Conferencing: Sample Flows

This article presents possible use cases and corresponding sample flows that you can support. It provides a useful starting point as you plan your implementation.

Connect a resource for automatic conferencing

A site owner wants the events of a service to include a video meeting link. When conferencing is enabled on a service, conferences are created and managed automatically for that service's events and schedules, with no Create Conference call from you. A conference is created and attached when an event or schedule is created, updated when the event is rescheduled, and removed when the event is deleted.

The conference is created using the event's resource. If that resource has no connection, the site's business resource is used as a fallback. If neither is connected, no conference is created.

To connect a resource for automatic conferencing:

1. Call List Providers and present the available providers to the site owner. Each provider's id is the appId you use in the next step.

2. Call Connect with connectionMethod set to OAUTH, the chosen appId, the resource's resourceId, and a redirectUrl. Redirect the site owner to the returned oauthUrl.

3. After the owner authorizes the account, the provider redirects to your redirectUrl with ?connectionId=<id> on success or ?error=<code> on failure. On success, the connection is ready, and conferences are managed automatically for the service's events under the conditions above.

Create and attach a conference to your own event

If you manage your own calendar events rather than relying on a service's automatic conferencing, you can create a conference and attach it to an event yourself.

To create and attach a conference to your own event:

1. Call Create Conference with the appId and resourceId, along with the meeting's title, startTime, and duration. Store the returned appId, resourceId, and conference id with your event.

2. Attach the conference to your calendar event by calling Update Event in the Calendar Events API with the event's conferencingDetails, mapping the created conference as follows:

   • conference.hostUrl to conferencingDetails.hostUrl
   • conference.url to conferencingDetails.guestUrl
   • conference.password to conferencingDetails.password
   • conference.id to conferencingDetails.externalId
   • conference.appId to conferencingDetails.provider.onlineMeetingInfo.appId, with conferencingDetails.provider.providerType set to ONLINE_MEETING (use CUSTOM for a custom link)

   conferencingDetails.hostUrl and conferencingDetails.guestUrl are required when conferencingDetails is set. To apply a default conference to every event on a schedule instead, call Update Schedule in the Schedules API with defaultConferencingDetails.

3. Display the returned conference url to the participants.

4. If the event is rescheduled, call Update Conference with the stored appId and resourceId, then call Update Event again with the refreshed conferencingDetails. If the event is removed, call Delete Conference with the stored appId, resourceId, and conference id, and clear the event's conferencingDetails.

Offer a custom meeting link

Some site owners use a single, fixed meeting room rather than a connected provider account. You can let an owner store a static meeting URL and use it for their conferences.

To offer a custom meeting link:

1. Call Connect with connectionMethod set to CUSTOM and customOptions containing the conferenceUrl, and optionally a password and description. Pass the resource's resourceId.

2. Once stored, the custom link is used like any other connection: it's used automatically for the service's events when conferencing is enabled, or you can create a conference for your own event with Create Conference, which returns the stored URL as the conference url without contacting a provider.

3. To stop using the custom link, call Mark Connection As Disconnected with the resource's resourceId and the Custom Link provider's id, as returned by List Providers, as the appId.