How It Works
We built ZipDX to fit the way you work, not the other way around. These steps make conferencing quick, easy and reliable.
1) The first step is to register with ZipDX. ZipDX works best if it knows your name, your E-mail address(es), and your phone number(s). To act as a conference organizer, you'll have to have a ZipDX account, which you can read more about below. You only go through this set-up process once.
2) Plan your conferences just like you normally would, using your preferred calendaring system (such as Microsoft Outlook or Google Calendar). Include meeting@cal.zipdx.com on your invitation list, along with any other participants you want to notify. This lets the ZipDX system know about your meeting (date, time, topic, and participants).
3) ZipDX will E-mail back a confirmation to you. If any of your invitees have not already registered, ZipDX will send them an E-mail suggesting that they do so. It will also provide them with a unique PIN that they can use immediately.
4) When you're ready to join your conference, you and your participants need only dial 1-888-ZIPDX-88 (1-888-947-3988). If you've registered your phone number, ZipDX will recognize you, announce your conference, and put you right into the meeting. No codes required! If ZipDX can't recognize you from your phone number, it will ask you to enter your PIN. The first time you call in, you'll be asked to record your name. This is used for subsequent announcements.
Registration: Anybody can register with ZipDX. To keep things secure, you register by entering your E-mail address. ZipDX will send you a link, which you can click on to complete the process. You probably have a desk phone, a mobile phone, and maybe a home-office phone. You can enter up to five numbers that ZipDX will use exclusively to recognize you when you call in. If you have multiple E-mail addresses, you can link all those to a single ZipDX registration. And feel free to change the PIN that ZipDX assigns you; you can choose any seven-digit number that somebody else hasn't already taken. (Pick a number that's easy for you to remember, like your home phone when you were growing up!) And remember that ZipDX won't use the phone numbers or E-mail addresses you enter for any purpose other than ZipDX conferencing.
Accounts: Anybody participating in a conference is welcome to register at ZipDX – there's no charge to sign up. If you want to act as a conference ORGANIZER, however, you'll need a ZipDX account. If your company already has one, just ask your Account Administrator to add you as an authorized user. Contact us if you need to set up a new account.
Customer Portal: From the ZipDX Customer Portal, you can update your registration information, set up calls (as an alternative to using a Calendaring program), see upcoming and historical conference call data, and manage your Call Templates. Everybody has at least one Call Template, where you can enable features like name announcements and chimes as people enter and leave your conferences, set whether they have to wait for you (the Host) to arrive before the conference starts, and specify for how long the conference will continue after you leave. If you want, you can set up multiple templates (one for the staff meeting, another for the project review, etc.). You can assign a Conference Code to a template, so that others can join without registering, just as in traditional conference systems. You can also launch "spontaneous" (unplanned and unscheduled) conferences using a Conference Code.
Conference Controls: Once you have joined a conference, you can use your telephone keypad to activate the following controls:
*1 – Raise/Lower hand: lets the conference host know that you want to ask a question
*2 – Cast a vote; the next digit you enter will be recorded as your vote (*20 clears your vote)
*3 – Hear the number of participants in the conference; press 3 again to hear a roll call
*4 – Move to a private conference room; the next digit is the room number (0 = main conference)
*6 – Mute/Unmute; toggles your microphone on and off
Host Controls: If you are a host of a conference, you can use these additional controls:
*91 – Tells how many hands are raised
*94x – Recalls participants from a private conference room to the main conference (x is the private room number; *943 recalls room three to the main conference; *940 recalls everybody to the main conference)
*960
– Unmutes all participants that have muted themselves, or have been muted
via *961
*961 – Mutes all
participants; they can individually unmute via *6
*970 – Clears "hard mute" for all
participants
*971 – Sets "hard mute" for
all participants (they cannot unmute via *6)
*98 - Dials out to a specific number; after
dialing *98, you will be prompted for the number to dial (1 followed by number for US &
Canada; 011 followed by country code and number for International); conference will hear
ringing and called party will be placed directly in conference
*99 –
Hangs up on last-dialed party (in case of no answer or voice-mail)
Dashboard: You can log into the ZipDX dashboard via your Web browser to see who is in your conference, monitor their status, even see who's talking! You can mute individual participants. There's a "dashboard" link next to each of your active conferences in the Customer Portal (portal.zipdx.com). Virtually all of the functions listed in the Conference and Host controls above are available via point-and-click in the dashboard.
Dial-Out: You can configure ZipDX to call you shortly before your conference is scheduled to start. Each participant controls the phone number(s) the system will use; it's all configured from the Customer Portal. ZipDX will call up to 5 numbers simultaneously, looking for you, Press 1 to accept the call; then ZipDX will announce your conference and join you with your group. If you don't accept the call, ZipDX will try once more in 3 minutes. Now you never forget a conference call. ZipDX dial-out is a favorite feature!
International Dial-In: If you're outside the US & Canada, you can use these numbers to reach ZipDX directly.
Recording: Coming Soon!
