56. Make a Conference Call  BEFORE YOU BEGIN 55 Make and Receive Phone Calls
 SEE ALSO 57 Forward Calls 58 Manage the Speed Dial List 59 Take Advantage of Smart Dialing 68 Create and Manage Contacts
56. Make a Conference Call 
If you've never used the feature before, you might be surprised to find out that you can use your BlackBerry device to establish conference calls with multiple parties. The standard Phone application allows you to initiate multiple calls and then join them together for a conference call. Additionally, you can split an individual call and put the conference call on hold while you talk to one person in private. When you're finished with the private conversation, you can quickly join the person back with the conference call. Although many mobile phones support conference calling, the BlackBerry user interface makes it particularly intuitive to set up and manage conference calls. | 1. | Open the Phone Screen Scroll to the Phone icon on the Home screen and click the trackwheel. The Phone screen appears, displaying a dialing area and a list of recently made and received phone calls.  TIP You can quickly jump to the Phone screen from any location on your phone by simply pressing the Send key. | | 2. | Dial a Number or Contact Initiate a call by manually dialing a number or selecting a contact from the address book. See 55 Make and Receive Phone Calls for more details on phone dialing. NOTE You might notice several numbers from which you can choose when dialing a particular contact. These numbers correspond to phone number fields in the contact information for that particular contact (see 68 Create and Manage Contacts ). For example, the Call Work menu command appears only if you've entered a Work number for a contact. | | 3. | Hold the Call Put the call on hold by clicking the trackwheel, selecting Hold from the menu that appears, and clicking again. The current call is put on hold, which gives you an opportunity to start a second call. NOTE You don't actually have to put the first call on hold to initiate the second call. However, if you don't put the first call on hold, the person will hear as you make the second call, which is probably not desirable. TIP To resume a call that has been placed on hold, click the trackwheel, select Resume from the menu, and click once more. | | 4. | Dial Another Number or Contact
To start the second call, click the trackwheel and select New Call from the menu that appears. Now you can manually dial a number or select a contact from the address book to make the second call.
| | 5. | Join the Calls After the second call is connected, you'll see that the first call is on hold while the second call is active. To join the two calls into a conference call, click the trackwheel, select Join from the menu that appears, and click again. The two people are joined together into a three-way conversation with you. You can continue initiating new calls and joining them with the conversation to expand the conference call with additional people. When doing so, you put the entire conference call on hold to call a new person. NOTE Although you can add multiple people to a conference call, you can never have more than one conversation on hold at any given time. In other words, you always have at most two conversations going on: an active conversation and a hold conversation. Keep in mind that a "conversation" can include multiple people. The New Call menu option disappears after you have two conversations underway. To initiate a new call, you must join the two conversations by adding the active person to the conversation on hold. Then you're free to call a new person and repeat the process to grow the conversation. TIP You don't have to dial a number or contact to establish a conference call. Instead, you can just as easily have people call you and then join them together into a conference call as you answer the individual calls. | | 6. | Split the Calls To split an individual call out from a conference call, click the trackwheel, select Split Call from the menu that appears, and click again. You are prompted to select which call to split (select the appropriate phone number), which is the call that becomes active after the split. The split call is removed from the conference call and made active, while the original conference call is placed on hold. Splitting a call is a good way to pull a person aside from a conference call and hold a private discussion. To swap the conversation and return to the conference call, click the trackwheel, select Swap from the menu, and click again. You can then join the split call back into the conference call if you want. Note that if you are the person who did the joining of the conversations, you have control over whom you can split out from and rejoin to the main conversation. TIP If you have an active call and a call on hold, you can swap between the calls at any time by clicking the trackwheel, selecting Swap from the menu, and clicking again. Alternatively, just press the Send key to quickly swap calls. | | 7. | Drop One of the Calls
Just as you can add people to a conference call, you can also drop them. To drop a person from a conference call, click the trackwheel, select Drop Call from the menu, and click once more. You are prompted to select which call to drop; select the call and click to end that call and remove that person from the conference call.
| | 8. | End the Call and Exit
To end the conference call, simply press the End key. There is also an End Call command on the phone menu, but the End key is more convenient . Press the Escape button to exit the phone and return to the Home screen.
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