Feature category: Self-service conferencing

Outlook Add-in
VQ Conference Manager integrates seamlessly with Microsoft Outlook, enabling your employees to manage their calls and meeting Spaces using the tools they already use to plan their days.
Compatible with Outlook 2016/2019 and Office 365 on Windows and macOS, VQ Conference Manager’s user control panel puts conferencing at the heart of workplace productivity – and removes the need for employees to log into a separate web portal. (If you’re using an older version of Outlook, scroll down to discover our Plug-in).
Add Space details to meeting invitations
When users create an Outlook meeting invitation, the VQ Conference Manager control panel enables them to add their Space details in a single click. This injects all the details recipients need to join the call.
Meeting Space management
The VQ Conference Manager Outlook Add-in enables users to manage their virtual meeting Spaces and passcodes from within Outlook. This includes:
• Update existing Space settings
• Create new Spaces
• Remove Spaces
• Change PINs/passcodes
Self-service call control
As well as managing meeting Spaces, users can control calls, directly within Microsoft Outlook.
For any in-flight call, the meeting Space owner can:
• See who is on the call
• Mute or unmute participants’ audio
• Change the video layout
• Set participant importance
• Remove participants
• End the call

Plug-in for Outlook 2013 and later on Windows

The VQ Conference Manager Outlook Add-in works with Outlook 2016 and later. For organizations using Outlook 2013 for Windows, the VQ Conference Manager Outlook Plug-in provides a one-click way to add the details of a user’s Space to an Outlook meeting invitation. This provides the recipient with all the details they need to join the call.
The Outlook Plug-in has been upgraded to include the following new functionality:
• Inject details for a space into a meeting
• Schedule a meeting on a Space
• Schedule a one-time meeting on a Space
• For multi-role Spaces, the role can also be selected
• Configuration options for label names and functionality subsets

The VQ Conference Manager web portal gives users Webex-style access to your conferencing service.

Using the portal, users can:

• Schedule one-off and recurring calls (optionally with their own PIN/passcode)
• Share meeting information, such as joining links
• Join calls
• Control in-flight conferences
• Manage their meeting Spaces

 Scheduling one-off and recurring calls
Users can schedule calls using the VQ Conference Manager web portal. This can either be in one of their static, always-available meeting Spaces, or in a one-off Space with its own PIN, which will exist only at the specified call time, for added security.

For more on the different ways to schedule calls using VQ Conference Manager, please see ‘Scheduling one-off and recurring calls’.

 Share meeting information

The web portal enables any conferencing user to share joining details for:

• Their static, always-available meeting Space(s)
• Any future one-off calls they’ve scheduled

Join calls

From the web portal, users can join calls or meeting Spaces in a few clicks, including:

• Their static, always-available Space(s)
• Any one-off calls they’ve scheduled

Your administrators can configure the web portal to determine which joining options users are offered. This could include Cisco Meeting Server web app, Microsoft Teams, Skype or telephone.

Control in-flight conferences
When a call is in progress in a user’s Space, that user can:
• See who is on the call
• Mute or unmute participants’ audio
• Change video layout
• Set participant importance
• Remove participants
• End the call

Your administrators can control which of the above options are available to users, via VQ Conference Manager’s user interface profiles.

Self-service Space management
From the VQ Conference Manager web portal, conferencing users can:
• Update existing Space settings
• Create new Spaces
• Remove Spaces
• Change PINs/passcodes

For organizations using Cisco Jabber as their unified communications client, VQ Conference Manager plugs seamlessly into this interface.

From the VQ tab in Jabber, conferencing users can:
• Update existing Space settings
• Create new Spaces
• Remove Spaces
• Change PINs/passcodes
• Launch a call in one of their Spaces, using the Jabber client

And when a call is in progress in a user’s Space, Jabber shows the Space is active and how many participants are in it. Users can then:
• See who is on the call
• Mute or unmute participants’ audio
• Change video layout
• Set participant importance
• Remove participants
• End the call

Your administrators can control which of the above options are available to users, via VQ Conference Manager’s user interface profiles.

 

Conferencing users can control their calls and meeting Spaces direct from their iPhones, with the VQ Conference Manager iOS app.

Users can:
• Update existing Space settings
• Create new Spaces
• Remove Spaces
• Change PINs/passcodes

And when a call is in progress in a user’s Space, the app shows that the Space is active and how many participants are in it. They can then:
• See who is on the call
• Mute or unmute participants’ audio
• Change video layout
• Set participant importance
• Remove participants
• End the call

Your administrators can control which of the above options are available to users, via VQ Conference Manager’s user interface profiles.

Having an iPhone app, as well as integration with Outlook and Cisco Jabber, gives your employees a convenient way to manage their conferencing, wherever they are.

Sometimes, you need to get multiple individuals on the line together quickly, perhaps to respond to an incident. VQ Conference Manager’s Reactive Calls/Blast Dial capability enables this.

Starting a Reactive Calls call immediately dials out to a pre-configured list of devices (soft clients, phones or video appliances). This can include users on any device your Cisco Meeting Server is configured to dial.