Create a UCMA application with presence aware workflow

In a webcast which I did together with Joachim Farla about Unified Communications Development For Non Professional Developers I talked about creating a UCMA workflow. It is based on the inbound/outbound sample which you can download from GotUC.net.

It is a pretty simple application; it starts a collaboration platform, registers an OCS endpoint and begins listening for incoming calls (or IMs). In this example, it uses client credentials. For production usages, take a provisioned application to do this.

At the same time it also starts a Windows Workflow runtime. When a message is received, it is passed to this workflow so it can be handled. The workflow is the standard XOML workflow of the Windows Workflow Foundation but enhanced with a communications service and OCS activities.

It will first accept the call, determines the presence of a configured SIP address and with an if/else construction choices the right branch. If the user is online, an instant message is send with a question and answer activity. if the user is offline, a outgoing voice call will be created. Using the text to speech functionality, the user will hear some text spoken to him/her and a question is being asked. After giving an answer, the call is disconnected. Meaning you can still reach the user over the phone but use IM primary when he/she is available.

You can configure the actions with your own answer/question systems, call other users, disconnect the call or use speech. There are a lot of OCS activities to pick.

Very simple, but it shows how to use the workflow to make interactive sessions with a user.

To run this sample, make sure you have Visual Studio 2008/2010 and the UCMA SDK installed. You can create an OCS test account at GotUC.net or use your own.

Please see the video for a demonstration of the code.

Presence Aware Workflow with OCS 2007 R2 from e-office on Vimeo.

Topic's UC event e-office

As you can read in my previous post we organize an UC-event on 27th of september. We also demonstrate the new development platform behind OCS2007. OCS2007 comes with a bunch of API's. More information on that see: http://blogs.msdn.com/jcalev/archive/2007/05/07/introduction-to-the-ucma-api-part-1-api-overview.aspx

We will demonstrate 2 very nice capabilities of OCS2007. We will also integrate our stuff within MOSS2007.

Topic 1: Automated bot which will integrate with the Enterprise Search of Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007

Short description of functionality: search within MOSS2007 looking for IT competence (so looking for people with knowledge of for example "IT infrastructures") The automated bot will re-publish this to the end-user. There is no logical access between the end-user (anonymous) and your MOSS "internal" infrastructure. So great for internet facing websites which you can create with the new version of SharePoint (2007 aka MOSS)

Topic 2: Sending SharePoint alerts through IM

Short description of functionality: No, alerts emailed from SharePoint within you inbox but managed by IM. We will build functionality in it to choose whether or not receive alerts through email. So it's the decision of your information worker. IM messages will be pushed by OCS2007! We will build our code to finally deliver an Timer Job for SharePoint.

So....stay tuned on this blog! We will publish our demo material (code)

Subscribe event @: http://www.e-office.com/eog/nl/website.nsf/wwwVwContent/l4sessieunifiedcommunications.htm

Location of this event: http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q=duwboot+20,+houten&sll=37.0625,-95.677068&sspn=52.418008,92.285156&ie=UTF8&z=16&iwloc=cent&om=1

Office Communications Server 2007 RTM bits

Office Communications Server 2007 RTM bits (Eng) - by the end of this week
The OCS clients in Dutch are available in November 2007.

OCS deployment e-office

We are working with Microsoft for a long time now. This year the TAP program for OCS has launced. We are a litte bit late to particate within this program. Additionally we are participating in the Enterprise Group at Microsoft to deliver business cases and effectively deploy infrastructures at customer places. For a couple of weeks now we are designing our own infrastructre in coorporation with Microsoft Netherlands. So let me tell you with infrastructure we choose. This information is based on our experiences with OCS2007 Public Beta. Information about RC1 of OCS is excluded in this blog because we sign a NDA.

e-office is about 120 people big and we are running LCS2005SP1 at this moment to deliver instant messaging. We also connected our LCS environment with interoute (with is delivering VOIP and SIP hosted environments).

To replace our environment we started to setup a plan to build and configure OCS2007. Planning your environment with OCS is the most important thing because te integration with telephony (Enhanced Presence).

At this moment in-place upgrade is not supported so we build a separate OCS environment and migrate manually our users from LCS to the OCS enterprise pool. Just one click and very simple te handle. LCS and OCS can coexist in the SAME forest or SIP enabled domain. This "feature" makes it very simple to setup, configuring in the infrastructure.

How does e-office started with the inplementation of OCS:

1. Make a plan based on input of the OCS Planning Guide (Public Beta)
2. Use SharePoint 2007 to make roll-up list (tasks) etc.
3. Split your activities into small blocks of work - decide (Standard or Enterprise bits!)
4. Extend you schema and prep your forest and archive your printscreens and install info.
5. Prep your domain and decide with SIP domain name you will use
6. Setup and configuring you pool - assign your certificates
7. Start your RTC services and check your configuration.

e-office rely on a SQL Server 2005 Cluster SP1 as Back-End storage. You must implement OCS Enterprise Edition for remote SQL installations. Within the new version of OCS Microsoft introduced Edge roles. The same naming convention you see in Microsoft Exchange Server 2007.

OCS is coming with the following set of possible Edge Roles:

1. Access Edge Role (keypoint for Remote Access connection, federation with partners, PIM etc)
2. Web Conferencing Edge Role
3. A/V Audio and Video Edge Role

additionally you can implement CWA2007 (Communicator Web Access) or Live Meeting features.



In the upcoming weeks we are setting up our DNS and certificates to fully complete our installation and to make this wonderful product work in our production environment.

Welcome to my blog

Welcome to my first blogitem. For the next couple of months i am sharing my knowledge of Unified Communications with the community. My goals are: sharing technical information about Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007. Most of the time infrastructure related. Setting you up with good alternatives in you traditional telephony network. Show you the possibility's how to integrate SharePoint Technology's within OCS or LCS.

Please contact me if you struggeling with some item above! I am always pleased to help you out.
Can can also contact my by e-mail (joachim.farla@e-office.com)