Business Issue/Requirement

Most business professionals schedule meetings and conference calls via an online calendaring program (such as Microsoft Outlook or Lotus Notes). These systems can send E-mail notifications to the meeting participants. Typically, meeting organizers have to take separate steps to activate a conference call bridge in advance of the scheduled call. Ideally, a conferencing service would integrate with calendaring programs so that everything can be set up with one step, minimizing the host’s efforts.

ZipDX Feature

ZipDX integrates with online calendaring systems that conform to the iCalendar standard. This includes Microsoft Outlook/Exchange, Lotus Notes, Google Calendar, Zimbra and others.

When scheduling a conference, simply include this E-mail address as a meeting participant: meeting@cal.zipdx.com. This allows ZipDX to learn about your meeting (the title, date, time and participant list). ZipDX will recognize anyone previously registered within the system. It will add to its database any E-mail addresses it doesn’t know and will generate an e-mail inviting them to register at ZipDX.com.

ZipDX can handle one-time meetings, as well as recurring events. As soon as the system has processed your meeting notice, it will send you a confirmation E-mail.

Use this Feature

Use your favorite compatible calendaring program to set up a meeting, as you usually do. Include your list of invited participants, but add meeting@cal.zipdx.com. Within a few minutes, you’ll receive an E-mail from ZipDX confirming the systems has received and scheduled your call. You can also visit ZipDX.com and log in to confirm the meeting has been added to your “Pending Conferences. ”

Making adjustments to the meeting time and add a new participant to your call is just as easy. Use your calendaring program of choice to change the teleconference time or to add another participant. When your system prompts you to send the change notification to the invited guests, be sure to tell it to “Send notification to ALL participants.” ZipDX will receive the change and register it in the system. Look for the confirmation E-mail and check ZipDX.com to see the change reflected in your meeting schedule.

Notes: Before using the ZipDX online calendaring features, it is important that you white list or mark as safe for your inbox all E-mails coming from ‘@zipdx.com.’ Occasionally, messages from ZipDX will end up in a “spam” or “junk” folder. If you or your invitees do not immediately see expected messages from ZipDX, check these folders.

ZipDX normally sends its E-mails “on behalf of” the individual initiating the E-mail (for example, the host of the meeting). For example, you may see an E-mail from: ZipDX on behalf of John Hancock. Some E-mail systems (particularly Lotus Notes) are configured to reject these E-mails when they are sent to others in the same domain. If you find that your messages via ZipDX are not being delivered, click on the Profile tab at ZipDX.com, and check the appropriate box under “Advanced Preferences. ” This will alert the system that you are a Lotus Notes user. Checking this box tells ZipDX to use its E-mail address, instead of the host’s E-mail, when sending mail to other users at your same domain.

If you have set up additional conference templates (see next section), and wish to use one of those templates, substitute the appropriate template name when including ZipDX in your calendar invitation. For example: use “staff_meeting@cal.zipdx.com” or “board_call@cal.zipdx.com” instead of “meeting@cal.zipdx.com”. (To see any special character substitutions, view the template and scroll over the “Explain” link next to the Template Name. )