Meeting Controls for Cisco endpoints

When using a Cisco endpoint, you can enhance your Microsoft Teams or Webex meeting room experience with Meeting Controls for Cisco endpoints. Webex-registered endpoints can use Meeting Controls for Cisco CE when using the Pexip Service for CVI or MS Teams Guest Join / Google Guest Join. Meeting Controls are also available in Google Meet conferences but as a tech preview feature only. See Google Meet conferences for more information.

On this page:

About Meeting Controls

When using a Cisco endpoint, you can enhance your Microsoft Teams or Webex meeting, you can use the Cisco endpoint's touch panel to:

  • change the conference layout (only for the endpoint on which the macro is being used)
  • enable/disable overlay text (the names of the participants or endpoints visible from the endpoint on which the macro is being used)
  • spotlight / pin a participant*
  • view who is presenting, spotlighted, muted or has raised their hand
  • view the full participants list — sorted by raised hand time, then spotlight status, then time joined

* For Microsoft Teams meetings, the macro gives you the option to "pin" a participant. This focuses on that participant, but only on the endpoint on which the macro is being used. People using native Teams clients can also "spotlight" a participant, which means that the participant has focus in the video layout that is shown to all participants.

Mute status

By default, if you mute the Cisco endpoint locally using the touch panel, the endpoint's muted status is not visible in the Teams client.

If you mute the Cisco endpoint from the Teams client, this is synchronized with the mute status visible on the endpoint's touch panel, which becomes muted.

Supported endpoints and conferences

The Meeting Controls feature is supported:

  • on Cisco Room Devices MX, SX, DX and Room Kit Series, but not SX10. Firmware CE9.13 or newer required for all.
  • in Microsoft Teams and Google Meet conferences.
  • on Webex-registered endpoints.

Prerequisites

  • Admin user access to the Cisco endpoint for configuration.
  • The Cisco endpoint must be registered to either the Pexip Service or a SIP registrar that is able to proxy messages.

  • The Cisco endpoint must be able to access port TCP/443 on Pexip's API server (as configured in the settings file) at the following destination: meetingcontrol.pexip.io

  • If the Cisco endpoint has not already been provisioned by the Pexip Service, it requires the ISRG Root X1 certificate to be added manually as a Custom CA. Instructions on how to do this are in Troubleshooting.

Downloads

The Meeting Controls feature uses a Meeting Controls macro that is installed on the Cisco endpoint. During the macro installation, you require the following files:

  • macro file: this is the macro that is uploaded to the endpoint
  • settings file: this file contains settings for the macro.

Information on how to access and save these files is given below.

Macro file

Download the following file (you may need to right-click and select Save link as...):

Download link Required?
meeting-controls-macro.js This file is required in all installations but you do not need to customize it.

Settings file

Download the following file (you may need to right-click and select Save link as...):

Download link Required?
meeting-controls-settings.js This file is required in all installations and has been pre-customized for Pexip Service endpoints.

Manual installation of Meeting Controls

The following instructions explain how to install the Meeting Controls macro and settings manually on a single endpoint. If you use Enhanced Room Management (ERM) and want to provision the macro on multiple endpoints simultaneously, proceed to ERM installation of Meeting Controls.

  1. Log into the web interface of your Cisco endpoint in your browser.

  2. Go to Macro Editor.

  3. Select Enable Macros. This prompt only appears if you have never used a macro before.
  4. In the Macro Editor, select Import from file and select the settings file (e.g. settings.js) that you downloaded earlier.

  5. Select the Save to video system icon:

  6. Select Import from file again and select the macro file (e.g. meeting-controls-macro.js) that you downloaded earlier.

  7. Select the Save to video system icon:

  8. Toggle the macro from off to on:

  9. Refresh the web page.

With immediate effect, during Teams and Google Meet conferences the touch panel of the Cisco endpoint shows the additional control features.

Troubleshooting

General

If you need to troubleshoot the Meeting Controls macro at any point, you can download logs from the web interface in

System Maintenance > Issues and Diagnostics > Systems logs > Download logs...

SSL key / Certificate issues

If the Meeting Controls log entries are referencing SSL key issues, the endpoint may not have the correct CA certificate. This can happen if the Cisco endpoint was not provisioned by the Pexip Service. You must manually add the certificate to the Cisco endpoint together with the macro to ensure that the trust chain is complete.

To add the CA certificate:

  1. Go to the Let's Encrypt repository to obtain the ISRG Root X1 certificate: https://letsencrypt.org/certs/isrgrootx1.pem (you may need to right-click and select Save link as...).
  2. Follow the prompts to save the file as a .pem file.
    • If you choose to open the file first, be sure to use a text editor such as Notepad or Vi.
  3. To install the certificate, sign in to the unit's configuration interface and from the side menu select Security.
  4. Then from the horizontal tabs, switch to the Custom tab .

  5. Then select Browse and find the saved the .pem file on your computer. Follow the prompts to complete installation of the .pem file.

After installing the certificate, check that it was successful by viewing the device's status in the web interface. It should be registered.

ERM installation of Meeting Controls

If you use Enhanced Room Management (ERM), you can enable Meeting Controls on multiple endpoints simultaneously.

Installing Meeting Controls macro in ERM

  1. Go to Enhanced Room Management > Panels and macros.

  2. On the Room Controls tab, select the + button.

  3. Enter a title and description for the settings.
  4. Attach the settings file that you downloaded earlier and select Add.
  5. Again, select the + button.
  6. Enter a title and description for the macro.
  7. Attach the macro file that you downloaded earlier and select Add.

The Meeting Controls macro and settings are now installed in ERM.

Provisioning Meeting Controls on multiple endpoints in ERM

The following instructions explain how to provision one or more Cisco endpoints in ERM with Meeting Controls.

  1. Go to Enhanced Room Management > Systems.
  2. On the Search tab, select all room systems that you want to deploy Meeting Controls to.
  3. Select Provisioning.
  4. Select Apply macros/panels and from the Controls options select Meeting Controls macro.

  5. To enable the macro on the endpoints with immediate effect select Apply, otherwise select Schedule for the night.

Tech preview features

Any features listed here are technology preview only and may be subject to change.

Meeting Controls in Google Meet conferences

The Meeting Controls macro can now be used on Cisco endpoints in Google Meet conferences, subject to some limitations.

The following meeting controls are available:

  • Change the conference layout (only for the endpoint on which the macro is being used)
  • Enable/disable overlay text (the names of the participants or endpoints visible from the endpoint on which the macro is being used)
  • View the full participants list — sorted by raised hand time, then spotlight status, then time joined.

Prerequisites

Known limitations

  1. In the participant view on the Cisco endpoint, the mute status icon does not currently reflect the server-side mute status like it does in Microsoft Teams conferences. This means that on the Cisco endpoint in Google Meet conferences, participants always appear as unmuted even if they are muted on the server side.
  2. In the participant view, the Pin button does not work but is still visible and can be pressed.

Release notes

Macro version Release date Description
v1.7.2 5 November 2024 Fixes an issue encountered by Webex-registered endpoints where the macro could sometimes fail to find the Session-ID and the call would not connect.
v1.7.1 4 October 2024

New features:

  • Support for Webex-registered endpoints. Webex-registered endpoints will now be able to use Meeting Controls for Cisco CE when using the Pexip Service for CVI or MS Teams Guest Join / Google Guest Join.

Improvements:

  • Removes the deprecated CommonJS module.
  • Adds new metadata headers to every HTTP request: Serial Number, SIP URI, and macro name/version. This helps Pexip Support to identify requests based on endpoint serial number, SIP URI, and macro name/version.
  • Improves performance to prevent unnecessary requests that occasionally generated excessive traffic, and in rare circumstances, caused the endpoint to stop working.
  • Replaces the use of emoji with a string for raised hand indication. Previously, the use of an emoji for this indication could cause the endpoint to stop working.
  • Fixes an issue where the macro attempted to add the same hostname more than once in the system list.
  • General improvements to SIP Session-ID change logging.
v1.7.0 1 February 2024
  • The order of participants in the participants list is now sorted by raised hand time, then spotlight status, then time joined.
  • General improvements to the user interface.
  • In previous versions, there was an issue where an API call disconnected, it could still show as an active call in the macro logs. This has now been fixed.
v1.6.1 16 May 2023 Initial release on Pexip Service.