Is FreePBX able to conference in multiple calls at one time, in other words you
are on the phone with caller 1, you conference caller 2, thats pretty basic, but now I want to conference caller 3?
I know the “conference” function when you can have as many people as you want to call in, but the above is more about 1 person initiating the multiple conferences.
What you are describing initially is an ‘on phone’ 3-way conference feature, which is reliant on the phone firmware supporting that functionality and as you point out very rarely can handle more than a 3-way conference.
If you wanted to sort of emulate this “adhoc” conference functionality, you could simply transfer the active call into a meetme conference room - depending on your phone you could assign a speed dial button to do this. Then switch to the next active call and repeat.
On my phone (Cisco) I have a dedicated ‘Conference’ button and a ‘Transfer’ button. I’ve also created a meetme room on extension 8888 and assigned it to a speed-dial key (with BLF so I can see when folks are dialled into conference).
When I want to simply join 2 other calling parties in a 3-way conference I use the Conference button to ‘join’ the calls. On the other hand if I know there will be more than 3 parties joining the call, on the active call I just press the transfer button followed by my meetme speed dial button to move that caller into conference, swap to my other caller then repeat the exercise. Not too hard!
I have been trying to figure this out for some time. I remember having a functioning Confrn (Conference) button on my Cisco 7971 phones when I first connected them to my FreePBX (Elastix) installation.
The first configuration file I was using for the phones when the Confrn button worked was pulled from some website which I can’t seem to locate anymore.
The configuration file I’m using now is one I pieced together from using the 79xx page on voip-info.org and since I put that one together my Confrn button does not merge the two calls together.
In other words, I start the first call, press Confrn, start the second call, but when I press the Confrn button again absolutely nothing happens. The first call is on hold, the second call remains active and I don’t see anything happen on the asterisk console when I press the Confrn button to merge the calls.
I can only imagine there is supposed to be something in my configuration file for the phone that is preventing this from working. Can anyone offer any guidance or share a config file where this button functions correctly?
Thank you very much in advance!