The Conferencing Add-in for Microsoft Office Outlook now allows delegates to schedule a Live Meeting or a conference call on behalf of their manager.
The new add-in can be downloaded here: http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=140651
Written instructions on scheduling a meeting on behalf of another person: http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/livemeeting/HP101541161033.aspx
Dial-in Conferencing is also a new audio option for audio conferences that are hosted on Office Communications Server 2007 R2. The dial-in option provides a cost-efficient replacement for your company’s conferencing provider service. It also allows conference call attendees to join a Communicator conference call or a Live Meeting that uses Dial-in Conferencing for the audio by calling in from a phone or mobile device. The dial-in option can be used for scheduled Communicator conference calls or Live Meeting. With Dial-in Conferencing, members and non-members of your corporate network can join a conference call without the need for a conferencing provider.
Written instructions on Dial-in Conferencing: http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?linkid=142491.
Dial-in Conferencing Quick Reference Card: http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=140472.
Video on Dial-in Conferencing: http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/livemeeting/HA103546971033.aspx
These questions came from a school district in California replacing their entire legacy voicemail and PBX system with 2,000+ seats of OCS 2007 R2 voice. They are in pilot phase right now.
LG-Nortel IP8540 or Polycom CX700 (Tanjay) questions:
Can you dial 911 with a locked Tanjay phone? – Yes, you can dial any number you just can’t see contacts on the LCD.
Do you have to log in every morning with password and AD account? – No, your AD credentials and password should be cached and you can use the biometric reader to login. You will only have to enter a new password when it expires or is changed. You can also use the USB option and, new with R2, the phone will unlock when you login into the R2 Communicator client.
Can you control the Tanjay phone with the R2 Communicator softphone features (RCC)? – Yes, only via the USB connection however. You can click to call from Communicator or Outlook, answer toast pops from PC and have Tanjay pick up the call, add more parties to the call via Communicator client, etc., You can also log into Communicator client to unlock the phone (no pin or biometic needed).
Check the check box above inside of the Communicator client to have remote call control of the Tanjay.
Here is a summary of pairing the Tanjay with Communicator/Conferencing with OCS R2:
What version of Tanjay should we have to work with R2?
There is an updated Tanjay R2 version required to work properly: VERSION: 3.5.6907 (1.23)
Another other Tanjay fixes I should know about?:
You need to make you are deploying the latest OCS R2 communicator client VERSION 6907.34 (updated June 2009): – This update has some Tanjay fixes in them. Grab it here.
Can I ring more than one phone at once such as my whole department
Yes, with Team Ring feature in new in R2. You can ring up to 10 phones at the same time when your phone is called.
To enable:
Click ‘Phone’ icon in Communicator, then ‘Call Forwarding settings’. Select ‘Ring me and my team-call group’. Add in the numbers on your team you want to ring.
How do you setup calls for my administrative assistant?
The Call Delegation feature in R2 is for delegating your calls to administrative assistants, receptionists, etc. They will require the use of R2 Communicator Attendant to manage your calls, contacts, transfers, etc.
To enable Call Delegation:
Click Phone icon in Communicator, then Call Forwarding settings. Select ‘Ring me and my delegates’ drop down. Specify the delegates to ring.
Happy 4th of July everyone!
Big licensing news effective today, if you have OCS 2007 R2 Standard CALs or OCS 2007/LCS CALs with Software Assurance and want to federate with MSN/Hotmail/Live no additional PIC license is required. Yahoo and AOL federation still require a PIC license per OCS user who require it however.
This is a nice win for Education customers who have OCS on premises and want to federate with their students hosted on Live@Edu and Outlook Live.
Here is the official product team announcement:
Effective July 1, 2009:
· The Live Communications Sever Public IM Connectivity (LCS PIC) license will be renamed Office Communications Server Public IM Connectivity (OCS PIC) license.
· Customers with Office Communications Server 2007 R2 Standard CAL or Office Communications Server 2007/Live Communications Server 2005 SP1 Standard CAL with Software Assurance will no longer require an additional license to federate with Windows Live. (A license will still be required for federation with AOL & Yahoo!.)
· With Windows Live federation, customers will be able to add Windows Live contacts to their Office Communicator contact list, view presence and send and receive instant messages.
How do I actually provision this new PIC change? (updated post with this info July 3rd)
See this newly released OCS R2 PIC provisioning guide here to begin the process.
From what I have read here are the steps:
1. Contact your account manager to request provisioning as it varies depending on your licensing.
2. Your account manager provides you with the URL of the Web site to be used to initiate the process (the new Windows Live PIC federation provisioning web site is slated to be active on July 20th).
3. On the Web site, provide the information required for provisioning.
Here is more general PIC info here.
These were some questions from an Ivy League university:
1) What is the point of setting a meeting size? Does it cap the attendees?
Yes, it is set to cap attendees and the additional user will say “Meeting Full”. The default size is 5 including the presenter. The max size (seats) per conference is 1250 users for LM Pro and 250 users (recently changed) for LM Standard.
More information on the ‘Meeting Size’ field:
A seat is taken when a participant logs in to a meeting. Participants include the presenters at the meeting.
2) It appears that I have to "log" into (with email address, etc.) my own meeting, even from My Meetings page. Is that correct?
No, you should be able to do click to join provided you do not require email address registration on your meeting.
3) How on earth do I give an attendee control of an application? I tried to share Excel...tried to give control in Perms (but I really only wanted to give KB and mouse control, not content tools).
You first have to set this to allow. On by default:
Then inside of Desktop Sharing session in Live Meeting select “Give control” circled in red
4) What does Share Screen Snapshot do?
Allows you to snap a pic of an area on your desktop and that snapped pic will appear inside of the meeting automatically.
5) How do I start the Content Slideshow?
You have to upload a PPT first and then content slideshow can be used for rotating a slidedeck (for a precall rotating slide or dialin slides, etc)
How do I configure slides to rotate automatically in Live Meeting?
A. A presenter has the option to have the slides rotate automatically during a Live Meeting, using a set timing between slides.
To configure automatic slide rotation
Click the content that you want to display.
On the Content pane, click Content Slideshow.
In the Content Slideshow window, click the appropriate number of seconds between each slide rotation, and then click Start.
To turn off slide rotation
In the Content Slideshow window, click Stop.
6) I shut down the organizer's computer, yet the attendees still had the meeting up and running. ?
Shall I assume there's no notice when a host has left a meeting unless it's officially ended?
When you exit Live Meeting, you can either exit and end meeting or just exit and leave the meeting running.
7) Does Live Meeting Web Access (LWA) work with Linux?
We have tested LWA with Sun Solaris 10 but not any versions of Linux.
Solaris 10
Mozilla Firefox 1.7 with Sun 1.5.11, 1.6.x
8) What versions of Safari and Firefox have been tested?
Here are the supported web clients:
Windows 98 SE
Internet Explorer 6.0 with SP1 with Sun 1.5.11, 1.6.x
Windows 2000 SP4
Internet Explorer 6.0 with SP1 installed with Sun 1.5.11, 1.6.x
Windows XP SP 1a
Windows XP SP2
Internet Explorer 6.0 with Sun 1.5.11, 1.6.x
Internet Explorer 7 with Sun 1.5.11, 1.6.x
Firefox 2.0 with Sun 1.5.11, 1.6.x
Windows Vista
Internet Explorer 7 with Sun 1.6.x
Mac OS X V10.3
Safari 1.3 with Apple Java 1.4.2
Mac OS X V10.4
Safari 2.0 with Apple Java 1.4.2
That being said, there I would imagine the Live Meeting team is testing newer browsers with Live Meeting Web Access and I will update this list as new browsers get added.
9) Is there a User Guide for Live Meeting 2007?
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/livemeeting/FX102414531033.aspx
For a general overview of the Live Meeting Service visit here or here to sign up for a 30 day trial.
To see the differences with OCS conferencing vs. Live Meeting Service visit a previous blog post here.
This was question from a university in Tennessee.
Here is a nice overview slide of our UC development platform:
Some useful OCS programming references:
UC development portal has latest development information with OCS 2007 R2:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/office/aa905374.aspx
Download the latest OCS 2007 R2 SDKs listed in the graphic above:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/office/bb891953.aspx
Here are some OCS R2 developer webcasts to give you a better understanding of the newest capabilities:
MSDN Webcast: Communications Server 2007 R2, Exchange Server 2007 SP1, and the Unified Communications Platform (Level 100)
There is an excellent MS Press book called “Programming for Unified Communications: with OCS 2007 R2'” that covers:
Intro to UC
Overview of all UC APIs
OC Automation API
Embedding Contextual Collaboration
UCMA Workflow API
Building a UC-enabled WF App
UCMA Core API
Publishing Custom Presence
Setup of OCS Environment
Debugging UC Applications
Some new Exchange 2010 storage and HA training has been released. You can attend a webcast, test drive a virtual lab, view a learning “snack” through MS Learning or watch a full-length presentation on High Availability and Storage.
· MS Events Webcast: Storage in Exchange 2010
· Virtual Lab: Exchange Server 2010 (Beta) High Availability and Storage Scenarios
This is a very cool way to get hands on experience with Exchange Server 2010 without the infrastructure (we host the VMs in the cloud).
· MS Learning: High Availability and Storage in Microsoft Exchange Server 2010
· Presentation: High Availability (and Storage) in Exchange 2010
I do love the hands on virtual labs and learning snack is a pretty cool concept. Certainly some great new ways to learn about our upcoming UC technologies.
I found another ‘snack’ on Exchange 2010 UM here. Other virtual labs on Exchange Server 2010 here.
Enjoy!
For Educational Customers- please do not misuse.
I wanted to inform you of a new listserv that has been created by Vanderbilt University.
The goal of this site is for customers to share best practices, deployment information, etc for Unified Communications.
In addition, many Universities have become federated with Microsoft and other schools so this listserv will provide your institution with a method of increased collaboration.
If your interested in joining the listserv, please follow instructions below.
DETAILS:
How to join the Education UC ListServe
List name: HigherEdUC@list.vanderbilt.edu
How to subscribe to the list:
· Send an email message to: listserv@list.vanderbilt.edu
· Leave the subject line blank
· In the body of the message type: Subscribe HigherEdUC your full name
How to unsubscribe from the list:
· In the body of the message type: Unsubscribe HigherEdUC your full name
OCS News & Resources:
· Find UC Community News & Updates HERE
· Get started!! 5 Day online OCS Trial : HERE
· 90 Day UC Product Trial : RIGHT HERE
· UC Adoption & Training Kit: HERE