Controlling Entry to Meeting

[JacquelineLCole69656]

Good morning everyone!  I'm fairly new to WebEx.  I mostly use Zoom, but am working with a government related client that requires WebEx for meetings.  My question is this:  Is there a way to control access into a scheduled meeting? I want to be able to send attendees to a "waiting room" in order to confirm identity before allowing access to the meeting. I'm looking for functionality similar to what Zoom offers.

Any help, advice, alternate solutions, etc. will be much appreciated.

[Fritz_H]

@JacquelineLCole69656 
You triggered a pretty vivid (?) discussion. Since this forum-software auto-subscribes you to every discussion you start/participate, you may have received a lot messages by now that go beyond the part that was interesting for you.
I just wanted to remind you, that there is an option to un-subscribe from a discussion ;--)  just in case...

[RedNectar]

Hi @JacquelineLCole69656 ,

I disagree with @sean.eckton - I think he's missed the point completely.  The truth is you CAN'T have people directed to a waiting room for a sheduled meeting - although you can now put them there AFTER you've started the meeting.

If anyone can show me on this settings page (accessed via https://<yourSite>.webex.com/webappng/sites/<yourCompany>/meeting/scheduler) where I check the "Allow participants to join wating room before the meeting starts" or the "Place participants in a waitng room when they join" options, then I'll be very happy to admit that I am wrong.

The best you can do is (as shown below) is lock the meeting as it starts, then as attendees join they will be put in a waiting room.

[JacquelineLCole69656]

Thank you for clarifying. I am attending a planning meeting this afternoon and was going to announce "the solution" to our issue. I honestly wish the sponsor of this project would allow us to use Zoom. Thanks again!

[sean.eckton]

If the room is locked when people try to join they go to the waiting room. I believe you have to lock the meeting first before other join. Take a look at this in the "what's new" for 41.3. Previously, if the meeting was locked, you'd just get rejected but now people can go to the waiting room instead of being denied.

Pre-Meeting Lobby for Scheduled Meetings

Webex scheduled meetings now have a pre-meeting lobby, just like Personal Room meetings. When attendees try to join a meeting, they can wait in a lobby if the meeting hasn't yet started. Once the host or cohost starts the meeting, they will enter the meeting based on meeting security settings.

This enhances the join experience for attendees as they don't have to re-try to join a meeting multiple times until it has been started by the host or cohost. They can simply join the meeting and wait in the lobby until the meeting starts.

While waiting in the lobby, the attendee can notify the host that they're waiting. Attendees will be removed from the lobby based on the lobby timeout value set by the site administrator.

Pre-meeting lobby will be supported for attendees joining from the Webex app and video devices. Support for phone-only attendees will be added in the next update.

[RedNectar]

Hi @sean.eckton ,

Firstly, I hope we are not hijacking a thread - but thanks for responding.

I wish the extract you sent above was true.

For me at least, the sentance "When attendees try to join a meeting, they can wait in a lobby if the meeting hasn't yet started" is either an absolute lie, or the configuration option to set up the lobby is so obscure I haven't found it.

Here's what I did.

I scheduled a meeting with Automatic lock set for 0 minutes, as I mentioned above for 11:45 (my time - about 40 mins from now).

In fact - here's the link if you are quick enough.

When I click on this link from my other computer (and different user, Windows 10, Webex v41.3.3.8), I get the old "Meeting has not yet started" message, rather than the "Thank you for wating. We'll start the meeting when the host joins" message that I expected.

Let me know if you see anything different.

[sean.eckton]

I just had a chance to test this and I think there's some room for improvement.  The feature is new as of this month and I'm not sure all clusters have the feature enabled yet.  The one I use just got it 2 days ago.  This is what I found:

I setup a meeting and made it lock 0 minutes after starting.  I also set it to allow people to join 15 minutes before the meeting starts.  I tried joining as an attendee 20 minutes early and it said the meeting hasn't started yet and it made me wait to try to join until 15 minutes before the scheduled time.  When I wait until the timer counts down and try to join, it says that the meeting hasn't started yet and that my audio would be connected as soon as the host joins.  It did allow me to join and wait for the host.  If, however, I join as a host before anyone gets to that point, the room is locked and when they join they go to the waiting room.  So, what I've found is if someone joins between the time when they are allowed to join early and the host joins, they won't be made to wait in the waiting room.  The meeting isn't locked until the host joins.  If attendees get there before that, they won't be put in the waiting room.

It would be nice if there was an option to schedule the meeting as locked so even if someone joins during the join-early time, they still have to wait in the waiting room even if the host hasn't started the meeting yet.  As soon as the meeting is officially started, then it can be locked.  It just doesn't catch anyone that gets there before it is started.  It is possible that that's a bug and they'll work on it as it doesn't seem to do completely what they say it should do.

If you know which cluster you're on, you can see the upgrade schedule here:  Global Service Status (webex.com)

[RedNectar]

@sean.eckton ,

I have no idea how you managed to schedule your meeting "to allow people to join 15 minutes before the meeting"!  I certainly can't find that option.  This is VERY frustrating, and can only assume that here in the Antipodes we are somehow less important than the rest of the world and haven't been allowed that feature yet.  And as for the upgrade schedule you kindly shared, it is also less than useless because it does not explain anywhere what geographical area "Cluster A", "Cluster IC" etc actually cover!  Nor does my App or webex web page tell me what cluster I'm in.

Also thanks for explaining how the feature works, I'm sure that when we finally get the chance to use it, I'll return to this post to re-read your helpful explanation.

[sean.eckton]

For the option to allow people to join 15 minutes before the meeting schedule, I used the Outlook plugin. For some reason the option is disabled (grayed out) on the web. Not sure why.
[cid:image001.png@01D71670.E3259C00]
But, in the Outlook plugin:
[cid:image002.png@01D71670.E3259C00]
The web scheduler allows you to set the lock options but the Outlook plugin doesn't. Cisco? Are you paying attention? Please make them comparable. What I had to do was setup a template from the web scheduler and then use that template in the Outlook plugin. Kind of a pain.
For what cluster you're on, if you have access to Webex Admin, you can find out by going to the main screen and looking at the following under "Site Information":
[cid:image003.png@01D71671.AC717070]
I did find this article that explains how to know which cluster you're on: Video Conferencing - How Do I Tell What Cluster My Site Is On? (webex.com)
I tried using ping and this is what I got as I'm on Cluster S (it says nebulas which is nebula with the cluster after it):
Pinging global-nebulas.webex.com [209.197.193.97] with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from 209.197.193.97: bytes=32 time=23ms TTL=236
Reply from 209.197.193.97: bytes=32 time=22ms TTL=236
Reply from 209.197.193.97: bytes=32 time=23ms TTL=236
Reply from 209.197.193.97: bytes=32 time=22ms TTL=236
Ping statistics for 209.197.193.97:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 22ms, Maximum = 23ms, Average = 22ms
I'm not sure how it is divided up geographically. Also, if you're on a delayed release, I'm sure you won't get this feature for a while. Notice the cluster I'm on is on 41.3 which is when it was first introduced.
It may be possible to use your Personal Meeting Room, too, to do it (the lobby has been available for a while for the personal meeting room). I know people have to wait until the host arrives to join and if the meeting room is locked by default, then they'll have to wait until allowed in. I just tested that, too, and the visitor gets the message that you have to wait for the host to arrive. Once the host starts the meeting, the visitor then gets the message that the host needs to admit them to get in. That's more of the way the scheduled meeting should work but it isn't quite there. Maybe it will be soon.
Hopefully this information is helpful. Hope you get the new functionality soon so you can test.

[RedNectar]

Hi @sean.eckton ,

Thanks again for taking the time.  Unfortunately I don't use Outlook for mail or calendar, and rely on Cisco to provide me access to all options that are available. Maybe they expect me to write my own code and use the APIs like they do for Webex (Teams).  And I'm at a loss as to why Cisco want to hide inormation as to what cluster I'm on unless I have administrator rights

Re personal room - I have tried that, but I run classes and require scheduled meetings that people can't join simply becuase they know my personal webex id.  I've also looked at using Webex (teams) for meetings, but I need people to be able to raise thier hand, and the ability to mute all at once - features that don't exist in the Webex (Teams) meetings.

[Update] I've since found that I'm on cluster AS and we are on v41.3.3.3 - so that make me really mad that there seems no obvious way of accessing the features advertised for the release (unless you use a comptitor's product - Outlook - if you were using Outlook why wouldn't you use MS Teams?) 

[Fritz_H]

@RedNectar @sean.eckton 
in general, your discussion shows that the current solution is far too complicated.

I suggest the following:
- every meeting has a lobby (no matter if PMR or scheduled)
- who joins early is always moved to the lobby; therefore...
- ...locking a meeting is only available after the meeting has started
- who joins a locked meeting is moved to the lobby.
- the lobby is like the PMR: a "static thing" that can be configured...
- ..."branding" (Wallpaper, Introduction-Video etc..), file-storage (meeting-agenda etc.), surveys, NDA-Checks etc.
(+ option to save different lobby-configurations for easy re-config from one meeting to the next...)

What do you think?

[Fritz_H]

@JacquelineLCole69656 
In addition to the info from @sean.eckton :
https://help.webex.com/en-us/nsq9s2h/Move-Attendees-to-and-from-the-Lobby-in-Cisco-Webex-Meetings

general Background-info - just in case you find some more Webex-related info online:
Webex is both: a specific product and the name of a family of communication-solutions by Cisco:
Software-solutions (https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/solutions/collaboration/index.html#~products),
Hardware: (https://hardware.webex.com/devices/)

For some time "Webex" was a "meetings only" solution:
Outlook-Calendar-> send meeting-invitation which included the Phone-numbers and Links to the Webex-meeting.

Since business-customers asked for more, Cisco created a product called Cisco Spark which was renamed to Webex-Teams some time later. In December 2020 (?) Cisco re-renamed Webex-Teams to just "Webex".

The "meetings-only" - solution is now called Webex-Meetings.
The link above refers to Webex-Meetings.

Webex(-Teams) is the product with instant messaging, Calling, Video-Calls, Video-meetings, Filesharing, Whiteboarding etc..to keep teams connected - before, during and after meetings:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vKdzipOH7nQ

If this sounds familiar to you: well, the person who founded webex later founded zoom...

[sean.eckton · Accepted solution]

Yes. Scheduled meetings can do that now (as of this month). Previously it wasn't available for normal meetings, just personal meeting room meetings.

If you lock the meeting, anyone that wants to join will wait in the lobby until they are allowed in. You can also move people from the meeting to the lobby until you want them back in the meeting.