Automating your Phone Dialing using "Pause" and "Wait" sequences

In a corporate life full of meetings we know how often we need to dial-in to Telephonic Conference Meetings or what is also called Conference Bridges. In some meetings you may be the host while in some you may be the guest, some meetings may be regular while some may be ad-hoc.

Whatever be the type of telephonic meetings one thing doesn't change is that you first need to dial-in to Conference Bridge number and in many cases these Conference Bridges asks you to be authenticated using a Conference / Moderator Code, Pass Code, Client ID, etc. Though we all use Smartphones we don't use a very basic feature which has been in the Telephonic world for almost a decade or so. 

There are commands which can introduce Pause and Wait situations in the Phone numbers that we dial-in.
To simplify, you can store the Conference Bridge numbers in your Phone Contacts in such a fashion that you can have the Pass Codes saved in the Contact. Though this essentially means that you save the Pass Code in clear text, it actually saves you a lot of time when you dial-in to recurring meetings or when you have back-to-back meetings.

I will share a simple example. I being a Project Manager have to setup weekly status review calls. My company has a tie-up with a Tele Meeting Provider who has provided me with a Conference Code (Moderator) and a Client ID. I have a Phone Contact stored in the manner -

1800 234 5678,,5236668#,7499678#

The sequence is Conference Bridge Number - 1800 234 5678, Conference Code - 5236668 and Client ID - 7499678. I have stored the number in this manner is because this is the sequence in which I enter the different numbers to open my Tele-Meeting. You may now wonder what is significance of "," - Comma and the "#" - Hash/Pound. "#" is used because my service provider tells me to enter the Conference Code / Client ID followed by Pound. The interesting part is ",". This is what I was referring to as "Pause" and "Wait" commands on the Phone. In some Phone you can use "p" and in some "," to introduce a Pause in your dialing and similarly you can use "w" or "." for wait. While I have not used the Wait sequence often but the Pause sequence helps you in automating lot of tasks. [Please note that the numbers given above are fictitious]

I have just given an example of Conference Bridges, you can use it for any frequently used numbers where the dialing format is a standard - Phone Number followed by Code, followed by....

Do explore and share with me your feedback.