Conference Calling with RingCentral
As you may have already heard, RingCentral recently added many exciting new features to its Office plans — one of which was conference calling.
First, let’s start off with some important facts and basic info about conferencing:
1) It’s ready to use whenever you need it. No need to set up a reservation or schedule the conference. Simply tell conference call attendees what your conference number is, and of course what time your call will be taking place.
2) Conference calling is included in the unlimited usage of your user account. The only requirement is that you have a RingCentral Office plan (U.S. only for now); conferencing is available for both metered and unlimited Office customers.
3) Each conference call can have a maximum of 1,000 participants (including the host).
4) RingCentral customers can send an “Invite” to conference call participants through their online accounts, as well as directly from the RingCentral mobile app (available for iOS, Android, and BlackBerry). Your computer should have a default email client – like Outlook or Thunderbird – set up to use the “Invite” feature.
5) Any conference established will automatically time out after three hours if the user is using RingCentral service on an IP phone, a softphone, or via RingOut. However, if user is using a third-party phone, the conference call will time out after six hours.
Now that the basics are out of the way, here is everything you need to know on how to use RingCentral’s new Conference Calling feature.
Step 1: Dial the conference number (this is located at the top of your Overview tab of the Online Account Interface).
Step 2: Enter in the appropriate access code for either ‘participant’ or ‘host’.
Step 3: Wait for all other participants to connect and join in on the call. Your meeting will then begin.
Step 4: To end the conference call simply hang up or press *#3 to be disconnected from the call.
Please note, the conference details and invite information can also be found under Settings > My Settings > Phones & Numbers in the online account interface.
Conference details under User Info.
To access the conference calling information from the RingCentral mobile app, please reference the below image. The numbers correspond directly to the steps listed above.
Finally, here’s a list of touch tone commands and controls for hosts and participants to use while on a RingCentral conference call. These are shortcuts to access some key features of conference calling.
Keypad shortcuts:
- *#2 >> Count – plays the number of parties in on the call (host only function)
- *#3 >> Exit – exit the conference call (host and participant function)
- *#4 >> Instructions – plays the conference instructions if any have been established (host and participant function)
- *#5 >> Listen only mode – host controlled muting (host only function)
- *#6 >> Mute/Unmute – caller controlled muting (host and participant function)
- *#7 >> Secured/Unsecured – stops callers from entering the conference call (host only function)
- *#8 >> Tone Controls