Rooms API now in Public Preview

This week we are releasing a public preview of a new Rooms API in Azure Communication Services. In this blog post, we will discuss Rooms’ capabilities, target scenarios, and will set you up with next steps to try Rooms. Using Rooms, you can now build rich communication experiences with a higher degree of control and structure. Rooms primarily focus on two scenarios:

1. Virtual appointments, such as a virtual visit to your doctor or financial advisor.
2. Virtual events such as webinars and all-hands meetings.

What is a Room?

A Room is a container manages activity between Azure Communication Services end-users. A Room offers application developers better control over who can join a call, when they meet and how they collaborate:

1. Control who can join the conversation. Rooms can be configured to allow only invited users to join the conversation. This roster management enables secure private communication, appropriate for a call between a patient and their doctor. Alternatively, a Room could be open and allow any Communication Services identity to join.
2. Schedule meeting times. Rooms become available at specific points in time and have a configurable duration. Controlling room availability allows Azure Communication Services to serve a calendar function, storing the future timing of appointments and webinars. And Room’s enforcement of these time windows helps you deliver graceful application behavior, for example informing an end-user why they can’t join an appointment 3 hours early.
3. Assign roles and permissions. Rooms allow application developers to assign a role to each participant. Roles are pre-defined by the Rooms API and limit what end-users can do in the Room’s associated video call. For example, you can ensure only presenters speak and share content in a Room. Any scenario where end-users need to be protected from each other, like virtual classrooms, virtual courtrooms, or large corporate meetings, can benefit from Rooms’ roles and permissions functionality.

Rooms service facilitates the capabilities listed above through its server SDK, available for .NET, Java, Python or JavaScript. Client-side operations such as joining a VoIP call are carried out from the Calling JavaScript SDK for web browsers or the native Mobile Calling SDKs for iOS and Android.

When to use Rooms

Rooms are ideal for applications that make use of any of the following behaviors:

• Strict control over which participants are allowed to join calls,
• Scheduling/coordinates that are enabled and then expire at a specified time and date,
• Protecting end-users from each other by limiting their abilities in a call using roles and permissions.

How to use Rooms

Follow the steps below to create a room and join a room call:

The quick start documentation will help you get started with Azure Communication Services Rooms and set up the server-side component. GitHub samples are available for .NET, Java, Python or JavaScript.  Joining a Room-associated video call using the Calling SDK is straightforward, please check out the Room call quick start guide.

If you try out Rooms, please comment on this blog directly or ask questions on Microsoft Q&A about Rooms!

Learn more about Rooms

• Conceptual documentation explains Rooms capabilities in detail.
• Quick start documentation allows you to quickly build and use Room in C#, Java, JavaScript, and Python.