Creating and Configuring Location Profiles

Topic Last Modified: 2009-05-22

A location profile is a named set of normalization rules that translate phone numbers for a named location to a single standard (E.164) format for purposes of phone authorization and call routing. Beginning with Office Communications Server 2007 R2, location profiles can also be assigned to individual users. The same phone number dialed from different locations can resolve to different E.164 numbers, depending on the assigned location profile. Similarly, the same phone number dialed from the same location can resolve to different E.164 numbers if the numbers are dialed by users to whom different location profiles have been assigned.

In Office Communications Server 2007 R2:

• You can assign location profiles for individual users.
• Enterprise Voice applications can look up and use a per-user location profile when a phone-context value of user-default is received.
• Location profiles can be assigned to Contact objects in addition to individual users.
• In-band provisioning can be used to send a per-user location profile to the user. If a per-user location profile is not assigned to the user, in-band provisioning sends the pool-level default location profile.
• You can optimize device dialing by adding an external access prefix of up to four characters (#, *, and 0-9).

Creating and configuring location profiles includes specifying the following:

• Name. The name that you assign to the location profile typically reflects the location to which it applies. If integrating Exchange Unified Messaging (UM) with Office Communications Server, the name of the location profile must match the FQDN of the corresponding UM dial plan. The name must be unique and cannot exceed 256 Unicode characters, each of which can be an alphabetic or numeric character, a hyphen, a dot, a plus sign, an underscore, or either a left or right parenthesis. No other special characters, including spaces, are allowed.
• Display text. The display text describes the location profile in more detail. It should be recognizable and significant to end users who might encounter it.
• Optimize device dialing. You can add an external access prefix by selecting the Optimize device dialing check box, and then, in the External access prefix text entry box, typing up to four characters (#, *, and 0-9).
• Normalization Rules. This list contains all the normalization rules that have been defined and that, therefore, are available for this location profile. Each location profile must have at least one normalization rule. The normalization rules define how phone numbers expressed in various formats are to be routed for the named location by specifying how to convert dialed numbers in various formats to the standard E.164 format for purposes of reverse number lookup. The same number string can be interpreted and translated differently depending on the locale from which it is dialed. Normalizing user-supplied phone numbers provides a consistent format that makes it possible to match a dialed number to the intended recipient's SIP-URI and to apply dialing authorization rules to the calling party.
  You cannot assign a single phone number normalization rule to multiple location profiles. Instead, you create a separate normalization rule for each location profile. To facilitate the process of specifying each normalization rule, you can copy an existing normalization rule. When you copy a normalization rule, the existing rule is used as a template for the creation of the new normalization rule.
  The order of normalization rules is significant because the server applies the list from top to bottom when it attempts to match dialed numbers to rules. If the first rule matches the dialed number, the server quits looking and proceeds with routing. Typically, to expedite routing, put the normalization rules in order, starting with the most general rule at the top of the list and going to the most specific rule at the bottom of the list.

A large organization may need a separate location profile for each location where it maintains an office. If your organization has a legacy PBX deployed, you can use its dial plan to create location profiles.

After creating location profiles for an Office Communications Server 2007 R2 Enterprise pool, you need to assign a default location profile for each Office Communications Server Front End Server pool, and Mediation Server (or Advanced Media Gateway). The Front End Server and pool use the translated number that is obtained by applying the normalization rules to determine the media gateways to which calls to the PSTN or a PBX are to be routed. The Mediation Server receives E.164 numbers from the gateway, uses the location profile to determine how to interpret the E.164 number for local dialing, and then routes the number to the next hop server for reverse lookup. You must configure the PSTN gateway to convert telephone numbers from a national format to the E.164 format before sending them to the Mediation Server.

For details about location profiles and how they are used, including routing logic, see Location Profiles in the Planning and Architecture documentation.