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Background
Ad-hoc conferencing is a feature that is available on the Cisco IP 8841 phone, the business class multi line telephone that is standard in offices. The purpose of the ad-hoc feature is to include up to 7 other people into your call (8 with you included) without reserving a conference line or having a call-in location. You can also use WebEx for audio-only conferencing, especially when you have a larger group; you want a dial-in number for the group or a group in which UWRF should not be incurring the toll-charges to contact for your call.
Conference Call Security
You initiate the conference from your Cisco IP phone and manage it with your phone. The conference remains active if you hang up and there is at least one other person "on net" from UW-River Falls, which means as long as one other UW-River Falls Cisco phone is participating in the call. When the last UW-River Falls Cisco phone hangs up the non-UWRF participants will be immediately disconnected.
You can have a call with 7 other participants on campus or off campus. You can add anyone to your call that you would normally be able to call with the toll restrictions of your telephone.
Establishing the Call
| 1 |
Call your first participant and establish the call with them. Inform them they will be placed on hold and will hear music until you return. |
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| 2 |
Press the CONFERENCE button which is a hardware button your phone to the right of the [6] key and depicts three people meeting. |
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| 3 |
Call your next participant and establish the call with them. Inform them you will be adding them to a conference call. |
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| 4 |
Press the same CONFERENCE hardware button or press the conference softkey that has appeared on your screen. The three of you will now be joined into the call. |
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To add more participants continue to repeat steps 2, 3 and 4. You can do this up to 7 times to have a total of 8 people on your call.
Managing Participants in a Call
You and any other UW-River Falls "on net" participant can manage the call. If you call the 4 digit extension of the person they are likely "on net" as long as they did not forward the call to "off net" the system. If at least one UWRF participant using their Cisco phone is on the call the conference will remain open. Once all UW-River Falls "on net" participants drop off the call, the conference will terminate. If you are the only UW-River Falls participant using their Cisco phone (a/k/a "on net") then you must remain on the call for the other 7 non-UWRF participants to remain active. If you have to dial a 7 to call a participant that makes them "off net" regardless if they are affiliated with the institution.
If you want to ensure the call terminates before you leave the call, you can use the "show detail" button to see participants and remove them. You may need to press the "dot dot" button to get to the second page of softkeys on your screen to find the "show detail" button.
