Waiting room for Webex dial in meeting

[Hsafarian]

Hi There,

I would like to know how to have dial in for my webex personal room that does not have a waiting room, per the new Webex settings, I use my dial in regularly. Please advise.

Thanks and Regards,

Harry

[alicia.ackerman]

I also have this issue, and it's not limited to dial-in participants. All participants are forced to wait in my lobby until I admit them, even if I started the meeting before they joined. I verified that the meeting is unlocked in the "..." section. I've also verified that my personal room settings are not locking my room. I'm sending my meeting invites using my personal room URL: https://[webex link]/meet/[my username]. Are my attendees supposed to use a different method of joining? This changed seemed to happen in the last week or so. Prior to that, they were able to join meetings at any time without needing to wait in the lobby. I believe this was caused by some update. 

[Igor Lukic]

Hi @alicia.ackerman,

there is security setting in Control Hub, where this behaviour can be configured. In Control Hub you need to navigate to "Services -> Meeting -> <SITE-NAME> -> Configure -> Common Settings -> Security -> Personal Room Security".

I assume that this is currently set to "When meeting is unlocked, Guests wait in the lobby until the host admits them" (please refer to the yellow highlighted section in the below screenshot).

So if you set the option to "When a meeting is unlocked, Guests can join directly", it should restore the behaviour as it was in the past. Please bear in mind that this is a global setting and will thus affect all users on that Webex site.

Please be aware that this change in behaviour came with the December 2021 (41.12) release of Webex meetings, in order to improve security. Here you can find the announcement:

Source: https://help.webex.com/en-us/article/np1t7y6/Announcements-for-the-Cisco-Webex-Meetings-Suite

Best regards,

Igor

[bbuskirk]

I have no clue where to find the Control Hub.

[Igor Lukic]

Hi @bbuskirk,

the Webex Control Hub can be found here:

https://admin.webex.com

It is the administrative portal for all Webex services. If you are not the admin of your enterprise, then you have to contact your admin for the change to be implemented.

Please be advised that it is a global setting, so reverting it back will affect all users in your organization.

Best regards,

Igor 

[bbuskirk]

This is not helpful. I do not have an enterprise license. I have a single user license. I find your web page extremely difficult to navigate and cannot determine where any of my setting are managed at any level of detail..
I understand that you made the change to room locking for security reasons. This change affects your customers in a big way. You should have provided the change with a clear option on how to invoke it and a description of the benefit/risks. You are driving your customers away from your service by making this kind of change unilaterally.

[Igor Lukic]

Hi @bbuskirk,

I understand that you are upset about the recent change. However, please be aware that I am not a Cisco employee, just an user (and admin in my company) as you are.

Since this is a moderated community, I hope that someone from Cisco will address your concerns. The change in behaviour was communicated in advance on the web page: https://help.webex.com/en-us/article/np1t7y6/Announcements-for-the-Cisco-Webex-Meetings-Suite. For this reason it is a good practice to regularly visit this site (or your admins).

Based on your input it is not clear, how you have purchased Webex services (i.e. via https://purchase.webex.com/pricing or via an enterprise subscription) or if you are using a free account. Could you please elaborate on that? That would determine, where to reach out for technical support.

Best regards,

Igor

[bbuskirk]

I have a purchased individual account. It is the first level of paid subscription. While my company has had a webex enterprise account I was not part of that license. My company is moving away from webex as their enterprise supported e-conferencing system. It took me quite a bit of searching to find information on my account on the webex site. It was hidden well.
Relative to the issue with the forced waiting room use. I cannot find any place where I have control of that functionality either on my local preferences or on the webex web site. If I cannot find a way to turn it off, I will be moving to a different e-conferencing service. I really don't care if they warned me. It was still done without giving me the ability to opt out.

[Igor Lukic]

Just an addition regarding free Webex accounts:

If it is a free account, then it will not be possible to change the behaviour for your personal room.

Best regards,

Igor

[Stephanie Knoop]

Can you clarify your question or how you experience the problem?  Are you needing to know how to dial in to your Webex personal room (audio only dial in) OR are you wanting to know if there is a waiting room for dial in participants?

[malay.kumar]

Dial In feature is available during meeting from ... section