If you are often dialing into conference call bridges I’m sure you have also more than once wished the ID and participant code would dial themselves automatically. I’ve done this by hand for years and have only recently found out that there’s actually a simple way to fully automate the process.
The Trick With the Commas
The trick is to use commas after the phone number followed by the digits that should be dialed via DTMF tones. Here’s an example:
Conference call number: +44123456
Conference call id: 998877#
Participant id: 007#
The number that has to be dialed then is:
+44123456,998877#,007#
Add more commas for longer delays if it’s a conference facility that insists talking to you for a while before a number can be entered. As an interesting side note, the commas are nothing new, they could already be used in the ‘at’-dial command when modems were popular.
How To Dial Such A Number – From Contacts
For recurring conference calls the best way to save such a dial string is to create an entry in the contacts and use the number from there.
How To Dial Such A Number – From the Calendar
When sending an email invitation for a conference call, e.g. by including a calendar entry, such a string can be embedded as well. Depending on the operating system and calendar app used on the smartphone the full string is already recognized as a number that can be dialed when one taps on it or it can at least be selected and copied over into the dialer app.
Hi Martin,
this was already supported from the beginning of GSM. At those times, P (equivalent to comma today) was entered by pressing and holding the * key and W was entered by pressing and holding the # key. The sequence such as +4912345w1234p4321 was and is storable in the phonebook, even on the SIM card. I used this a lot in early days to check my office voice mail, which required identification of the PABX extension and a PIN code via DTMF.