Jithendranath Reddy

Group Chat Server cannot find Rtccomponentuniversalservices in Multi Domain Scenario.

Jithendranath Reddy — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 11:30:00 GMT

Symptom: Not able to Install the Group chat with error "Group chat server cannot find RTCComponentUniversalServices" in Multi domain Scenario

Cause: If you try to install group chat server in child domain it will fail with Group chat server cannot find RTCComponentUniversalServices. The ServerConfigTool.log file shows that the Server Configuration Wizard is querying
the Global Catalog in a child domain. It will query the Global Catalog in either child domain but never the root, where the group exists.

Two Work Arounds:

Simplest one if you have few Global Catalog’s and few domains.

1) Log into the server where you want to install group chat with an account member of RTCUniversalServeradmins, domain admin and local admin groups.
2) install support tools.
3) run nltest /dsgetdc:<your root domain> /gc.
4) If the field “Dom Name” contains the domain where there is OCS Groups is perfect, the GC installation will done fine, otherwise follow next steps:
5) Run nltest /dsgetdc:<your root domain> /gc /force up to get the good domain (where there is OCS groups).
6) Launch setup.exe, That should be good.

Second One:

1. Create the following bogus security groups in the child domain:

1. RTCcomponentuniversalservices
2. RTCUniversalServerAdmins
3. RTCUniversalUserReadOnlyGroup
4. RTCUniversalServerReadOnlyGroup
5. RTCUniversalGlobalReadOnlyGroup

Make RTCcomponentuniversalservices a member of RTCUniversalUserReadOnlyGroup, RTCUniversalServerReadOnlyGroup, RTCUniversalGlobalReadOnlyGroup. Also make RTCComponentService and RTCService member of RTCcomponentuniversalservices. Here we are mirroring the membership structure of RTCcomponentuniversalservices in parent domain.

2. Perform the installation using child domain admin (parent domain admin should also work)

Note: The lookup server SIP URI should be based on parent domain, rather than child domain, i.e. ocschat@parentdomain.com <mailto:ocschat@parentdomain.com> rather than ocschat@child.parent.com mailto:ocschat@child.parent.com.

3. Once you are done with setup successfully, delete the RTCcomponentuniversalservices security group from the child domain. Please do not delete the Original RTCcomponentuniversalservices security group from the parent domain.

4. Create a new security group named RtcGroupChatServices in the child domain.

5. Add the service accounts to the RtcGroupChatServices security group.

6. Make RtcGroupChatServices an owner of the message queues for group chat. (On the MGC server box, right-click on My Computer and select Manage (or run compmgmt.msc). On the Right panel, go to Services and Applications -> Message Queuing, right click on it and go to the Security tab. Here add RtcGroupChatServices and give it Full Control permission).

7. Stop both channel and lookup servers.

8. Start channel server first, wait a minute, and start lookup server.

Exchange 2007 SP1 Features with Communications Server 2007 and without Communications server 2007

Jithendranath Reddy — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 03:59:00 GMT

Exchange 2007 SP1 Features with Communications Server 2007

The following is a summary of the Unified Messaging features that are available in an integrated Exchange 2007 SP1 and Communications Server 2007 environment:

Support for additional types of UM dial plans To interoperate with Communications Server 2007, Exchange 2007 SP1 Unified Messaging supports the following additional types of UM dial plans: SIP URI and E.164. You can configure these UM dial plans by using the Exchange Management Shell and also by using the Exchange Management Console. The Exchange Management Console lets you create SIP URI and E.164-type UM dial plans by using the New Dial Plan wizard. You can also use the Exchange Management Console to supply Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) Uniform Resource Identifiers (URIs) when you enable users and associated them with a SIP URI dial plan.
Additional logic for resolving internal calling numbers The scope of internal calling number resolution is significantly increased in Exchange 2007 SP1. The original release (RTM) version of Exchange 2007 resolves internal extension numbers against only two sources. These sources are the extension numbers for other UM-enabled users in the same UM dial plan as the user who is calling and the contact list of the user who is being called. In Exchange 2007 SP1, Unified Messaging also resolves internal extension numbers against all users in the Active Directory forest.
In both Exchange 2007 RTM and Exchange 2007 SP1, when a user is enabled for Unified Messaging, the mailbox is stamped with an Exchange Unified Messaging proxy address (EUM proxy address) that contains their telephone extension number. Unified Messaging tries to resolve the extension number to a user's name by searching the global address list (GAL) and the personal Contacts of the called party for a match. If a match cannot be found, Exchange will use only the telephone extension number in the e-mail message for a missed call. You can enable Unified Messaging to resolve the extension to the user's name by performing one of the following tasks:

· Enable the user for Unified Messaging by using the Enable-UMMailbox cmdlet or the Exchange Management Console. Use the Set-Mailbox cmdlet to create a secondary EUM proxy address for the user. For more information about how to create a secondary EUM proxy address for a user, see How to Add, Remove, or Modify Extension Numbers for a UM-Enabled User.

· Add the calling party as a personal contact in Outlook and include the telephone extension number for the contact.

Communications Server 2007 has extended the Active Directory schema to store the numbers for each user in E.164 format. To match incoming fixed-length extensions, whose length is defined by the dial plan, an Exchange Unified Messaging administrator must set the InternationalNumberFormat attribute in the properties of the UM dial plan. The attribute value is prefixed to the incoming extension number. The resulting number is matched against the user's numbers in the Active Directory directory service that are stored in E.164 format.
For example, a Unified Messaging administrator creates a UM dial plan named Redmond WA, USA. They set the InternationalNumberFormat attribute to “142570xxxxx”. In this example, the number of “x”s is determined by the length of the extension, which is a five digit extension in this example. If the Unified Messaging server answers an incoming call that has the extension 12345, it will combine this extension with the value of the InternationalNumberFormat attribute to obtain the telephone number “tel:+14257012345”. This resulting number is matched against numbers that are stored for all users in the Active Directory forest.

Notification when a caller leaves a voice message and the destination telephone number uses call forwarding For example, User 1 uses Microsoft Office Communicator 2007 to call Use 2, and User 2 has set up call forwarding to forward calls to User 3. If User 3 does not answer the call, the call is diverted to the Unified Messaging server. The Unified Messaging server answers the call and records a message. The Unified Messaging server sends information back to User 1 that indicates to whom the voice message was routed. This information is rendered by the Office Communicator client. User 1 can see that they are leaving a message for User 3, not for User 2.

Note: This feature is available only when you use the Office Communicator 2007 client as the caller’s telephone.

Support for recording high-fidelity voice messages in Exchange Unified Messaging Support for high-fidelity sound using the RTAudio codec is added when Exchange 2007 SP1 is used with Communications Server 2007.
This feature is available when a voice call is initiated by using Office Communicator 2007 and the recipient of the voice call plays the message by using Microsoft Office Outlook 2007 or the 2007 version of Outlook Web Access. The following two scenarios support the high-fidelity recording and playback feature:
Scenario 1 A Unified Messaging server answers a call on behalf of a subscriber and either of the following is true:

· The subscriber’s audio codec is set to WMA.

· The subscriber's audio codec is not set and the subscriber’s associated UM dial plan audio codec is set to WMA.

Scenario 2 A Unified Messaging subscribers, who’s associated UM dial plan audio codec is set to WMA, logs on to Unified Messaging, locates someone in the directory, and leaves them a message.
Play on Phone calls cannot be automatically forwarded when they are played on Office Communicator 2007 In Exchange 2007 RTM, the Unified Messaging Play on Phone feature enables users to see whether they have a voice message in Outlook or Outlook Web Access, forward the message to the telephone number they want, and then use that telephone to listen to the message. When Exchange 2007 SP1 is used together with Communications Server 2007, the Play on Phone number can be a Microsoft Office Communicator 2007 endpoint. If you have configured call forwarding to an alternate telephone number, the Play on Phone call will be sent to the Play on Phone number that is configured as an Office Communicator 2007 endpoint and the call will not be forwarded to the alternate telephone number. This feature provides additional voice mail protection because it ensures that a voice message is not forwarded to anyone other than its intended recipient.

Note: This functionality is available only when the user is using the Office Communicator 2007 client.

Outlook Voice Access can be accessed from Office Communicator 2007 without requiring the user to enter a PIN If a user is logged on to Office Communicator 2007, they can access Outlook Voice Access directly by pressing the Call voicemail button in Office Communicator 2007. Because the user is already authenticated to the server that is running Communications Server 2007, the user is not prompted to enter their Outlook Voice Access PIN.
Office Communicator 2007 clients can associate subjects and priorities to voice messages When Office Communicator 2007 users make calls, they can associate a subject and priority with the call. When a call has been associated with a priority or a subject, the Unified Messaging server relays the subject and priority of the call in the e-mail messages that it generates for missed call and voice mail notifications. Additionally, if a call is initiated from an e-mail message that the user is reading, Unified Messaging uses the original e-mail subject and priority when generating e-mail messages for missed call and voice mail notifications.
Support for media streams to traverse firewalls This feature enables Unified Messaging servers to communicate with endpoints outside an enterprise firewall. The A/V Authentication Service authenticates the VoIP media traffic as it flows through the Communications Server 2007 Access Edge server, on which it is co-located. In this situation, the Unified Messaging server is associated with a Communications Server 2007 pool and obtains the appropriate authentication tokens from the Communications Server 2007 Access Edge server that is serving that particular Communications Server 2007 pool.
When Unified Messaging traffic must traverse an enterprise firewall, the Unified Messaging servers must have the name of the Communications Server 2007 Access Edge server that is assigned to each Office Communications Server pool so that they can obtain the appropriate authentication tokens.
Integration of missed-call-notification e-mail messages with Office Communicator 2007 In deployments that include the Exchange 2007 RTM Unified Messaging and Office Communicator 2005 clients, call notifications are generated independently. For example, if a UM-enabled user who is using Office Communicator misses a call, two missed call notification messages are generated in the user's Inbox: one from Exchange 2007 Unified Messaging and one from Office Communicator 2005. When Exchange 2007 SP1 is integrated with Communications Server 2007, users who are using Office Communicator 2007 receive only one, unique missed call notification in their Inbox.

Exchange 2007 SP1 Features Without Communications Server 2007

The following features are available in Exchange 2007 SP1 without integrating your Unified Messaging environment with Communications Server 2007:

Secure Realtime Transport Protocol (SRTP) support This feature enables SRTP media traffic to flow to and from Exchange Unified Messaging. You can configure SRTP support by using the Exchange Management Shell or the Exchange Management Console. The SRTP configuration settings are located on the UM dial plan object.
By default, when you create a UM dial plan, it will communicate in an Unsecured mode and the Unified Messaging servers that are associated with the UM dial plan will send and receive data from IP gateways, IP PBXs, and other Exchange 2007 computers by using no encryption. In Unsecured mode, both the Realtime Transport Protocol (RTP) media channel and SIP signaling information will not be encrypted.
You can configure a Unified Messaging server to use Mutual Transport Layer Security (MTLS) to encrypt the SIP and RTP traffic that is sent and received from other devices and servers. When you add a Unified Messaging server to a UM dial plan and configure the dial plan to use SIP Secured mode, only the SIP signaling traffic will be encrypted. The RTP media channels will still use Transmission Control Protocol (TCP), which is not encrypted. However, if you add a Unified Messaging server to a UM dial plan and configure the dial plan to use Secured mode, both the SIP signaling traffic and the RTP media channels are encrypted. A secure signaling media channel that uses SRTP also uses MTLS to encrypt the VoIP data.
Exchange Management Console support for configuring Transport Layer Security (TLS) In Exchange 2007 SP1, the Exchange Management Console has been extended to enable you to configure the TLS settings on a UM dial plan. The TLS configuration settings are located on the UM dial plan object.
A Unified Messaging server can operate in any mode that is configured on a dial plan because the Unified Messaging server is configured to listen on TCP port 5060 for unsecured requests and TCP port 5061 for secured requests at the same time. A Unified Messaging server can be associated with a single or multiple UM dial plans and can be associated with dial plans that have different VoIP security settings. A single Unified Messaging server can be associated with dial plans that are configured to use a combination of Unsecured, SIP Secured, or Secured mode.

Inband fax tone detection Fax tone detection enables an IP gateway, an IP PBX, or Exchange Unified Messaging to determine the type of incoming call that is being received. Fax tone detection can work in the following three ways:

· The IP PBX or IP gateway detects the fax tone and sends a reinvite request by using T.38 Session Description Protocol (SDP).

· Fax tone detection can be performed by using both an IP PBX or IP gateway and Unified Messaging. In this method, when the IP gateway or IP PBX detects the fax tone, it does not send a re-invite but instead sends CNG tones (out of band) as named telephony events as defined in RFC 2833. As soon as the IP PBX or IP gateway has sent the CNG tones, the Unified Messaging server performs out-of-band fax tone detection and sends a reinvite by using T.38 SDP.

· If the IP PBX or IP gateway does not use either of these methods, Unified Messaging inband fax tone detection should be turned on. This will enable the Unified Messaging server to detect incoming inband fax tones. By default, this feature is turned off. However, it can be enabled in environments that use IP PBXs or IP gateways that cannot detect fax tones. You enable inband fax tone detection by changing the EnableInbandFaxDetection setting to True in the globcfg.xml file. The globcfg.xml file is located in the \Program Files\Microsoft\Exchange\bin folder on a computer that is running the Unified Messaging server role.

Cisco CallManager 5.x is supported and directly interoperates with Exchange 2007 SP1. However, fax receiving does not work correctly if you are using CallManager 5.x or 6.x even if you have enabled inband fax tone detection. If you do not enable this setting, Unified Messaging servers will rely on IP gateways or IP PBXs to perform fax tone detection.

Quality of Service (QoS) support by using DiffServ Quality of Service (QoS) is a set of technologies for managing network traffic in a cost-effective manner. QoS technologies let you measure bandwidth, detect changing network conditions (such as congestion or availability of bandwidth), and prioritize or throttle traffic. Differentiated Services (DiffServ) is a protocol that defines traffic prioritization at Layer 3 of the OSI model. DiffServ classifies and marks the packets as belonging to a specific class and is a simple and scalable mechanism for classifying packets, managing network traffic including voice and video traffic, and ensuring quality of service (QoS) on modern IP networks.
DiffServ operates on the principle of traffic classification, where each network data packet is included in a limited number of traffic classes. However, each router on the network must be configured to differentiate traffic based on its class. Each traffic class can be managed differently, ensuring that higher-priority traffic on the network can be given high priority. DiffServ markings for a packet are included in the IP header.
RFC 2475 defines the architecture for DiffServ and RFC 2474 defines the bits in the DiffServ field on the network packet. The Type of Service (TOS) field in Internet Protocol version 4 (IPv4) headers and the Traffic Class field in Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6) headers are used for the DiffServ values. The six most significant bits of the DiffServ field together are called the Differentiated Services Code Point (DSCP). DSCP is a field in an IP packet that enables different levels of service to be assigned to network traffic. This is achieved by marking each packet on the network with a DSCP code and assigning to it the corresponding level of service.
In Microsoft Windows Server 2003, TCP/IP performs DiffServ marking when you have installed the Quality of Service (QoS) Packet Scheduler. When you install the Unified Messaging server role on a computer that is running Windows Server 2003 with the QoS Packet Scheduler installed, all outgoing Unified Messaging packets will be marked with the default DSCP value of 40 (101000). However, you can change this default value for the packets by using Registry Editor or by modifying the Group Policy.
The Exchange 2007 Unified Messaging service does not perform any classification of network packets. However, the media platform that is included with Unified Messaging instructs the Windows networking stack that all audio packets are to be marked as Guaranteed Service. The operating system will then use Group Policy settings to determine how the data packets should be marked and then will mark the TOS field of the IP header. For more information about QoS in Windows, see How QoS Works.
By default, the QoS Packet Scheduler component is not enabled on Windows Server 2003 and must be installed. The QoS Packet Scheduler can be installed by adding it as a Network Service on the properties of a network connection in Windows Server 2003. However, the QoS Packet Scheduler is installed by default on Windows Server 2008.

For more information please visit Microsoft Technet

OCS 2007 R2 new features.

Jithendranath Reddy — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 18:27:00 GMT

Wow, What a Technology and Features OCS R2 Offers.....

Key new features of Office Communications Server 2007 R2 include the following:

Next-Generation Collaboration

• Dial-in audioconferencing. Office Communications Server 2007 R2 enables businesses to eliminate costly audioconferencing services with an on-premise audioconferencing bridge that is managed by IT as part of the overall communications infrastructure.

• Desktop sharing. This feature enables users to seamlessly share their desktop, initiate audio communications and collaborate with others outside the organization on PC, Macintosh or Linux platforms through a Web-based interface.

• Persistent group chat. This enables geographically dispersed teams to collaborate with each other by participating in topic-based discussions that persist over time. This application provides users with a list of all available chat rooms and topics, periodically archives discussions in an XML file format that meets compliance regulations, provides tools to search the entire history of discussion on a given topic, and offers filters and alerts to notify someone of new posts or topics on a particular topic.

Enhanced Voice and Mobility

• Attendant console and delegation. This allows receptionists, team secretaries and others to manage calls and conferences on behalf of other users, set up workflows to route calls, and manage higher volumes of incoming communications through a software-based interface.

• Session Initiation Protocol trunking. This feature enables businesses to reduce costs by setting up a direct VoIP connection between an Internet telephony service provider and Office Communicator 2007 without requiring on-premise gateways.

• Response group.A workflow design application manages incoming calls based on user-configured rules (e.g., round-robin, longest idle, simultaneous), providing a simple-to-use basic engine for call treatment, routing and queuing.

• Mobility and single-number reach. This extends Microsoft Office Communicator Mobile functionality to Nokia S40, Motorola RAZR, Blackberry and Windows Mobile platforms, allowing users to communicate using presence, IM and voice as an extension of their PBX from a unified client.*

There are also additional features such as:

Single Number Reach
Team Calling
New Server Roles
High Definition Video
SQL 2008 Support
Auto-Updates for Communicator
Music on Hold
Voice Memos
Desktop Sharing through Communicator
Communicator Mobile for Java
Join Conferencing from Web
OCS Attendant
Much more!

New Developer Tools for Business Applications

• APIs and Visual Studio integration. This improves the efficiency of everyday business processes by enabling businesses to build communications-enabled applications and embed communications into business applications.

What are the New services in front end server of OCS 2007 R2

Jithendranath Reddy — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 14:14:00 GMT

What are the new services in OCS R2?

Now OCS R2 front end server also includes the Application server. The OCS 2007 R2 Application Server has following services:

Conferencing Attendant
Conferencing Announcement Service
Outside Voice Control
Response Group Service

Following services are still there on the R2 version of OCS 2007. The obove services are only addition to the below services.

Front End Service

IM Conferencing Service

Telephony Conferencing Service

Additionally OCS 2007 R2 Front End server installs the following service.

QoE agent service

Note: OCS 2007 R2 is now available in 64 bits. It’s not available in 32 bits. With OCS 2007 R2, we can install Communicator Web Access 2007 R2 can be installed on the OCS 2007 R2 Front End Server.

Unable to download address book from Office Communicator 2007 - prompting for credentials

Jithendranath Reddy — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 03:39:00 GMT

After installing OCS, you find that you're not able to download the Address Book. Office Communicator will prompt for the entry of credentials over and over while trying to download the address book but credentials will not be accepted. You'll see the error on Communicator: "Your password is required to synchronize with the corporate address book"

Begin exploring the problem with Internet Explorer. When browsing in IE to the website the addressbook is on you also may be prompted for credentials and the credentials are rejected. After three rejections of your credentials, the browser will probably show either a 401.2 error from IIS or a 401.1 error from IIS. We’ll address the 401.2 first here and then the 401.1.

HTTP Error 401.2 - Unauthorized: Logon Failed due to server

====================configuration==================

If you’re encountering the 401.2 response from IIS, you may need to set the url you’re browsing to into the Intranet Zone site list. The problem here is that IE is not presenting its representation of the credentials properly to IIS. When using integrated authentication we would expect the IIS logs to show a 401.2 (or 401 2 rather) for the initial client request. The client is going to attempt to authenticate anonymously at first. IIS will respond to the client saying something like, "Sorry but I'm not configured to allow anonymous requests. Try either NTLM or Kerberos next time." The client tries again using NTLM or Kerberos (it's the clients choice at this point) and if the 401.2 is still being issued, one piece of low hanging fruit to reach for involves not the server but the client.

First I'd focusing on which zone IE says the site is in--Internet zone? Local Intranet zone? Trusted sites? Presumably you'll want an intranet site in the Local Intranet zone. But if there are "dots" in the address (example: <http://accounting.intranet.local/>) then perhaps you may see that IE is thinking it is part of the Intranet zone instead. Expand the Tools menu of IE, select Internet options, and settle on the Security tab. Highlight the icon for Local Intranet and click the Custom Level button. When the window entitled "Security Settings - Local Intranet Zone" opens, scroll to the bottom of the window and consider the four options for "Logon." IS the bullet beside "Automatic logon only in Intranet Zone?" Perhaps it should be. Or is it beside "Automatic logon with current user name and password?" That should work well too. Either of the other two options may not be a good idea for an intranet site using integrated authentication. Adjust if desired. While the Local Intranet icon is still highlighted, click the Sites button. Click the Advanced button. Consider typing in the address of the intranet site into the field labeled "Add this website to the zone:" and click the Add button. If you're

unable to do this, your workstation may have these settings dictated by group policy. When the website is added to the local intranet zone list and when the client is set to automatically provide credentials when browsing sites found in the local intranet list, the 401.2 often goes away. The client simply wasn't set to present the credentials to IIS.

After the 401.2 is dealt with in this manner, you may still get prompted, rejected, and see the 401.1 error. The 401.1 error means that Integrated (Kerberos) authentication isn’t working properly.

HTTP Error 401.1 - Unauthorized: Access is denied due to invalid

==================credentials================

The 401.1 is probably caused by the need for a new SPN to be registered. Since the OCS application pool uses the RTCComponentService account as its identity, you’ll need to register a new SPN for this account which also reflects the address you’re browsing to.

You can download the SetSPN utility by finding and downloading the Support Tools from <http://microsoft.com/downloads>. Look for Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 2 32-bit Support Tools <https://www.microsoft.com/downloads/info.aspx?na=22&p=1&SrcDisplayLang=en&SrcCategoryId=&SrcFamilyId=&u=%2fdownloads%2fdetails.aspx%3fFamilyID%3d96a35011-fd83-419d-939b-9a772ea2df90%26DisplayLang%3den> or Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 1 32-bit Support Tools <https://www.microsoft.com/downloads/info.aspx?na=22&p=3&SrcDisplayLang=en&SrcCatego

ryId=&SrcFamilyId=&u=%2fdownloads%2fdetails.aspx%3fFamilyID%3d6ec50b78-8be1-4e81-b3be-4e7ac4f0912d%26DisplayLang%3den>. After the support tools are installed, open a command prompt, navigate to the support tools directory, and use the following pattern to register a new SPN:

Setspn -A HTTP/{servername} {domainname}\RTCComponentService

Note: if you are browsing to an address that is not the servername, you’ll want to set an SPN for that address rather than the servername.

Example: Setspn -A HTTP/{address-without-the-https} {domainname}\RTCComponentService

After you register an SPN that connects the address you’re browsing to with the account the IIS application pool is using, IIS will be able to decrypt the Kerberos tickets and Kerberos authentication should begin working. Have the customer open a new instance of IE and browse to the address again. This time there should be no prompting for credentials.

Before you go through the above steps, ensure that Address book settings are fine as per below article:

Steps to check the Address book server settings

Archiving CDR Reporter Tool and custom SQL Queries.

Jithendranath Reddy — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 10:04:00 GMT

There is an interesting and quite useful tool called Archiving CDR Reporter tool that comes with OCS 2007 resource kit.

The Microsoft Office Communications Server Archiving CDR Reporter tool can be used to collect variety of usage reports based on the information available in Archiving/CDR tables. Administrators can add custom queries to the configuration file and use them to look at various reports.

Here i am posting some information which covers how to configure the tool and how to write custom queries. It includes some useful custom queries which comes handy while troubleshooting the OCS Archiving cases.

1. Overview

Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 Archiving and CDR Server provides a solution for archiving instant messaging (IM) conversations and group conferences and for capturing usage information related to file transfers, audio/video (A/V) conversations, application sharing, remote assistance, meetings, and conferencing servers in call detail records.

Note: Call detail recording (CDR) captures usage data for conferences. It does not archive the content of audio, video, or file transfers.

Messages from the Office Communications Server Front End Server are sent through the Windows Server Message Queuing service to the Archiving and CDR Server, which uses a Microsoft SQL Server database to store archived information.

The Microsoft Office Communications Server ArchivingCdrReporter tool that comes with resource kit can be used to collect variety of usage information from Archiving/CDR tables. Administrators can add custom queries to the configuration file i.e. ArchivingCdrReporter_Config.xml file and look at various usage reports.

Snapshot of Archiving CDR Reporter tool.

2. Configuration of Archiving CDR Reporter

After the installation of OCS Resource kit tools we get two files under ArchivingCdrReporter folder. One is the actual reporting tool (ArchivingCdrReporter.exe) and another one is the configuration file (ArchivingCdrReporter_Config.xml).

Before using this tool for the first time, we need to edit the Server/Instance name and the Database name in the configuration file or in the GUI of the reporting tool. This tool uses this configuration to connect to Archiving database to query and report usage information.

Method 1: Configuring from ArchivingCdrReporter_Config.xml

1. Configure the Archiving Backend Server/Instance name by editing the <servername></servername> parameter in ArchivingCdrReporter_Config.xml file.

Example:

<servername>archbackend</servername>

<servername>archbackend/archInst</servername>

2. Configure the Archiving Backend Database name by editing the <dbname></dbname> parameter in ArchivingCdrReporter_Config.xml file.

Example. <dbname>LcsLog</dbname>

Method 2: Configuring from ArchivingCdrReporter.exe

Double click on the ArchivingCdrReporter.exe and click on Backend Details on the top menu.

You will be prompted to enter Backend Server\Instance and Database details.

Enter the Backend Server\Instance and Database details and click on OK. By clicking OK the configuration is automatically saved to ArchivingCdrReporter_Config.xml.

How to write custom SQL queries

The tool has a configuration file named ArchivingCdrReporter_Config.xml, which can be edited to add custom queries. We can add custom queries to the configuration file and use them to monitor variety of custom usage information.

If you want to add custom queries to be reported by the tool, edit the configuration file ArchivingCdrReporter_Config.xml and add a new query node under <Queries> </Queries> node.

Example. <Query>

<Name>Total number of Users</Name>

<Value>SELECT count(*) as 'Number of Users’</Value>

</Query>

Some useful SQL queries

You can append the below section the ArchivingCdrReporter_Config.xml configuration file and view more useful reports.

Note: Replace the highlighted names / words as per your requirement.

<Name>More reports</Name>

<Query>

<Name>All IMs containing specific word</Name>

<Value>Select * from Messages where Messages.Body like '%Hello%'</Value>

</Query>

<Query>

<Value>Select * from Messages, Users where Users.UserId = Messages.FromId and Users.UserUri = 'mike@nwtraders.com'</Value>

</Query>

<Query>

<Name>All IMs Received by User</Name>

<Value>Select * from Messages, Users where Users.UserId = Messages.ToId and Users.UserUri = 'mike@nwtraders.com'</Value>

</Query>

<Query>

<Name>All IMs exchanged between Sender and Receiver</Name>

<Value>Select MessageIdTime, Body, u1.UserUri as [From], u2.UserUri as [To] from Messages, Users u1, Users u2 where Messages.FromId = u1.UserId and Messages.ToId = u2.UserId and u1.UserUri = 'mike@nwtraders.com' and u2.UserUri = 'john@nwtraders.com' union all Select MessageIdTime, Body, u2.UserUri, u1.UserUri from Messages, Users u1, Users u2 where Messages.FromId = u2.UserId and Messages.ToId = u1.UserId and u2.UserUri = 'john@nwtraders.com' and u1.UserUri = 'mike@nwtraders.com'</Value>

</Query>

<Query>

<Name>All IMs Sent between certain time range</Name>

<Value>Select * from Messages where MessageIdTime between '2008-04-02 1:50' and '2008-04-02 2:00'</Value>

</Query>

<Query>

<Name>All IMs Sent by a user within time range</Name>

<Value>Select * from Messages, Users where Users.UserId = Messages.FromId and Users.UserUri = 'mike@nwtraders.com' and Messages.MessageIdTime between '2008-04-02 1:50' and '2008-04-02 2:00'</Value>

</Query>

<Query>

<Name>All IMs Received by a user within time range</Name>

<Value>Select * from Messages, Users where Users.UserId = Messages.ToId and Users.UserUri = 'mike@nwtraders.com' and Messages.MessageIdTime between '2008-04-02 1:50' and '2008-04-02 2:00'</Value>

</Query>

</Queries>

</config>

For More Archiving SQL Queries please check this link below.

Different SQL Queries to Retrieve Archived Messages

How to add all federated contacts to the OCS address Book?

Jithendranath Reddy — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 02:05:00 GMT

This Post is all about how to provide the fuctionality to end user of searching a federated contact in your local address book using MOC?

Recently i worked on a case where we have three AD forests with single AD Domain per forest, each AD forest has Exchange 2007 and OCS 2007 with Internet Access, therefore OCS Edge Servers are deployed at each of the organizations. The three OCS 2007 organizations federate with each other through the Internet. The client have IIFP server to synchronize the GAL between the Exchange 2007 organizations, so they have a mail-enable contacts in each forest that represent each user of the other forests. Each Exchange organization has each own SMTP domain, the SIP domain is the same as the SMTP domain at each organization. The question is about functionality, how can we get each OCS Address Book Server to represent every user in the organization?.
The target here is to let every user in the three organizations go to the search contact option in Office Communicator 2007 and to be able to find a user from another forest and of course to be able to communicate with that user via presence, IM, audio, video, LM, etc.

The Work around followed is :

Create the “Contact” with Telephone Number(s) configured Manually set the msRTCSIP-PrimaryUserAddress (sip:user@domain.com) in Active Directory Do not use the MMC as the contact will be enabled and enter the database. msRTCSIP-UserEnabled will be “<not set>” or NULL which is crucial to prevent the user being provisioned in the RTC SQL database “proxyAddresses” attribute should contain SIP URI and the users primary SMTP address. (sip:contact@domain.com & SMTP:contact@domain.com) SMTP in upper case is the primary SMTP address.

After this we can :

Locate the remote user in the local Address Book
We can right click on the remote user and send IM
We can right click the user and send email
We can right click the user and make a telephone call
We can add the user to my buddy list

Everything works well in my environment and the key is ensuring that msRTCSIP-UserEnabled is NULL. If this attribute is not NULL, the corresponding contact will be provisioned in the RTC SQL database and this may cause problems.