OCS ROI Session Wrap Up
We had a great session last week. Even though there was only a small turn-out it was great to be able to discuss the different areas of ROI and business value OCS is able to acchieve. We covered a wide range of areas and I have written up most of the major ones on my blog. http://dcpearso.com
I will also put up a link to the OCS ROI tool. I am just trying to find it myself
The next session will be done on Usage and Adoption. This session will take a dive into some of the features within OCS and how best to use these. Most of the session will be focused on training users and how best to increase the OCS adoption rate and the featurset being used.
09 / 10 Calendar of Events
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| July | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec | Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun |
| 21 | 18 | 16 | 21 | 18 | 16 | 20 | 17 | 17 | 21 | 19 | 16 |
| No Event | Info | Polycom | Info | Info | No Event | No Event | NET | Info | No Event | Info | Vendor |
| Topic | Topic | Topic | Topic | Topic | |||||||
| Topics | |||||||||||
| 18th August | OCS ROI / Cost Justification | ||||||||||
| 20th October | Usage and Adoption | ||||||||||
| 17th November | Exchange 2010 Deep analysis | ||||||||||
| 16th March | Best Practices | ||||||||||
| 18th May | OCS Wave 14 | ||||||||||
| Vendors | |||||||||||
| 15th September | Polycom Integration with OCS | ||||||||||
| 16th February | NET | ||||||||||
| 15th June | Aspect | ||||||||||
OCS User Group Meeting for May – Exchange 2010
It’s been a while since our last meeting and the Easter holidays was a disruption to our normal routine. We have scheduled our next meeting for the 27th of May from 5:30 PM.
Date: 27th May 2009 from 5:30 to 7:30pm
Where: Microsoft, Level 5, 4 Freshwater Place Southbank Food and drinks are provided so please RSVP melbuc@live.com.au
Agenda: Microsoft recently announced the beta availability of Exchange 2010 which is the next version of its messaging platform. In this User Group session we will discuss and showcase the new capabilities/enhancements that will be grouped into 3 key areas:
- Protection and Compliance
- E-mail archiving
- Protect Communications
- Advanced Security
- Anywhere Access
- Manage Inbox Overload
- Voice Mail
- Collaborate Effectively
- Flexible and Reliable
- Continuous Availability
- Simplified Administration
- Deployment Flexibility
Presenter: Mario D’Silva
Door Prizes: We will have a mystery door prize once again !
Catering Sponsorship: As I mentioned at our last meeting we will be asking the group if anyone is able to sponsor the catering on a month by month basis, if your organisation is interested please contact me.
Announcing the release of Exchange Server Remote Connectivity Analyzer
Microsoft has released a tool to help you verify your Internet facing services are setup and configured properly. This tool will help you test things like Exchange ActiveSync, AutoDiscover, Outlook Anywhere (RPC/HTTP), and inbound email. Sure there are cmdlets included in Exchange 2007 like test-ActivesyncConnectivity and test-OWAConnectivity, but these tests can only be run inside your network and effectively only test your internal network connectivity.
What if you get a call or an escalation regarding one of these services not working? How do you verify if just this user or everyone has a problem? And if there is a problem, where do you start troubleshooting? Is it a DNS problem? Is it a certificate problem? Is a port not open on the firewall?
Believe it or not, these client connectivity and inbound email scenarios make up a significant portion of the support calls we see at Microsoft. So Shawn McGrath and Brad Hughes developed a tool to help you with these problems.
The Exchange Remote Connectivity Analyzer (ExRCA) tool can be accessed at https://www.TestExchangeConnectivity.com.
For more information about this tool go to the Exchange Product team Blog site at – http://msexchangeteam.com/archive/2009/03/25/450908.aspx
Regards,
Mario
First Meeting for 2009
Hi Everyone,
Our first meeting is scheduled for February 10th from 5:30pm to 7:30pm at the Microsoft offices in Southbank.
As we agreed at our last meeting we have arranged for TANDBERG to present their interoperability solutions for OCS.
We also agreed to set up a central repository for all group wide questions, answers, posts and documents. We now have this available to the group at www.discussUC.com. All you will need to do is register and start posting your questions, problems and or suggestions.
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Links:
discussUC Forum: http://www.discussuc.com/
Register: http://www.discussuc.com/index.php?option=com_comprofiler&task=registers
OCS Forum: http://www.discussuc.com/index.php?f=59&jfile=viewforum.php&Itemid=87&option=com_jfusion
By using discussUC, the group will be able to:
- track issues
- subscribe to a particular thread
- upload documents
- create polls
- search the forum for specific answers
Also, this forum is accessible to the broader discussUC members which is now at 1000+ members, so our reach when looking for specific answers is to a broader audience.
Microsoft have posted some entertaining videos regarding the R2 release at Youtube.
http://au.youtube.com/profile?user=OCSR2Launch&view=videos
We look forward to seeing you alll on the 10th.
Cheers
Dean Howarth
December Notes
Hi Everyone,
December’s meeting was extremely informative a big thank you to Justin and Jon for pulling this together. The Architectural session was the most popular of the three options with 73% of the vote !.
We agreed on a number of items moving forward as follows:
Next Meeting 10th February 2009 at 5:50pm to 7:30 pm
Agenda In February, Tandberg will present the group systems interoperability solution along with their new HD camera for OCS
Q and A We ageed that this site was not suitable for the location of our questions/answers and files etc. We have created a section for OCS at discussUC.com under the section UC Solutions / UC Vendor Solutions. The eight most topical new features of OCS R2 are posted there for discussion by the group and anyone for that matter. Through this forum we will be able to attached files, posts etc.
In order to use discussUC.com you will need to register.
We have also placed last months presentation there for download
Until the next meeting have agreat break and we will see you in the new year.
Thankyou
Hi Everyone and thank you for your attendance yesterday, it was a great kick off to what will be a useful group for the UC industry. I’d like to thank Mario and Jonathan for hosting this months meeting and to Harold for sponsoring the catering.
Over the coming week I plan to get back to you with a date for our next meeting along with some thoughts around the format and content. If you have any suggestions please feel free to post them here.
Cheers
Dean
Microsoft unveils deails of Office Communication Server 2007 R2
On the 14th October at VoiceCon in Amsterdam Microsoft demonstrated the new release of Office Communication Server 2007 R2 for the first time to a public audience.
Some of the key new features of R2 that were demonstrated and discussed included:
Next-Generation Collaboration
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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. |
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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. |
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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
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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. |
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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. |
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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. |
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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.* |
New Developer Tools for Business Applications
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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. |
For the full press article and further information got to http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2008/oct08/10-14OCSR2PR.mspx.
At the inaugural UC User group in Melbourne on the 23rd October we will try and demonstrate some of these new capabilities.
UC User Group Hosts
In order to have an effective user group there are individuals from the community that will host this user group. We have four individuals that have agreed to host this user group and they are:
· Dean Howarth
· Daniel Pearson
· Mario D’Silva
I will get each of your hosts to introduce themself at the first User Group meeting.
Inaugural Melbourne Unified Communications User Group Meeting
Come one come all to the first Melbourne Unified Communications group meeting where you can meet others like yourself that are interested in Unified Communications and share your experiences and information.
The agenda for the meeting looks something like this:
Harold Melnick (Microsoft Unified Communications Product Manager) will kick off this user group.
Mario D’Silva will then present an over of Office Communication Server 2007 R2. Office Communication Server 2007 is a core product in the Microsoft Unified Communication portfolio of products. The current version delivers presence, instant messaging, audio/video conferencing, web conferencing and VoIP. Early in 2009 Microsoft will be releasing an R2 release of this software, in this session we will provide you an overview of the functionality that will enhance users experiences.
Details
Thursday October 23rd 2008 5:30-7:30pm
Microsoft, Level 5, 4 Freshwater Place Southbank Food and drinks are provided so please RSVP melbuc@live.com.au If you aren’t already on the mailing list you can sign up to hear about future UC user group events by emailing melbuc@live.com.au with only subscribe in the subject line.
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