Create a moderated conference bridge in IP Office

One thing that comes up in IP Office is, can the conferencing in Voicemail Pro, make a bridge that users hear hold music until the conference owner arrives?  With conference meet me, when users arrive, they are just brought into the bridge, hearing a beep every time someone new arrives.  But, with release 8, Avaya added the functionality to allow a conference owner to arrive, prior to that arrival, the users in the bridge would hear hold music.  Lets talk about how this can happen.

Basically, documentation says that if the short code for conference meet me, matches the extension number, this feature is enabled.  So to test that theory, lets look at the differences in short codes.

Our current short code:

Code:    42XXX
Feature:  Conference Meet Me
Number:  .  (yes that’s a period)
LineGroup  0

Now when we enter 42927, from any phone, we are brought directly into the conference bridge, which would be conference number 42927 (the period uses what we dialed)

Now, if we want the normal users to hear hold music, until the owner arrives, we need to change the bridge accordingly:

Code:    42XXX
Feature:  Conference Meet Me
Number:  2N
LineGroup  0

So in this case, the actual conference bridge number would be 2927 (2N, what we dialed).  so if anyone called from a different phone other than 2927, they would hear music on hold, until 2927 joined the bridge.

So cool you say (i knew you would), but, what happens if I am away from the office and cant dial into my bridge?  Hmm, well, we have an app for that.  You would just need to set up an FNE code (18) that you could dial from your twinned device.  When you do so, you will get dial tone, at which point you dial teh short code (42927) and that will get you in, and take everyone OFF MOH.  How cool is that?