Feature request: Lobby until meeting start time / next scheduled start time #17347
Description
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Feature request
Which Nextcloud Version are you currently using:
[32.0.6]
Is your feature request related to a problem? Please describe.
Yes. Currently, the lobby in Nextcloud Talk can be configured with a separate lobby time, but there does not seem to be a direct option such as “keep lobby active until meeting start time” or “until the next scheduled start time”.
In practice, this is a common and very useful expectation: users often want to prevent participants from entering a room before the scheduled meeting actually starts. This may be for organizational reasons, to avoid early entry, or simply to provide a more professional meeting experience. Many users already know this behavior from other platforms such as Microsoft Teams.
The current approach is difficult to handle, especially when a room is linked to scheduled events, event conversations, rescheduled appointments, or recurring meetings. As an add-on developer integrating Talk into email clients with their own lifecycle and calendar interpretation, it is hard to reliably implement the behavior that users usually expect in practice.
Describe the solution you'd like
I would like to have a direct option for Talk rooms / event conversations such as:
- “Enable lobby until meeting start time”
- or “Keep lobby active until the next scheduled start time”
The expected behavior would be:
- the lobby remains active until the scheduled meeting start time
- when the scheduled start time is reached, the lobby is automatically lifted
- if the appointment is rescheduled, the lobby timing is automatically adjusted
- for recurring appointments, the lobby is automatically re-applied for each occurrence until the respective next start time
This would be especially useful for event conversations and other calendar-linked Talk rooms.
Describe alternatives you've considered
A manually configured lobby time can sometimes be used as a workaround, but it is not ideal:
- it introduces an additional time setting that may differ from the actual meeting start time
- it can become inconsistent when an appointment is changed
- it is not a clean solution for recurring events
- it makes integrations with calendar-aware clients more complex than necessary
From a practical point of view, having a lobby time that differs from the planned meeting start time often does not make much sense.
Additional context
This feature would align well with real-world meeting workflows and user expectations from other conferencing platforms.
It would also simplify integrations for external clients and add-ons that create or manage Talk meetings based on calendar events, because they could rely on a clear and predictable rule: lobby stays active until the event starts.