Hello folks,
This is my first time posting here and I hope someone can help me.
In TMS (13.2), is it possible to just "turn off" the ability for a conference to end automatically?
I have several CTS endpoints that are connected to CUCM, and a two 8710 TelePresence servers. We are running TMSXE to allow users to book the TelePresence resources through Outlook and currently have the default conference settings in TMS set to Autostart. The calls start at the scheduled time, and end proptly at the scheduled time. We've instructed users to pad their conference times in case a call runs over the scheduled time but this is not what the executives were sold when Cisco demod TelePresence for them so they want the system to be much more user friendly so they would like for the call to go on until they are done.
Two options I can see in TMS around extend mode:
1) Change "Extend Mode" to "Endpoint Prompt"
This option does not work with CTS endpoints - there is never a prompt to extend the conference and from all I've seen and read, this is never going to work.
2) Change "Extend Mode" to "Automatic Best Effort".
- This only seems to work if the Tear Down Buffer is anything other than 0. If you change that number to anting, say 5 minutes, the room is actually booked for the scheduled time + 5 (or whatever the teardown buffer is set to). This is great, but it blocks out the room for that extra time and prevents users from cleanly scheduling calls. For example, user schedules a conference from 9am to 10am. The next user has to schedule a 1 hours conference from 10:05am to 11:10am, then the next conference is 11:15 to 12:20, etc. This is ugly and will only get uglier as time goes on.
- This also only works if ALL the rooms are free for the next 15 minutes. If you have a confence call with 3 rooms and one needs to drop off to free it up for another user/conference, the orignal conference will not go on and will end just like an Autostart. It won't even give the users the option to keep going in the rooms that are free.
Again, not very friendly.
So, other than making all the conferences ad-hoc, is there a way to enable One Button To Start (OBTS) and just have the users manually end the conference when they are done, even if the conference runs over the scheduled time?
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Rod
