Conference Now feature of CUCM 11

The latest release of CUCM version 11.x cisco has introduced the advance meet me conference with very lucarative feature and rebranded it as conference now

Here you can get a nearby experience as webex having a native per user meeting id and access code.
More over Cisco provide a basic IVR prompt for a better experience from end user perspective.

To configure this follow the below steps:

 From the Call Routing > Conference Now and define the  conference now number



Now navigate to Media resources >  Interactive Voice Response and check whether the IVR resource is registered with CUCM or not.





You can also modify the device pool and other configurable parameter for the IVR media resources.

You can also see the conference now feature parameter added to the IP voice and media streaming servives.



you can also modify the greeting announcement.What you have to do is navigate to Media resources> announcement

click on the announcement and upload a file to the announcement.

Most of the time the default announcement is good enough



Next navigate to the Feature group template option( User management >  User/Phone Add > Feature Group template)

Add a new template as follows,This template can be used when you will use the Quick user/phone add option for quick add .



Go to the end user and enable the Conference Now feature for the end user ,The option can be found at the end of the end user page.



For test

Dial the confermce now number ,It will prompt you to provide meeting ID ( Enter the Extesnion 5001) now it will ask for PIN ( the end user pin configured in end user page )

Participant need to  enter the meeting id and access code to join the meeting.

CONS:
 The Conference Now feature does not have a Conference Roster, but it does play an entry/exit tone

The host cannot mute/unmute the attendeesAn attendee cannot mute/unmute the audio by entering dual tone multi frequency (DTMF) digits

The maximum number of conference parties is controlled by the existing CallManager service parameter

Maximum Meet-Me Conference UnicastA maximum of one hundered (100) simultaneous Conference Now and Meet-Me conference are supported per CUCM node

The video on hold is not supported.An IVR supports Out-Of-Band (OOB) only. Media Termination Point (MTP) might be needed

An IP Voice Media Streaming Application (IPVMA) software conference bridge supports codec G.711 and Wide band 256K