Notes:

Webex Personal Conferencing (PCN Meetings)

Personal Conferencing (PCN) in site administration

• Do not enable 'Join before Host' for PCN for any user unless you fully understand the security impact and require this functionality.
  • Important - Cisco does not recommend using Join Before Host with PCN as a best practice, due to the potential for fraudulent telephony misuse. Click on the following link for more information:
    
        Cisco WebEx Best Practices for Secure Meetings for Site Administrators and Hosts
• PCN Meetings use two randomly assigned 8-digit access codes for controlling and accessing a personal conference (a host access code and an attendee access code). These codes are static and are always available without prior scheduling. If a PCN meeting is scheduled in advance, the host receives an invitation with both host & attendee code while invitees receive a separate invitation which includes (only) the attendee access code.
• With 'Join before Host' disabled (recommended), a host must dial the Webex Access number for the audio bridge and enter the host access code and Audio PIN before attendees can join the meeting.
  • By default, the setting to allow PCN attendees to join before the host is disabled, and can only be enabled in Site Administration. If the setting is disabled, the option will not appear for hosts scheduling PCN meetings.
• With 'Join before Host' enabled, attendees can join the meeting without the host being in attendance. Enabling this setting can result in unintended consequences including misuse of teleconferencing minutes.
• This setting only applies to standard Webex sites. It does NOT apply to Common Identity (CI) sites.

Personal Conferencing security for hosts

• Create a strong Audio PIN and protect it.
• Your Audio PIN is the last level of protection for prevention of unauthorized access to your personal conferencing account. Should a person gain unauthorized access to the host access code for a PCN meeting, the conference cannot be started without the Audio PIN. Protect your Audio PIN and do not share it.

Solution:
The Join Before Host (JBH) feature allows attendees to speak to the other participants on the call before the host joins the audio conference.

If the Join Before Host option is not enabled on the Personal Conferencing account, attendees will wait on hold for the host to start the teleconference. If this is the case, attendees will receive the message: 'The host has not yet arrived, please stand by'. There is no known maximum hold time for an attendee waiting for a host to start the Personal Conferencing teleconference.

The Join Before Host option is no longer controlled at the individual host level. The Join Before Host option can now be enabled or disabled globally in Site Administration.

Site Administrators only

To enable the Join Before Host option for Personal Conferencing accounts:

1. Log in to your Webex Site Administration page.
2. Click on Configuration > Common Site Settings > Options.
3. Scroll down to the Security Options section, then find the Cisco Webex: Webex Meetings: sub-section.
4. Check the Allow attendee to join audio portion of Personal Conference before host box:

5. Scroll to the bottom of the page, then click the Update button.

After enabling this option for the site, you must grant the 'Allow attendee to join audio portion of Personal Conference before host' to each host that will be able to use this feature.
 

To enable Join Before Host for a host account:

1. Log in to your Webex Site Administration page.
2. Click on User Management > Edit User.
3. Enter search criteria for the host account in the User name: or Email: field, then click the Search button.
4. Click on the name link of the host account.
5. Scroll down to the Privileges: section.
6. In the Webex Meetings: sub-section, check the Allow attendee to join audio portion of Personal Conference before host box:

7.    Scroll to the bottom of the page, then click the Update button.