Conference

Overview

A conference is a shared room that several callers talk in at once. You give it a room number and, if you like, a PIN, and anyone routed to it joins the same conversation.

Use it for a weekly vaad, a shiur with questions, a board meeting, or a family call. In the sidebar it lives under Advanced → Conferences.

How It Works

1. Callers reach the conference from a key on a menu, from a phone number, or from anywhere else you route them.
2. If you set a PIN, the engine asks for it before letting them in.
3. They join the room. Depending on your settings they may join muted, hear a beep, or wait on hold music until the conference starts.
4. While they are in the room, keypad controls let them mute themselves, change volume, or hang up.
5. When the conference ends, the call follows the After the conference ends route, if you set one.

You can watch the room live and moderate it from the Live Conferences page while it is running.

Creating a Conference

Basic Information

• Conference Name (required) — For your reference.
• Room Number — The room identifier. Everyone sent to the same room number is in the same conversation. Two different conference extensions pointing at the same room number put their callers together.
• Pin — The access code callers must enter to join. It is a password box: click the eye to reveal what is saved.
• Moderator Pin — A separate code that grants moderator rights, such as locking the room. Also a reveal box.
• Max Members — A hard ceiling on the room at the engine level. Its helper text reads "FreeSWITCH profile max members override". Leave it blank unless you know you need it; Max Participants below is the one most people want.

Participant Settings

• Mute on Entry — Off by default. Everyone joins muted. Good for a shiur where only the speaker talks.
• Entry/Exit Beep — On Enter & Exit (default), Disabled, On Enter Only, or On Exit Only.
• Start Conference on Enter — On by default. The conference begins as soon as someone joins. Turn it off and callers wait on hold music until someone whose setting is on arrives.
• End Conference on Exit — Off by default. When on, everyone is disconnected as soon as this caller hangs up.
• Max Participants — The most people allowed in at once, up to 250.
• Moderator Labels — Pick one or more labels. Any caller whose contact card carries one of them joins as a moderator automatically, with no PIN to type. This is the easiest way to run a room where the gabbai has control and everyone else does not: put the gabbai's contact in a "Moderators" label and point this field at it.

Recording & Media

• Recording — Do Not Record (default) or Record from Start. A recorded conference is saved automatically when it finishes and appears on the Recordings tab.
• Wait Audio — Hold music or a message played before the conference starts. It is a full audio picker, so you can upload a file, pick a library recording, record in your browser, or generate speech. See Recordings.

The Phone System Reference → Extension ID section only appears if your account has phone-system references turned on. See Settings.

Recordings

If Recording is set to Record from Start, the finished recording is saved to the conference's Recordings tab on its edit page. Each row shows:

• Recording — a player you can listen to in the browser
• Duration in seconds
• Channels
• Status — completed, in progress, or failed
• Recorded At
• Call SID, Conference SID and Recording SID — hidden by default, switch them on from the column picker. Each is copyable, which is what support will ask for.

Delete a recording with the row action, or tick several and use the bulk delete.

Routing

A conference has one named route:

Set it from the conference's ⚙ settings on My Hotline. Leave it empty and the call simply ends when the room does. Point it back at your main menu to let people carry on with something else after the meeting.

PIN behavior

When a PIN or Moderator PIN is set, the caller is asked for it before joining.

• A code that matches the Moderator Pin joins as a moderator.
• A code that matches the Pin joins as a regular participant.
• Neither matches: the caller hears an error and can try again, up to three attempts, then the call ends.

If you set only a Moderator Pin, everybody must enter it to get in. If you use Moderator Labels instead, recognized moderators skip the PIN question entirely.

Keypad controls during the conference

These are the default keys inside the room. They work in every conference; the app does not change them.

Moderators additionally have room-level actions such as locking the room.

If you need a different key map, custom sounds, silence timeouts or participant-count announcements, those are TwiML-level settings that the conference form does not offer. Write your own TwiML and point a Custom code extension at it. The full attribute list is in Custom TwiML.

Live Conferences

Advanced → Live Conferences shows every room that is running right now, refreshing every few seconds. When nothing is live it says so.

Each room shows its name, its room number and how many people are in it. Talking participants are highlighted as they speak.

At the room level:

• Listen — Join the audio in your browser with your microphone muted. Nobody hears you.
• Join — Join in your browser with your microphone live.
• End Conference — Disconnect everybody. You are asked to confirm first.

While you are connected, a Mute Mic / Unmute Mic button and a Leave button sit at the top of the page.

For each participant you see the number they called from, their caller ID name if there is one, a Moderator badge where it applies, and their state: Active, Muted or On Hold. The buttons on each row are:

• Mute / Unmute — stop or restore their microphone.
• Hold — mute them and stop their audio, so they hear nothing and say nothing. It becomes Resume.
• Kick — remove them from the room. You are asked to confirm.

Tips

• Use Moderator Labels instead of a moderator PIN where you can. Nobody has to remember a code, and you change who is in charge by editing a label.
• Mute on Entry plus Moderator Labels gives you a clean shiur: everyone arrives silent, the speaker arrives as a moderator, and you unmute a questioner from the Live Conferences page.
• End Conference on Exit belongs on the host's route, not on the room everyone shares, unless you really do want the meeting to die when that one caller hangs up.
• Put an access check in front of the room if you want to control who gets in by phone number or label rather than by a PIN everyone shares.
• Recordings use your storage. Delete old ones you do not need.