# Conference Overview

Conference calls let your team meet without everyone being in the same place, which saves travel and keeps projects moving. They also give you a low-cost way to hold group meetings over the phone. This page explains how conferencing works in Cloud Voice and the roles people play once they join a call.

## How conference calls work

Cloud Voice offers dial-in conferencing. Rather than one person adding others to a call, each attendee dials into a shared conference room to join the meeting. Both internal extension users and outside callers can take part, and either type of caller can be the one to start the conference, so a single call can bring together staff and external contacts no matter where they are or when they join.

:::note
"Dial-in" means the conference has its own number (a conference room). You share that number with everyone who should attend, and each person calls it to join, the same way they would dial any extension. Nobody has to manually add attendees one by one.
:::

## Conference roles

Everyone on a conference call falls into one of two roles:

- **Moderator**: Runs the meeting. A moderator can lock the conference to stop anyone else from joining and can manage the attendees already on the call.
- **Participant**: A regular attendee. Participants can speak with everyone else on the call and adjust their own audio volume.

:::tip
Designate at least one moderator before a scheduled meeting. Without a moderator, no one on the call can lock it or manage the other attendees.
:::

:::caution
Locking a conference blocks all new callers, including invited people who have not dialed in yet. Only lock the room once everyone you expect has joined, otherwise a moderator will have to unlock it to let latecomers in.
:::