Conference ownership

Each scheduled conference (i.e. conferences that are configured via the web interface with a start time and, optionally, a duration and repetition) has an associated owner. This owner is the ID of a configured user, and normally corresponds to the user who scheduled the conference.

Scope of conference ownership

Conference ownership affects only web interface control of conferences - in particular, it plays no part in validating video conferencing endpoints' attempts to join conferences when they connect to the MCU via H.323 or SIP. Restricting conference entry in this situation is accomplished via conference (or auto attendant) PINs, as before.

User privileges

The actual implications of conference ownership depend on the privilege of the user; specifically:

Privilege level	Effects of conference ownership
administrator conference creation and full control	Users with these privilege levels are able to create and own conferences, and are able to exercise full control of all conferences.
conference creation and limited control	Users with these privilege levels are able to create and own conferences. They have full control of conferences they own, and limited control of conferences owned by other users.
conference creation	Users with these privilege levels are able to create and own conferences. They have full control of conferences they own, but no control of conferences owned by other users.
conference detail conference list plus streaming conference list only	Users with these privilege levels are not able to own conferences or change any conference's configuration.

Levels of conference control

As described above, a user privilege level confers a certain level of control over a conference, with that level of control possibly depending on whether that user is the conference owner or not. These conference control levels have the following meaning:

Conference control level	Description
full control	This level of control permits the following operations: Participant control With full conference control, a user is able to disconnect participants, connect new participants to the conference, and end the conference whenever they want to. Configuration access A user with full conference control can view and modify any aspect of the conference's configuration. This includes the start time, end time, or repetition characteristics, whether streaming is enabled, and which endpoints are pre-configured as participants. Changing live conference parameters When the conference is in progress, a user with full control is permitted to send a text message to all connected participants' video displays and change the Conference custom layout. Additionally, full control includes all of the operations covered by limited control, detailed below.
limited control	This level of control permits the following operations: Viewing the participant list The participant list shows the names of the endpoints currently connected to the conference, a summary of that endpoint's status and, if they are a video participant, a thumbnail preview image of the video stream they are supplying. Thumbnail previews are shown by default, but you can configure the user interface not to show them. The setting that controls this is the Show video thumbnail images option on the Settings > User interface page. Note that the MCU will not show thumbnail previews on the participant list page if encryption is required for a conference. However, thumbnail previews will be shown for conferences where encryption is optional and there are encrypted participants. Via the participant list, it is also possible to mute (or stop muting) individual endpoints' audio, change the conference's "important" participant, and enable or disable the participants' ability to affect their own layouts via Far-End Camera Control or DTMF tones. Controlling video sent to participants This includes being able to choose what view layout (or family) is used for constructing the conference view being sent to a participant, changing the Participant custom layout, and whether to send widescreen or standard format video to that endpoint. Controlling participant cameras The web interface can be used to send control commands (e.g. pan and tilt) to a remote participant's camera. Viewing audio status Waveforms of audio channels being sent to, and received from, the participant can be viewed, audio gain applied, and participant audio can be muted if required. Sending messages to individual participants Textual messages can be sent to an individual participant, and will appear on their displays. Viewing participant statistics and diagnostics This allows details of the media streams being sent to, and received from, participants to be viewed, plus endpoint-specific characteristics to be examined.
no control	This means that none of the above operations are possible. Depending on the specific privilege level, either the list of scheduled conferences will not be shown to the user, or the list will be shown but conferences over which the user has no control will be presented as names rather than hyperlinks.

Conference control level

Description

full control

This level of control permits the following operations:

Participant control
With full conference control, a user is able to disconnect participants, connect new participants to the conference, and end the conference whenever they want to.

Configuration access
A user with full conference control can view and modify any aspect of the conference's configuration. This includes the start time, end time, or repetition characteristics, whether streaming is enabled, and which endpoints are pre-configured as participants.

Changing live conference parameters
When the conference is in progress, a user with full control is permitted to send a text message to all connected participants' video displays and change the Conference custom layout.

Additionally, full control includes all of the operations covered by limited control, detailed below.

limited control

This level of control permits the following operations:

Viewing the participant list
The participant list shows the names of the endpoints currently connected to the conference, a summary of that endpoint's status and, if they are a video participant, a thumbnail preview image of the video stream they are supplying. Thumbnail previews are shown by default, but you can configure the user interface not to show them. The setting that controls this is the Show video thumbnail images option on the Settings > User interface page. Note that the MCU will not show thumbnail previews on the participant list page if encryption is required for a conference. However, thumbnail previews will be shown for conferences where encryption is optional and there are encrypted participants.

Via the participant list, it is also possible to mute (or stop muting) individual endpoints' audio, change the conference's "important" participant, and enable or disable the participants' ability to affect their own layouts via Far-End Camera Control or DTMF tones.

Controlling video sent to participants
This includes being able to choose what view layout (or family) is used for constructing the conference view being sent to a participant, changing the Participant custom layout, and whether to send widescreen or standard format video to that endpoint.

Controlling participant cameras
The web interface can be used to send control commands (e.g. pan and tilt) to a remote participant's camera.

Viewing audio status
Waveforms of audio channels being sent to, and received from, the participant can be viewed, audio gain applied, and participant audio can be muted if required.

Sending messages to individual participants
Textual messages can be sent to an individual participant, and will appear on their displays.

Viewing participant statistics and diagnostics
This allows details of the media streams being sent to, and received from, participants to be viewed, plus endpoint-specific characteristics to be examined.

no control

This means that none of the above operations are possible. Depending on the specific privilege level, either the list of scheduled conferences will not be shown to the user, or the list will be shown but conferences over which the user has no control will be presented as names rather than hyperlinks.

Changing the owner of a conference

A user whose privilege level is either conference creation and full control or administrator is also able to change the owner of a conference. A conference owner can be changed to either a user with conference creation rights or to "none", signifying that no user should be considered the owner of that conference. Also, when scheduling new conferences, users with these privileges are able to choose which owner is initially associated with the conference.

Deleting users who are conference owners

If a user account is deleted, any conferences owned by that user have their owner reset to "none".