• Article

Chapter 4: Managing Enterprise Voice

Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 and Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2 will reach end of support on January 9, 2018. To stay supported, you will need to upgrade. For more information, see Resources to help you upgrade your Office 2007 servers and clients.

The Office Communications Server 2007 Administrative Tools enable you to accomplish the following Enterprise Voice management tasks:

  • Configure global and pool settings for Enterprise Voice.

  • Configure settings for a single Standard Edition Server functioning as a pool or for the Office Communications Server 2007, Mediation Server.

  • Configure your Enterprise Voice infrastructure for routing calls among Enterprise Voice users and to numbers managed by a legacy PBX users and the PSTN.

  • Specify route-based user call authorizations.

  • Enable and configure users for Enterprise Voice.

Using the Office Communications Server 2007 Administrative Snap-in

The Office Communications Server 2007 administrative snap-in for MMC is installed by default on all Communications Servers. In addition, you can install the tools separately on a computer from which you want to manage Communications Servers remotely.

You can run the Office Communications Server 2007 Administrative Tools on the following operating systems:

  • Windows Vista®, Business Edition

  • Microsoft Windows® Vista, Enterprise Edition

  • Microsoft Windows XP with Service Pack 2 (SP2) and greater

  • Microsoft Windows Server® 2003 with Service Pack 1 (SP1) and greater

  • Microsoft Windows Server 2003 R2

Office Communications Server 2007 administrative tools can also run in Windows 32-bit on Windows 64-bit (WOW64) mode on 64-bit versions of Windows, but not as a native 64-bit application

Windows 2000 is not supported for running the Office Communications Server 2007 Administrator Tools.

For information about the system platform prerequisites for Office Communications Server 2007, see the Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 Planning Guide.

To open the Office Communications Server 2007 Administrative Tools, do one of the following:

  • Click Start, point to All Programs, point to Administrative Tools, and then click Office Communications Server 2007.

  • Click Start, point to Administrative Tools, and then click Office Communications Server 2007.

1ca785a6-8ffb-4975-ab64-e01fa19edf9b

As shown in the preceding figure, the administrative snap-has two panes: the console pane and the details pane. The console pane, on the left, represents your Office Communications Server topology as a tree of nodes. The details pane, on the right, displays status, settings, and other information for the node selected in the console pane. The details pane often contains several tabs, each displaying a different type of information.

Viewing Voice Settings

You can view your settings for Enterprise Voice in the detail pane of the Office Communications Server 2007 administrative snap-in.

To view global settings for Enterprise Voice

  1. Open the Office Communications Server 2007 administrative snap-in.

  2. In the console pane, click the Forest node.

  3. In the details pane, click the Voice tab.

  4. Expand one or more of the following to view the corresponding settings for Voice:

    • Global Policy

    • Phone Usages

    • Normalization Rules

    • Location Profiles

    • Routes

To view voice configuration task flow

  1. Open the Office Communications Server 2007 administrative snap-in.

  2. In the console pane, click the Forest node.

  3. In the details pane, click the Voice Task Flow tab. The Voice Task Flow tab presents the main voice configuration tasks as a series of steps.

  4. To view the property page corresponding to each step, click the MMC Reference path.

  5. Click Help to view the online help for each property page.

To view voice settings for a pool

  1. Open the Office Communications Server 2007 administrative snap-in.

  2. In the console pane, click the pool whose settings you want to view.

  3. In the details pane, expand Voice Settings. Voice Settings displays pool-level settings for phone lock, location profile, and quality of service.

  4. Expand the settings you want to view.

Viewing Voice Properties

Most of the management procedures described in this chapter require you to access Voice properties.

To view pool-level properties

  1. Open the Office Communications Server 2007 administrative snap-in.

  2. Click Start, point to Programs, point to Administrative Tools, and click Office Communications server 2007. The Office Communications Server 2007 administrative snap-in shows your Office Communications Server 2007 topology.

  3. Expand the Forest node.

    • If you are configuring a Standard Edition Server, expand Standard Edition Servers, right-click the Standard Edition pool that you want to configure (not the server itself but the pool-level node for that server), point to Properties, and then click Front End Properties.

    • If you are configuring an Enterprise Edition Pool, expand Enterprise Pools, expand the pool that you want to configure, right-click Front Ends, and then click Properties.

    2eff094f-e817-4fcd-80e7-3eda4a81c829

  4. On the Front End Properties page, click the Voice tab.

    985d2de1-2998-41b2-a134-1e707459f73d

Configuring Global Settings for Enterprise Voice

Global settings govern the routing of calls that originate with Enterprise Voice users throughout a forest.

To view global voice properties

  1. Open the Office Communications Server 2007 administrative snap-in.

  2. In the console pane, right-click the Forest node, point to Properties, and click Voice Properties.

    The global voice property page contains four tabs: Location Profiles, Phone Usages, Policy, and Routes, each corresponding to an Enterprise Voice Active Directory object. To create a new object or change the settings of an existing object, click the appropriate tab.

    If you are making changes on one tab only, click OK. If you make changes on more than one tab, click Apply after you finish making changes on a tab, and then press OK when you finish making changes on the last tab.

    51ec7096-c1f9-4204-8995-fcf0a97023f2

    Global settings include the following:

    • Location profiles specify which normalization rules apply to calls from a particular locale. To create, edit, or remove location profiles, see Step 2. Create Location Profiles.

    • Phone usage records define user calling privileges. A single policy may include multiple phone usage records. To create, edit, or remove phone usage records, see Step 6. Configure Call Authorization.

    • Policies specify which phone usage records apply to which users. They also specify whether endpoint devices are enabled for simultaneous ringing. To create, edit, or remove voice policies, see Step 6. Configure Call Authorization.

    • Routes define how calls are routed through the Enterprise Voice infrastructure. A route consists of a target telephone number, one or more media gateways that are designated to handle that number, and the phone usage records that a user must have for permission to call the target number. To create, edit, or remove a route, see Step 7. Configure Outbound Call Routing.

Configuring Pool Settings for Enterprise Voice

The Office Communications Server 2007 Enterprise Pool, or a Standard Edition Server functioning as a pool, must be configured with a location profile. The location profile translates dialed numbers into E.164 format for reverse number look-up and call routing.

In addition to specifying a location profile for the pool or home server, you can also configure settings for the Microsoft Office Communicator Phone Edition.

To select a default location profile for a pool or Standard Edition Server

  1. Open the Front End Properties page for a chosen pool or server, and then click the Voice tab.

  2. Select the default location profile, and then click View to review the contents of the location profile. If the location profile is not the one you want, continue viewing additional location profiles until you find it If the location profile you want does not exist, you must create a new one (for details, see Step 2. Create Location Profiles).

  3. Click OK.

To configure phone lock for the Microsoft Office Communicator Phone Edition

  1. Open the Front End Properties page for a chosen pool or server, and then click the Voice tab.

  2. Click Enforce phone lock.

  3. Accept the default values for Minimum pin length and Minimum timeout or type new values. Acceptable value ranges are shown in the following table:

    Table 11. Valid ranges for PIN length and timeout length

    PIN Length Timeout Length (in minutes)

    4 through 15 characters; default 6

    0 through 60 minutes; default 10

  4. Click OK.

To configure quality of service for the Microsoft Office Communicator Phone Edition

  1. Open the Front End Properties page for a chosen pool or server, and then click the Voice tab.

  2. Click Configure.

  3. In the Advanced Voice Options dialog, accept the default values for QoS and 801.2p Voice or type new values. Acceptable value ranges are shown in the following table:

    Table 12. Valid ranges for QoS and 801.2 Voice

    Voice Option Range of Values

    QoS

    0 through 63; default 40

    801.2 Voice

    0 through 7; default 5

  4. Click OK.

To configure security settings for Microsoft Office Communicator Phone Edition

  1. Open the Front End Properties page for a chosen pool or server, and then click the Voice tab.

  2. Click Configure.

  3. In the Advanced Voice Options dialog, accept or change the SIP security mode, and then click OK.

    Note

    Click Help for information about the settings for the SIP security modes.

  4. Click OK.

Configuring a Mediation Server

A Mediation Server must be able to pass SIP requests and media between the Enterprise Voice infrastructure and a media gateway connected to the PSTN. This requires configuring the following settings:

  • The IP address used to listen for calls.

  • The name of the Audio/Video Access Edge Server that will host the A/V Authentication Service for this Mediation Server.

  • The location profile to be used by the Mediation Server.

  • The port range for media exchange.

  • The FQDN and TLS port of the internal next hop server used by this Mediation Server.

  • The FQDN and TCP port of the media (PSTN) gateway used by this Mediation Server.

  • To configure a mediation server, see Configure Mediation Server in Step 5. Deploy a Media Gateway.

Deactivating a Mediation Server

From time to time you may need to take a Mediation Server offline for purposes of maintenance or replacement. Care must be taken in deactivating a Mediation Server because if you simply remove it from service without first taking precautionary steps, you will cause any active calls to be dropped. There are three ways to safely deactivate a mediation server:

  • Deactivate the Mediation Server on the weekend or holiday, or in the middle of the night, but only after you have checked the call logs to make sure nobody is using that particular gateway.

  • Change routes on the Office Communications Server so that no new calls are routed through the Mediation Server to be activated. Then wait for all calls to hang up.

  • A combination of the first two options in which you change routes on the Office Communications Server during off-hours, after all calls have completed.

Enabling Call Detail Records for Enterprise Voice

Office Communications Server 2007 uses the CDR (Call Detail Records) infrastructure to capture Enterprise Voice call details.

Note

Before you administer call detail recording, you must first install an Archiving Server and all its prerequisites as well as enable call detail recording according to the instructions in the Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 Archiving and CDR Server Deployment Guide. Also ensure that you have enabled archiving according to the instructions in the "Enable Archiving" section of this document.

To enable call detail recording for Enterprise Voice

  1. Log on to a server in the forest where you installed Communications Server 2007 that has the Office Communications Server, Administration Tools installed using an account in the RTCUniversalServerAdmins group.

  2. Click Start, point to Control Panel, point to Administrative Tools, and then click Office Communications Server 2007.

  3. Right-click the Forest node, point to Properties, and then click Global Properties.

  4. Click the Call Detail Records tab.

  5. Click Voice call details, and then click OK.