These conference options are made available to you when you press d while in the conference configuration screen. These options give you more control over how the conference will operate.

In certain situations it may be desirable to have the user automatically re-join a conference if they logoff while in that conference. For example, you may have a conference set aside for each of several groups of users on your system. Your system may be configured so that all of the information they need to obtain can be found in the conference which is dedicated for their use. You could then lock the users out of all other conferences (using the L conference flag) and force them to join their conference next time they logon.

Valid options for this field are:

This option controls whether or not a user will be asked to view a list of users who are registered in the conference they are about to join. This question is asked only once per session (when the conference is joined for the first time). Valid options for this field are:

With the concern of virus infected or other damaging files being sent over the modem, you may want to screen all of your uploads before making them available to your callers. An additional concern would be if your callers were uploading files that you deemed inappropriate for your system. In this case too, you will most likely want to make all of your uploads private. By making an upload private, you are telling PCBoard to place all files that are uploaded in the conference to the private upload directory that you specified on the first screen.

Valid options for this field are:

Not only can you make all uploads to a conference private, but you can also make all messages in a conference private as well. While it is less likely that you want to screen your messages, the conference that you are editing may have a lot of one on one conversations where making all messages private would be the ideal situation.

Valid options for this field are:

The primary design of a bulletin board system is to distribute information to the callers of the system. Some systems get involved with echo mail networks where several bulletin board systems exchange messages with one another.

Valid options for this field are:

If you would rather force all messages left in the conference to be marked for echoing, enable this option. When entering messages, your users will not be allowed to choose whether or not the message should be marked for echoing or not. For this setting to have any effect, you must have answered Y to the Echo Mail in Conference question.

Valid options for this field are:

The normal limit for user names when addressing message is 25 characters. However, some networks such as the Internet can have extremely long identities or addresses. If you are echoing a conference that requires the TO: field to allow input of more than 25 characters, you can choose to do so based on your answer to this field.

Valid options for this field are:

You may desire to make some conferences read-only. Users cannot reply or enter messages in conferences that are marked as read-only. If you would rather limit who can enter messages by security level, refer to the Level to Enter a Message field on this screen instead.

Valid options are:

Private messages are not often supported in echo mail networks. Therefore, you may wish to not allow users to leave private messages in these conferences. This field controls whether or not a user can enter private messages in a conference.

Valid options for this field are:

When you participate in an echo mail network, information that refers to where the message originated from is usually appended to the end of the message. You can tell PCBoard to include this origin information directly into the message if you wish. The origin information is taken directly from the Board Name field in PCBSetup > Node Information. For most systems, it is up to the echo mail software if you should have PCBoard include the origin information or not. Please refer to the documentation for your mail software to see if it requests that PCBoard include this information.

Valid options for this field are:

Some mail networks will allow you to route a message directly to a particular site in the echo mail network. Check with your echo mail documentation to see if it supports routing and if it knows how to extract routing information directly from PCBoard. In order for a user to be prompted for routing information the following must be true of the message being entered:

• The message must be marked for echoing
• The message must be a private (RECEIVER ONLY) message

If prompted for routing information, the user will be able to enter up to 58 characters to identify where the message should be directed to. The echo mail software that you are using will determine the format that the routing information should be entered in.

Valid options for this field are:

Once you have installed the Alias PSA you need to determine which conferences each user's alias will become active. Each conference has this field which determines if alias will be used or not.

Valid options for this field are:

The conference introduction file is normally only displayed when a caller uses the J user command to join a conference. However, to help separate conferences and make the transition from one conference to the next more obvious you can display the introduction file more often. When using the A or ALL subcommands with the R user command, this setting will determine if the introduction file for the current conference will be displayed before the conference is actually scanned for new mail. Remember, this setting is conference specific, so if you want the introduction file for all of your conferences to be displayed, you will need to change this setting for all of your conferences.

Valid options are:

Older (non-v15.0 compliant) software may not read the new IDX files and consequently may not be able to recognize messages on your system. This setting will determine whether or not PCBoard will maintain the older NDX format for this conference.

Valid options are:

NOTE: If you want to force all conferences to maintain the older NDX format, use the /OLDINDEX environment switch for PCBoard.

You will probably recall that there is what is referred to as a global CMD.LST file defined in PCBSetup > File Locations > Configuration Files. Normally, the commands that you define in that file will be available in all conferences. If you want a conference to use a different CMD.LST, specify the CMD.LST to use in this field. By entering a filename in this field you are overriding the entire contents of your global CMD.LST file with whatever commands are defined in your conference specific version.

In this field, enter the amount of security that should be added to the user's security level at the time they join this conference. The value that you enter may be positive or negative and can range from -99 to 999. If the value you enter is negative, then the caller's security will be lowered upon joining the conference. Also, remember that PCBoard supports security levels up to 255. Even though you can add 999 to a security level it would not be practical to do so. Try to limit all security level adjustments so that they remain under 256. Entering 0 in this field will leave the security level of the caller unchanged when joining this conference.

NOTE: The change in security level will only be in effect while in the conference. When the conference is abandoned or another conference is joined then the user will return to their assigned security level.

In this field, enter the amount of time that should be added to the user's time remaining on the system at the time that the conference is joined. You may enter any value between 0 and 999 in this field. A value of 0 will not adjust the time of the caller when joining the conference.

Once the time is added, it is not removed until the caller logs off of the system. This means a user could join this conference to get a additional boost in time. Perhaps the additional time could be used as some sort of incentive. The additional time is not added each time the user joins the conference. Instead, it is added the first time they join the conference during each call.

The ability to attach files to messages can be a powerful feature and at the same time an annoying feature if abused. In this field enter the security level that is required to save a message with an attached file in this conference. The value you enter in this field must be between 0 and 255. By setting this value to a higher value, you can let your most trusted users attach files without having to worry about it being abused.

For some conferences, you may want the primary purpose of the conference to have users read messages. You could disable the ability to enter messages (or replies) by entering Y in the Make Conference Read-Only. Enabling this setting, however, would not allow you to enter messages directly into this conference. In this field, enter the security level that is required for a user to leave a message in this conference. If you did make the conference Read-Only, the value you enter in this field will have no effect.

Be aware that there is a global security level that can be assigned to the E user command in PCBSetup > Security Levels > User Commands. Whichever value is higher (the global setting or the conference specific setting) will be the controlling security level for entering messages and replies.

Like the file attachment feature, users can end up abusing the ability to request return receipts on their messages. If this feature is abused, your message bases could quickly become full of un-necessary messages because each return receipt is a message. In this field enter the security level that is required for a user to be able to request a return receipt in this conference. You may enter any value between 0 and 255. Entering a high value in this field can disable the ability to request return receipts for all or some of your callers.

To address a single message to a group of users on the system, the message can be addressed to @LIST@. Once you address the message in this manner, PCBoard will prompt the user for a list of names that the message should be addressed to. You can control the security level that is required to address messages in this manner. In this field enter the security level that is required for a user to address a single message to a group of users. When a user attempts to address a message to @LIST@ and either does not have sufficient security or the Carbon Copy List Limit is set to 0, the message will be addressed to ALL instead.

When addressing a message to a group of users, you can set the maximum number of users that the message can be addressed to. In this field enter a value between 0 and 99 that will determine the maximum number of users that can be addressed. A value of 0 disables the ability to enter @LIST@ messages. When a user attempts to address a message to @LIST@ and either does not have sufficient security or the Carbon Copy List Limit is set to 0, the message will be addressed to ALL instead.