PreCallDiagnostic Tool

The PreCallDiagTool is an application that reports expected audio quality as it relates to the network effect. The tool should be installed on any desktop or laptop PC that suffers from inconsistent network connection quality. The PreCallDiagTool can provide a quick check of the current network conditions and also preserve a history of quality data to let users profile their network performance over time or other conditions. The tool is particularly useful for home/mobile users and users using WIFI access points.

The tool is available for download here: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=f16ab4c2-353f-4c9b-b353-22a656c03c9b

No Name Appears When Callings from OC to Cisco or vice versa

One of the frustrating drawbacks when Implementing OCS enterprise voice integrating with Cisco Call Manager or other PBX is that No name would appear in Communicator 2007 when a telephone user calls a Communications Server 2007 user or vice versa .

The only solution by then was to place a media gateway in the middle between mediation and IP-PBX and use a translation feature built in the media gateway to edit the packet header and add Caller Name before sending it to the PBX.

But Finally Microsoft has listened to my prayers and they have released July fix for OCS 2007 R2, once they were released our team started to do the testing in our LABs. At the beginning things didn’t work fine but in the end it worked and it appeared that we only applied the server side updates while the KB 971844 includes Office Communicator update too.

However, even with these fixes, this don’t send display name by default. So, this configuration in KB 972721 will be also necessary. Below are the snapshots taken by our Engineer Amr Nassar who has worked on this and successfully made it work after applying those Fixes.

Calling from Office Communicator R2 with ext 6000 to Cisco IP Phone with ext 10000

Calling from  Cisco IP Phone with ext 10000 to Office Communicator R2 with ext 6000 

But let me also share Microsoft explanation on why this problem happens in the first place and what these updates fix?

Problem Explanation:

When a Private Branch Exchange (PBX) telephone user calls a Microsoft Office Communications Server (OCS) 2007 R2 user, the calling party name that exists in PBX is stripped at the OCS 2007 R2 Mediation Server. Because the PBX telephone user does not exist in Active Directory, no name appears in Microsoft Office Communicator 2007 R2

This problem occurs because the OCS 2007 R2 Mediation Server does not forward the display name information from the Unified Communications (UC) side to the gateway side. Therefore, the Communicator 2007 R2 client does not receive the display name information.

Update 970679 introduces functionality for the Mediation Server role of Communications Server 2007 R2 to forward Display Name information that is part of the From header between its gateway side and its proxy side.

A file called MediationServerSvc.exe.config should be created in the Mediation Installation Directory which be default is at  %programfiles%\Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007\Mediation Server

This file should contain.

<?xml version=”1.0″ encoding=”utf-8″ ?>
<configuration>
                 <appSettings>
                                <add key=”forwardDisplayName” value=”True” />
                 </appSettings>
</configuration>

How to Fix Exchange UM Certificate errors when Integrating with OCS 2007

Typically When Exchange 2007 is installed, it generates a self-issued certificate for use with IIS, SMTP, and SIP (if you’re using UM).  This certificate generally isn’t ideal for Outlook and OWA clients because it’s not trusted by any machines except for the Exchange server, and one of the first tasks to do is replace this certificate with one that is trusted by the user’s machines.

So typically you would request to buy a Public certificate for the Exchange and usually people don’t include the internal FQDN of the servers in this request.

On the Other Hand when you deploy the OCS 2007 you will require Certificate for each OCS server and this is required for securing the communication internally between OCS to OCS servers and OCS to Client. So you will deploy internal Enterprise CA in your domain to issue the certificates for the OCS , and since this is Enterprise CA so it will be published in the Active directory and it will be trusted by default for all internal domain user computers.

However when you try to integrate the OCS 2007 with the Exchange UM by this design , the first thing you will notice that the Voice mail is not accessible from the Communicator client  and it is giving you communicator error whenever you click on voice mail ,and you will find lots of Certificate event logs and OCS Protocol stack errors on both OCS front end and Exchange UM Server.

The reason behind that is because the Exchange UM server is still using the Exchange Self Signed certificate for its internal name and it is trying to communicate with the OCS using this certificate , and since the OCS doesn’t know anything about this issuer so it drops the connection.

To solve this problem we will have to replace the Exchange UM self signed certificate with one from the same CA that the OCS 2007 is using. To accomplish this task simply run the below command on the Exchange command shell.

New-ExchangeCertificate -GenerateRequest -Path c:\UMrequest.req -SubjectName “c=US, o=Contoso, cn=umsrv.mydomain.local” -DomainName mydomain.local  -PrivateKeyExportable $true

This will generate a request on the C: drive under the name of UMrequest.req  for the UM server internal FQDN umsrv.mydomain.local , open it with notepad and copy the content and then go to the PKI auto enrolment page https:\\pkisrv.mydomain.local\certsrv   to issue the certificate and save it locally .

Then we need to import the certificate to exchange and Enable it for UM service usage , my certificate is saved on the C: drive with the name of UMCertificate.cer

Import-ExchangeCertificate -Path c:\UMCertificate.cer

The last thing we will do is to enable this certificate for UM usage, first make sure to copy the Thumbprint of the certificate that you will see in the command shell then run the below command .

Enable-ExchangeCertificate -Thumbprint 5113ae0233a72fccb75b1d0198628675333d010e –Services UM

Restart UM service and restart OCS Front End Server and now you will get the UM working fine with the OCS and you will no longer see the protocol stack errors.

How to enable inbound fax for OCS 2007 Enterprise Voice and Exchange 2007 UM enabled users?

Any Post starting with this disclaimer means that this post was not written by me however I have liked it and added to my blog. I will also include the link to the original or Similar post to provide credit to the original author.

http://blogs.technet.com/jenstr/archive/2007/11/13/how-to-enable-inbound-fax-for-enterprise-voice-and-exchange-2007-um-enabled-ocs-2007-users.aspx

Exchange 2007 SP1 UM supports both voice mail and incoming fax to a given extension. However, if the user is both UM-enabled and enabled for Enterprise Voice using OCS 2007, incoming fax is not supported using the same extension. The reason being that OCS 2007 Mediation Server does not currently support T.38.

How is it possible to provide incoming fax support for Enterprise Voice enabled users? The answer is to use a separate extension for fax and route fax calls to this extension directly to Exchange 2007 SP1 UM outside of OCS 2007.

Let’s assume we have a company called Contoso with the environment shown below and we will use that company to explain the issue and the solution

The OCS 2007 environment is connected to the PBX via a SIP/PSTN gateway called PSTNOCSGWY. The PBX routes all calls to the DID range +131255xxxxx to OCS 2007. OCS 2007 is integrated with the Exchange 2007 SP1 UM server called UMSRV1. It hosts a UM Dial Plan called OcsUmDialPlan of UriType = SipName (required for OCS 2007 integration). There is a UM Mailbox Policy associated with this UM dial plan called OcsUm. Exchange 2007 SP1 UM is connected to the PBX via OCS 2007.

The Contoso user Test User is enabled for Enterprise Voice with the DID +13125510001 and SIP URI TestUser@contoso.com. His extension is 10001. His Enterprise Voice configuration is shown below.

 

 

To be enabled for Exchange 2007 SP1 UM the administrator would issue the following Exchange Management Shell command:

Enable-UmMailbox -id TestUser -UmMailboxPolicy OcsUmPolicy -Extensions 10001 -SIPResourceIdentifier TestUser@contoso.com -Pin 1234

Test User is now enabled for Exchange 2007 SP UM, but will not be able to receive incoming fax on extension 10001 or DID +13125510001.

As indicated above the solution is to give Test User a separate extension for fax and the extension needs to be routed to Exchange 2007 SP1 UM directly without going through OCS 2007. Contoso will therefore have to create a configuration as shown below. There is a dedicated SIP/PSTN gateway for connectivity to Exchange 2007 SP1 UM. The PBX routes the DID range +131266xxxxx to this SIP/PSTN gateway. There is a new UM Dial Plan called UmDialPlan with UriType=TelExtn. There is a UM Mailbox Policy associated with this UM dial plan called Um. The UM server UMSRV1 hosts both UM Dial Plans.

The administrator now decides that Test User should have the extra extension 11001 and DID +13126611001 as the fax number.

To enable Test User to receive fax the administrator need to issue the following Exchange Management Shell command:

Set-Mailbox -id TestUser -SecondaryAddress 11001 -SecondaryDialPlan UmDialPlan

With the above configuration Test User is now able to receive fax on DID +13126611001.

How to configure a SIP trunk between Cisco Call Manager 5.x or 6.x or 7.x and OCS 2007 R1 or R2

How to configure a SIP trunk between Cisco Call Manager 5.x or 6.x and OCS 2007 R1 or R2

 

Ok you want to ring from MOC to Cisco IP phone and back  , hmmm ok then simple we will deal with it as if OCS is an IP PBX with its extensions 3xxx and you need to connect it with Cisco PBX with extensions 7xxx.

To do that we need a SIP trunk and for the SIP trunk to work fine we need to have some specific configuration on that trunk , remember any of these settings if they not configured right then you will not be able to make a stable calling between Cisco and OCS.

 

First we do the SIP trunk :

 

 

 

 

 

Now the SIP trunk which is acting like the bridge between the cisco and the OCS is created , ok then we need now to create a criteria where this trunk is going to be used in.  This is where is Pattern comes in where we will say if a Cisco phone set tries to dial extensions starting with 3xxx then you use the trunk which we have just created .

and from the way back from the OCS to Cisco , when the number is sent in the E164 formate with the + , the Cisco will simply ignore all that and will take only the last 4 Digits which are the 7xxx

 

 

 

Now you are ready to make the call and Enjoy the Integration

J

How to strip “Remove” the + from all outgoing SIP communication from an OCS Mediation server ?

It might be useful in a Cisco direct SIP environment to automatically strip the + from all outgoing SIP communication from an OCS Mediation server.

To do this, create a text (XML) file called MediationServerSvc.exe.config and place it in the location of the MediationServerSvc.exe file. It should be in the ‘C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007\Mediation Server’ directory. The contents of this file should be:

<?xml version=”1.0″ encoding=”utf-8″ ?> <configuration> <appSettings> <add key=”RemovePlusFromRequestURI” value=”Yes”/> </appSettings> </configuration>

Now, you are free to normalize to E.164 without having to worry about your Cisco devices getting confused!

Srouce : http://jimraymond.wordpress.com/