A conference bridge is a central channel where all responders can gather for collaboration. They allow responders to connect to your preferred web conferencing provider directly from an incident, via phone or meeting URL. Some organizations have a persistent conference bridge that is reused for all major incidents, while others have multiple channels available.

There are two ways to create conference bridges in your PagerDuty account:

• Create an Account-Level Conference Bridge
• Create a Service-Level Conference Bridge

And there are two ways to add a conference bridge to an incident:

• Manually Add a Conference Bridge to an Incident via Add Responders
• Add a Conference Bridge to an Incident with an Incident Workflow

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Availability

The conference bridge feature is available on current Business, Enterprise for Incident Management and Digital Operations (Legacy) plans. Please contact our Sales Team if you would like to upgrade to a plan with the conference bridge feature.

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Best Practice

For an in-depth look at how to incorporate conference bridges into your organization's processes, please refer to our Incident Response best practice guide.

Create an Account-Level Conference Bridge

Conference bridges can be added as account-level extensions. This provides users with a list of persistent conference lines to choose from when triggering an incident.

1. Navigate to Integrations Extensions.
2. Select the Conference Bridges tab and then click New Conference Bridge.
3. Enter the following based on your preferences. You must enter either a Conference Number or Conference URL, or you may enter both options:
   • Label: Enter a label for the conference bridge. This will be the label as it will appear in the selection drop-down menu.
   • Description: Enter a brief description of the conference bridge.
   • Conference Number: Enter the phone number users will call into, if applicable. Phone numbers should be in the following format: 415-555-1212,,,,1234#, where a comma (,) represents a one-second wait and pound (#) completes access code input.
   • Conference URL: Enter a meeting URL, if applicable.
4. Click Save. The conference bridge will be available as an option under Advanced Options when creating a new incident.

Edit an Account-Level Conference Bridge

1. Navigate to Integrations Extensions and select the Conference Bridges tab.
2. Click the icon to the right of your desired conference bridge. Edit the necessary details and then click Save.

Delete an Account-Level Conference Bridge

1. Navigate to Integrations Extensions and select the Conference Bridges tab.
2. Click the icon to the right of your desired conference bridge. In the confirmation dialog that appears, click Delete.

Create a Service-Level Conference Bridge

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Conference Bridge for All Incidents

When adding a conference bridge to a service, it is important to note that the conference bridge information will appear on all incidents that trigger on that service. We recommend adding a conference bridge to services dedicated to critical incidents that require a bridge.

1. Navigate to Services Service Directory.
2. Click the name of your desired service and select the Settings tab. Scroll down to Coordinate Responders and Stakeholders and click Edit on the right.
3. Enter the conference bridge information for your service. You must enter either a Conference Bridge Dial-In Number or Conference Bridge Meeting URL, or you may enter both options:
   • Conference Bridge Dial-In Number: Enter the phone number users will call into, if applicable. Phone numbers should be in the following format: 415-555-1212,,,,1234#, where a comma (,) represents a one-second wait and pound (#) completes access code input.
   • Conference Bridge Meeting URL: Enter a meeting URL, if applicable.
4. Click Save Changes.

When an incident is triggered on your service you will see the conference bridge information in the web app and in email notifications.

Edit a Service-Level Conference Bridge

1. Navigate to Services Service Directory and select the service containing the conference bridge that you would like to edit.
2. Select the Settings tab, scroll to Coordinate Responders and Stakeholders and click Edit to the right.
3. Edit the Conference Bridge Dial-In Number and/or Conference Bridge Meeting URL, where applicable, and then click Save Changes.

Delete a Service-Level Conference Bridge

1. Navigate to Services Service Directory and select the service containing the conference bridge that you would like to delete.
2. Select the Settings tab, scroll to Coordinate Responders and Stakeholders and click Edit to the right.
3. Remove the Conference Bridge Dial-In Number and/or Conference Bridge Meeting URL, where applicable, and then click Save Changes.

Manually Add a Conference Bridge to an Incident via Add Responders

If you do not have conference bridge information added to your service, you can use the Add Responders feature to input the conference bridge information.

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Add Responders Requirement

If you wish to manually add a conference bridge to an open incident, you will need to use the add responders feature. Alternatively, you can also add a new conference bridge using an Incident Workflow with a manual trigger.

1. After an incident has been triggered, acknowledge the incident and click Add Responders.
2. Select the Users and/or Escalation Policies you wish to add as a responder (required for this option).
3. Under Add Conference Bridge, if you already have an account-level or service-level Conference Bridge configured, you can select it from the Select a Conference Bridge dropdown. If you do not already have one configured, you can add the details manually. You must enter either a Dial-in Number or Meeting link URL, or you may enter both options:
   • Dial-in Number: Enter the phone number users will call into, if applicable. Phone numbers should be in the following format: 415-555-1212,,,,1234#, where a comma (,) represents a one-second wait and pound (#) completes access code input.
   • Meeting link URL: Enter a meeting URL, if applicable.
4. Click Save.

Requests will be sent to responders, who can review conference bridge details on the incident details page and in the responder email notifications.

Add a Conference Bridge to an Incident with an Incident Workflow

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Availability

Incident Workflows are included with our Business, Enterprise for Incident Management and Digital Operations (Legacy) pricing plans. Please contact our Sales team to upgrade to a plan with Incident Workflows.

Adding a conference bridge as part of an Incident Workflow allows you to easily mobilize responders, either when certain conditions are met or with the click of a button. Please read Incident Workflows for instructions on adding a conference bridge to a workflow.

Join a Conference Bridge as a Responder

Conference bridge information is available within incidents in the web app, email notifications, Slack (if you have a Slack integration configured) and via voice call. When referencing the web app, email notifications and Slack, responders will need to manually dial into the conference bridge or click its link. For voice call notifications, responders have the option of using the One Touch To Join feature.

Conference Bridge Information in the Web App

Conference Bridge Information in Email Notifications

Conference Bridge Information in Slack Notifications

Conference Bridge Information in Voice Call Notifications

When responders receive voice call notifications, they will hear the following prompt:

"PagerDuty Alert. Please help me with [Incident Title]

Press [#] to accept
Press [#] to decline"

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Note

Numbers used to accept or decline may vary.

By default, they will not be able to receive conference bridge information in the voice call. Once accepted, they will then need to check the incident in the web app, an email notification or a Slack notification to obtain the conference bridge information and enter the bridge manually.

If you would like responders to be able to join conference bridges via voice call notifications, you can opt to use our One Touch To Join Conference Bridge add-on feature.

One Touch To Join Conference Bridge

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Note

One Touch to Join Conference Bridge works with Conference Bridge and Add Responders, which are features available on Business, Enterprise for Incident Management and Digital Operations (Legacy) plans. Please reach out to our Sales team if you are interested in a plan with these features.

The One Touch To Join Conference Bridge feature enables rapid response team assembly by giving responders a push-button means of joining a conference bridge. This feature relies on two core PagerDuty Platform features: Conference Bridge and Add Responders. When responders are added to an incident and receive a voice call, they will receive the option to “Join the bridge” which will immediately add them to the conference call. The One Touch To Join Conference Bridge solution works with your existing direct-dial conference bridge provider and reduces effective time-to-engage and resolution time for major incidents.

Configure One Touch To Join Conference Bridge

1. Configure a conference bridge.
2. Responders must have:
   a. A phone number listed in the Contact Information tab of their PagerDuty user profile.
   b. A high-urgency notification rule in the Notification Rules tab using this phone number in their user profile.

3. During an incident with a conference bridge, add responders by using the Add Responders feature, or at-scale with Incident Workflows.

Any requested responder with the above configuration will receive a voice call with the following phrasing:

"PagerDuty Alert. Please help me with [Incident Title]

Press 1 to join the bridge
Press 2 to accept the request
Press 3 to decline the request"

The following table lists the effects of each response to the voice call:

Whenever a responder who has joined the bridge via One Touch To Join disconnects or the overall bridge call ends, the Incident Timeline will reflect these departures as well. This information can then be used in incident analysis using the Postmortems feature.

You can add as many responders to your conference bridge as your conference provider allows. One Touch To Join calls will disconnect after two hours. Should the responder still need to participate, they can manually redial the bridge based on the conference details attached to the PagerDuty incident.

If a responder misses a voice call, PagerDuty will attempt to reach them using each of the configured contact methods used by their high-urgency notification rules. We recommend that at least two contact methods are configured so that if a notification for one channel is missed, context is provided in the other channel. Thus, if the voice call is missed, the responder will still be able to manually join the conference bridge using information found in the web app, email notification or Slack message, but they will not be able to use One Touch To Join.

Supported Countries and Pricing

The One Touch To Join feature is supported in over 30 of our highest responder countries. We’ve classified countries into two groups: Base or Premium (listed in table below). The One Touch To Join feature is available when:

• The conference bridge is hosted in a Base country, and
• The phone numbers of requested responders are for Base or Premium locales.

*One Touch To Join works with conference bridges hosted in Base countries only.