Howto:Innovaphone conferencing

innovaphone conferencing is a nice sample solution to enhance the conference bridge available on the innovaphone gateways (so-called “BC Conference”).

Installing the innovaphone conferencing you will have the following conferencing features:

• Users are announced with name when joining and leaving the conference room.
• The conference room can be labeled; before entering in the room the user will hear the name of the conference
• Before entering in the room the names of the member’s jet in are prompted
• innovaphone conferencing stores all recorded names for further access; you have to record your name just one time

Applies To

This information applies to

innovaphone PBX with DSP cannels for conferencing developed with V9 build 90267

More Information

innovaphone conferencing allows you to setup a very comfortable audio conference. If a number calls the inovaphone conferencing for the first time the system ask, after playing the welcome message, to record a name. The recording can be done immediately just following the voice menu (“Please record your name, start recording with star and stop with any key”). After recording the recorded name is played again. The record can be modify in any moment and anyway before entering in the conference room. If the same number calls innovaphone conferencing again the system will not ask to record the name but welcome the caller you with the recorded one. So once recorded innovaphone conferencing stores the names for the number. If the conference room is still empty the system asks to label the conference room. A voice menu invite to record the name of the conference, even this recording can be modified later on. However if the conference room is jet named the caller is not invited automatically to label the room but the name of the conference if played.

The following example shows a call to the innovaphone conferencing where the NAME and the LABEL was jet recorded: “innovaphone conferencing, welcome MARTIN STRELLER to SALES conference room”

After this introduction the main access menu is played: “Press star to join the conference room, press one to record your name or press two to label the conference room”

From this menu the caller can record again his name or label the conference room. The star-key allows the access to the conference room. If the caller is the first member he will hear “You are the first conference member”, if there are jet members in the conference room he will hear their names. Example: “In the conference room you will find ANDREAS FINK, KLAUS WALLNÖFER”

After playing the list of the conference members the caller access the conference room and all the members hear a warning ton (“beep”) followed by the name of the new entry. Example: “MARTIN STRELLER joined the conference”

If a conference member exit from the conference room the remaining members will hear a warning ton followed by the name of who has dropped. Example: “ANDREAS FINK leaves the conference”

When the last user leaves the conference room the room label will be automatically cleared.

You like it? You want it? You want it for free? Here is how….

Configuration

Download the xml and wave files here , copy them on a directory of your PC and unzip the folder. Create a directory on the compact flash (CF) and copy all files in. Now you have to create the following empty sub directories: “names” “member” “leave” “join”

Once done you will see a directory like this (show in the Datafreeway explorer):

IC05.png

The remaining setup has to be done in the PBX.

First configure a BC Conference object. Let all items to default except the one specified. Basically the BC Conference object doesn’t need a number because the access to it will be trough a XML and names.

IC03.png

Therefore it is important that the name of the BC conference object is “innoconf”, description and long name is not important. The display name should be nice, because if the user is in the conference room he will see this name on the display (while until he is in the menu “outside” the conference room he will see the display name of the XML, so even from a display point of view the user knows exactly “where he is”).

Please not the required setup in the third tab:

IC03.png

Now assign in the main PBX menu a new group to the the BC conference object and flag the group as “active”. In the following example we call the group “CallBC”:

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Now you have to create two voicemail objects. No voicemail license is anyway required for that. Crate the first one, call it as you like, no number is required, this XML is never shown anywhere. Important: Set the codec option as show in the following example to $_pbxcoder=g729. In the example on the CF was created a directory “innoConf”, the XML to start is the “innoconfB.xml”:

IC01.png

Now put the xml in the same group than the conference one, but NOT active (just member).

Last step: create the second voicemail object. The number of that object is the “innovaphone conferencing” number and the display of this object the user will see if he call the innovaphone conferencing. A good example is “conference access” or a similar item. Important: add the flag “$_pbxfwd=true” to the URL, the name of the xml is “innoconfA.xml” (in the example in the directory “innoConf”).

IC02.png

That’s it.

Localization

The innovaphone conferencing is delivered only with English wording (with no native speaker). But it is very simple to have prompts in other languages. You have just to record the following wave files:

Filename containing prompts in English (or whatever you like)

Wellcome innovaphone conferencing ConfName Please label your conference room RecStart Start recording with star and stop with any key To to UserWellcome welcome Conference conference room MyName Please record your name FirstUser You are the first conference member Join joined the conference Leave leaves the conference InTheConf in the conference room you will find MMenu press star to join the conference room, press one to record your name or press two to label the conference room

After recording do the post processing (see relative wiki articles), convert the format to 8 kHz, 16 bit mono and convert them to the .g729 format (using the softcod utility or dragging them on the CF mapped as cx0). One hint: When the conference room is labeled the engine will prompt “to” + “conference room” + the name.

Multiple conference rooms

Innovaphone conferencing is done to give the customer one enhanced conference room on one system. If a customer asks for parallel and independent innovaphone conferencing rooms on the same system please follow the following instructions. Of course you have to install the number of BC conferences in the PBX as required and give them other names and groups. Then create for each room a different directory in the compact flash. Now create the required pairs of voicemail objects. You have to edit the “innoconfA.xml” file (just use a simple text editor, do the editing and save again). We recommend editing on a file your PC and then copying the xml file in the CF. You have just to modify the name of the BC conference object:

IC07.png

If for example you named the second BC conference object “mySecondOne” you have to modify the line from: <pbx-fwd name=" innoconf " barge-in="false" out-cause="$cause"/> to: <pbx-fwd name=" mySecondOne " barge-in="false" out-cause="$cause"/>

Known Problems

• innovaphone conferencing works with voice prompts in the g729 format.
• No support at the moment for unknown caller (without number), for example DID calls with hide number.
• If in the same time two user access to the innovaphone conferencing both will hear “You are the first conference member”. Anyway once in the conference both names will be announced.
• There is a small delay between the real enter and exit of a user and the announcement (from 0 best case up to 4 seconds worst case), that is done to avoid too much stress for CF and CPU.
• On multiple conference rooms on the same system for each room you have to record your name again.