Webex Meeting Waiting Room

[kkoffler007]

I have noticed when people setup a meeting in their personal room, that there is a waiting room, which is great. When people do a regular Webex meeting, there is no waiting room.  Is there a way to setup or enable a waiting room for regular Webex meetings.

[pjrodriguezg]

I think about Cisco Webex as a leader in Video Collaboration and probably it's the most solid and stable product on the market but the lack of innovation, new features and a too "classical" interface are making our users to migrate to other market solutions even in free basis. Yes I mean they prefer Zoom or MS Teams.

As IT administrator it's hard to explains security concerns or availability or any concepts the "cannot see".

They really prefer a waiting room/lobby to their guests or blur/virtual background. It is sad but it is true.

So help us making our users feel comfortable.

Thanks

[Mike_Brezicky]

Its always been about the audience being catered to. Pre covid, many enterprise customers focused more on security, reliability, and efficiency.
All these newly requested features, while not exclusively because of covid, have been fast tracking to release ASAP due to change in demand.
Cisco knows almost all the requests, they hear it every day. I would suggest being patient for 2020, great things are likely to come in the next few releases.

If you look at the upcoming release for Teams, Meetings is likely to be in line as well - https://help.webex.com/en-us/8dmbcr/What-s-New-in-Cisco-Webex-Teams
Background Blur / Virtual Background is included in the pending July 30 release, so the same for Meetings is probably around the same.
I suspect lobby for scheduled meetings, similar to PMR is being pushed to the front as well.

[columba]

I could enable this feature in the webex site administration:

https://help.webex.com/de-de/WBX64296/How-Early-Can-Attendees-Join-When-the-Allow-attendees-or-panelists-to-join-before-host-Option-is-Enabled-in-Site-Administration

Users can now choose to let atendees join 5-15 min before the meeting.

[scbrinke]

Good Evening,

Currently the Lobby for use as a waiting area for participants as they join is only a feature of Personal Meeting Rooms.  For scheduled meetings, there is a Loby, but it cannot be used as a waiting area for joining participants.  As a host, you may right click on a participant and move then into the Loby, but that's the extent of the Lobby support for scheduled meetings.

Please use the following link to provide your feedback in the form of a feature request as I know there are others asking for the same functionality.

https://ciscocollabcustomer.ideas.aha.io

Thank You,

Scott

[aplusinstructor2]

Cisco knows Zoom has all this stuff already right?  Just implement the same things, and do it better.  Make it shinier, or quicker, or have a few more options than Zoom. But it is mandatory now in the eyes of end-users, and if your product doesn't have it noone spending money on that.

[Will.Duane]

Yes, this times 1,000. I work in Gov't and have been told to stop using ZOOM for public meetings, bc of security concerns.  Please add a waiting room or lobby feature to ZOOM Events.  It is necessary!

[SiliconRichard]

Greetings!

If you would like to comment or vote in the customer feature request portal for this particular feature then go here: https://ciscocollabcustomer.ideas.aha.io/ideas/WXCUST-I-50 Doing so will keep you looped in to any updates provided.

Here are a few other helpful tips on keeping your meetings secure:

Host: https://help.webex.com/en-us/8zi8tq/Cisco-Webex-Best-Practices-for-Secure-Meetings-Hosts

Site Admin: https://help.webex.com/en-us/v5rgi1/Cisco-Webex-Best-Practices-for-Secure-Meetings-Site-Administration

Control Hub: https://help.webex.com/en-us/ov50hy/Cisco-Webex-Best-Practices-for-Secure-Meetings-Control-Hub

If you will note on the Site Admin and Control Hub pages one of the topics shows how to disable attendees from joining before the house.

Hosts have the power to expel a participant: https://help.webex.com/en-us/WBX30745/How-Do-I-Expel-a-Meeting-Participant

Hosts can lock a meeting: https://help.webex.com/en-us/WBX80006/How-Do-I-Restrict-Access-to-Cisco-Webex-Meetings-Online

If you are hosting larger sessions with a bigger audience, we do have Webex Training and Webex Events available. With these products, users cannot unmute themselves on either of these. This prevents unwanted audio disruptions.

Training information: https://www.webex.com/training-online.html

Events information: https://www.webex.com/webinar.html

If you'd like to explore more, we do offer free live and recorded classes with product overviews and more in-depth discussions on specific features as well as drop-in sessions with no set agenda: https://help.webex.com/landing/onlineclasses/upcomingClass/Working-Remotely

Cheers,

Richard

[ladywile]

I couldn't find a way to do this either.  It would be very helpful to control entry of attendees into a scheduled meeting to permit host-presenter discussion or even damage control if there are presenter comm.'s issues.  There are few things more embarrassing than to have an audience overhear reminders for simple matters that have been forgotten or overlooked in the stress of putting together a program --- e.g., "unmute your mike", etc.

[Fritz_H]

@kkoffler007  
What do you mean with "regular meeting"  vs  "setup a meeting" ?

Do you mean: scheduled meeting (date and time in the future) vs.  instant meeting (now) ?

I guess an "instant meeting" does not require a looby/waiting room

since "instant" means:  now, asap, meeting starts as soon as invitees have joined = there is no "too early" (hence no room for those who arrive too early..)

kind regards
Fritz

[kkoffler007]

we want to know for scheduled meetings...associate can wait in a meeting before a host arrives and can except the people that are waiting like in a personal room.