Conferencing and collaborating has become a critical skill that many of us need to use on a regular basis. Thankfully, this is pretty easy to do on our new phone system. We all have 2 conferencing resources at our disposal for this: conferencing on your Polycom phone handset and conferencing from your Comcast Business VoiceEdge companion desktop app or mobile app.   We will cover both of these.

 

When on a call on your Polycom desk phone, you can conference in one other party (for a total of 3 people on the phone). To do this, follow these steps:

 

            

 

 

 

 

Of course, there are times when you need to get more than just 2 other people on the phone with you. Fortunately, each of you has a 50-participant conference bridge included with your Comcast account. You can launch a conference call from either your Comcast BVE desktop companion app (which you can install from here, if you still need to) or from the Comcast Business mobile app, which you can download and install from the Apple App Store or Google Play store. The procedure is the same in both:

 

  1. Click/tap on the Conference button in the app

     

 

  1. The next screen will allow you to start the conference call. You can share the information about the conference (including the phone number and conference ID) by clicking/tapping on the Share Conference Link. This will copy the link to your clipboard.

                

 

  1. You can then paste this link into an email or even a text message (if you are using your cell phone) and send it to the folks who need to participate in the conference call:

 

 

            

 

It’s important to note that when invitees click on the link, they will be taken to a web page in which they will be prompted to enter their name and the phone number with which they want to join the conference. Comcast will then ring their phone and add them into the conference. If they do not dial the conference number manually, they will not need to enter the conference ID. They will simply be joined into the conference call. 

 

  1. Once you start the call, you can see which participants have joined, can mute or unmute participants or even transfer the call to another device (e.g. from your desk phone to your cell phone or vice-versa). Once you have completed the conference call, simply tap/click End Conference, and the call will hang up for you and for the other participants.  

 

 

            

 

 

Here is a quick video link which will walk you through these steps:  https://youtu.be/Lh3qMeInzso. 

 

If you have any questions or need any assistance with audio conferencing, please don’t hesitate to send me an email or give me a call. Thanks!