are some exceptions, described in About aliases.

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.
alias_description An optional description of the alias. This is useful if you have more than one alias for a service.
tag

This optional field allows you to assign a unique identifier to this service, which you can then use to track use of the service. For more information, see Tracking usage with a service tag.
max_callrate_in

The maximum media bandwidth in kbps that Pexip Infinity will receive from each individual participant dialed in to the service. Range 128 to 4096 kbps.

For more information see Restricting call bandwidth.
max_callrate_out

The maximum media bandwidth in kbps that Pexip Infinity will send to each individual participant dialed in to the service. Range 128 to 4096 kbps.

For more information see Restricting call bandwidth.
call_type *

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

  • video — main video plus presentation
  • video-only — main video only
  • audio — audio-only

Default: video
host_view *

(Virtual Meeting Room and Virtual Auditorium only)

The maximum number of other participants that each host participant will see, and the layout used to show them. For more information, see Selecting the layout seen by participants. Valid values are:

  • one_main_zero_pips — full-screen main speaker only
  • one_main_seven_pips — large main speaker and up to 7 other participants
  • one_main_twentyone_pips — main speaker and up to 21 other participants
  • two_mains_twentyone_pips — two main speakers and up to 21 other participants

Default: one_main_seven_pips
guest_view *

(Virtual Auditorium only)

The maximum number of Host participants that each guest participant will see, and the layout used to show them. (Guests will only see Hosts; they can hear but not see any of the other Guests.) For more information, see Selecting the layout seen by participants. Valid values are:

  • one_main_zero_pips — full-screen main speaker only
  • one_main_seven_pips — large main speaker and up to 7 other participants
  • one_main_twentyone_pips — main speaker and up to 21 other participants
  • two_mains_twentyone_pips — two main speakers and up to 21 other participants

Default: one_main_seven_pips
force_presenter_into_main *

(Virtual Auditorium only)

When a presentation is being shown, this option controls whether the main speaker position shows the presenter or the current speaker. For more information, see Selecting the layout seen by participants.

  • true — the Host sending the presentation stream will always hold the main video position
  • false — the main video position is voice-switched

Default: false
enable_overlay_text *

(Virtual Meeting Room and Virtual Auditorium only)

If enabled, the display name or alias of each main speaker is shown. For more information, see Showing the names of speakers.

  • true — speaker names are shown
  • false — speaker names are not shown

Default: false
ivr_theme_name

The name of the theme to use with the service. If no theme is specified, the default Pexip theme is used.

For more information, see Customizing images and voice prompts using themes.
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.
primary_owner_email_address

(Virtual Meeting Room only)

The email address of the owner of the VMR. VMR provisioning messages associated with this VMR will be sent to this address.
mute_all_guests *

(Virtual Auditorium only)

Determines whether Guest participants will be muted when they first join the conference.

  • true — mute guests when they first join the conference
  • false — do not mute guests when they first join the conference
mssip_proxy_name

(Virtual Reception only)

The name of the Lync / Skype for Business server to use to place the outgoing call. DNS is used if no server is specified.
match_string

(Virtual Reception only)

An optional regular expression used to match against the alias entered by the caller into the Virtual Reception. If the entered alias does not match the expression, the Virtual Reception will not route the call.

If this field is left blank, any entered alias is permitted. For more information, see Restricting or transforming the aliases entered into a Virtual Reception.
replace_string

(Virtual Reception only)

An optional regular expression used to transform the alias entered by the caller into the Virtual Reception. (Only applies if a regex match string is also configured and the entered alias matches that regex.)

Leave this field blank if you do not want to change the alias entered by the caller.
system_location_name

(Virtual Reception only)

This is an optional field used in conjunction with the mssip_proxy_name setting. If specified, a Conferencing Node in this system location will perform the Lync / Skype for Business Conference ID lookup on the Lync / Skype for Business server. If a location is not specified, the IVR ingress node will perform the lookup.
* If this field is left blank, the default value will be used.

Multiple aliases

For services with more than one alias, you must add an additional record for each additional alias that repeats all fields except the alias_alias and alias_description:

name1,description1,pin1,allow_guests,guest_pin1,alias_alias1,alias_description1,...
name1,description1,pin1,allow_guests,guest_pin1,alias_alias2,alias_description2,...

Duplicates

If any records in the CSV file have the same name field, and any of the other fields apart from alias_alias and alias_description are different, only one service with that name will be created. This service will use the last record that was imported.

If any records in the CSV file have the same name as an existing service, the existing configuration will be overwritten by the imported service's configuration.

Restrictions

  • The name field cannot be blank.
  • All non-blank fields must contain valid data, for example the pin field must only contain digits.
  • If non-ASCII characters are used, the file must be encoded as UTF-8 text.
  • Fields with set values of True or False are not case-sensitive. All other fields are case-sensitive.

Examples

To import a Virtual Meeting Room called alice with a single alias of meet.alice, and a second Virtual Meeting Room called bob with aliases meet.bob and meet.bobby, you would create the following CSV file:

alice,,,,,meet.alice
bob,,,,,meet.bob
bob,,,,,meet.bobby

To import Virtual Meeting Rooms for Alice, Bob and Charlie that each have different Host and Guest PINs you would create the following CSV file:

alice,,1234,True,6789,meet.alice
bob,,4567,True,9876,meet.bob
charlie,,5432145,True,5556789,meet.charlie

Importing the CSV file

Virtual Meeting Rooms, Virtual Auditoriums and Virtual Receptions require separate CSV files.

To import the data in the CSV file to Pexip Infinity:

  1. On the Pexip Infinity Administrator interface, go to either:
    • Service configuration > Virtual Meeting Rooms or
    • Service configuration > Virtual Auditoriums or
    • Service configuration > Virtual Receptions.
  2. Select Import.
  3. Choose the CSV file to import and select Save.

Exporting existing service configuration

You can export all of your existing Virtual Meeting Room, Virtual Auditorium or Virtual Reception configuration data to a CSV file. This produces a CSV file in the same format as that used for importing configuration data (described above in Preparing the CSV file for import). The file includes a header row.

This feature exports all configuration except the Automatically Dialed Participants associated with each service.

To export the data:

  1. On the Pexip Infinity Administrator interface, go to either:
    • Service configuration > Virtual Meeting Rooms or
    • Service configuration > Virtual Auditoriums or
    • Service configuration > Virtual Receptions.
  2. Select Export. This takes you to the Export configuration page.
  3. Select Download.
  4. Follow your browser's prompts to save or open the file.

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