Thursday, October 1, 2015

Lync/SFB Pickup Group

While we are in middle of Skype for Business deployment for one of our customers he asks us something he used to do in his Legacy PBX.

He told us that any phone set could pickup the call of another one phone ringing by just pressing his extension with specific prefix, As example if phone extension is 100 and another phone with extension 101 ringing he just press #101 then the call will be transferred to extension 100 and answered by it.

After some googling and for my own surprise we found that Microsoft Lync/S4B has feature called "Group Call Pickup" that enables Enterprise Voice users to pick up calls that are ringing for another user by dialing a call pickup group number, below are the steps we used to configure it at customer:


Configure Group Call Pickup number ranges

The first step is to configure the Group Call Pickup range, It is similar to Call Park range definition, but you should know that you must use Lync Server Management Shell to create, and view Group Call Pickup, Managing Group Call Pickup number ranges are not available in Lync Server Control Panel.

Our customer has the range of 1xx to 6xx and he used to press 8 before the ringing extension to pickup the call so we defined the range as below command
"New-CsCallParkOrbit -Identity CallPickUp -NumberRangeStart 8100 -NumberRangeEnd 8699 -CallParkService <service ID of the Application service> -Type GroupPickup"

To check that it is configured correctly we run "Get-CsCallParkOrbit" and the result was as below:
Identity           : CallPickUp
NumberRangeStart   : 8100
NumberRangeEnd     : 8699
CallParkServiceId  : ApplicationServer:<pool FQDN>
CallParkServerFqdn : <pool FQDN>
Type               : GroupPickup

To get the service id you could run"Get-CsService -ApplicationServer"

Assign Group Call Pickup numbers to users

We use SEFAUtil to assign Call Pickup numbers to each user for more details on how to install it check below this https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj945659.aspx

First we check it with Pilot user with running below command
"SEFAUtil.exe <pilot user sip uri> /server:<lync pool> /enablegrouppickup:8299"

To check that it is configured correctly we run "SEFAUtil.exe <pilot user sip uri> /server:<lync pool>

Then we make a call to 299 and while it ringing from third phone we press 8299 and call transferred to this phone with announcement to the caller that the call is answered by another person which was additional feature customer was happy with it.

Now we tested it but we need to deploy on all the users so will go to scripting :) we create CSV file with "SIP,Number" as "sip uri, pickup number" and we write below sript

$pickup=import-csv "C:\SEFAUtil\CallPickup_numbers_full.csv"
foreach ($pi in $pickup)
{
$number=$pi.Number
C:\SEFAUtil\SEFAUtil.exe $pi.SIP /server:pool01.dur.sa /enablegrouppickup:$number
}


And everything is working good now.

At last i would like to thank my colueage Ahmed Mostafa who helped me on this issue.

Tuesday, September 29, 2015

Polycom VVX phones with UCS 5.4.0 Rev.A now support Skype for business Online.

Polycom released new UCS version 5.4.0 Rev.A in 25-Sept-2015 which include below features.

Microsoft Office365 and Skype for Business Online

  • The most interesting one is the support of Office365 and S4B online which a lot of customer ask for it.
  • The PIN authentication will not be supported in S4B online.
  • This features also supports the migration of users from the Skype for Business on premise solution to the Office365 online solution.
  • Polycom phones support Skype for Business Online and Exchange Online services only.
  • Exchange Online is not supported on SoundStructure VoIP Interface. Skype for Business and Exchange Online are not supported on VVX 101 and 1500 phones.

In-band Provisioning

  •  Similar to Snom phones now you can provision the phones from S4B direct without needing to have separate server for provisioning.
  • Administrators can also migrate user information from a Lync on-premises solution to an Office365 online solution.
  • Administrators can switch between Lync or Skype for Business on-premise and Skype for Business Office365 online deployments without interrupting services
  • Below table the list of feature you could configure from S4B.
  • I'll prepare blog for details on how to configure it soon.
UC Software Parameter
Skype for Business Parameter
dialplan.userDial.timeOut
UserDialTimeoutMS
feature.btoe.enabled
EnableBetterTogetherOverEthernet
feature.exchangeCalendar.enabled1
EnableExchangeCalendaring
device.prov.lyncDeviceUpdateEnabled
EnableDeviceUpdate
device.prov.lyncDeviceUpdateEnabled.set
voice.volume.persist.handsfree
VoiceVolumePersistMode
voice.volume.persist.headset
voice.volume.persist.bluetooth.headset
voice.volume.persist.usbHeadset
voice.volume.persist.handset
powerSaving.enable
EnablePowerSaveMode
powerSaving.idleTimeout.officeHours
PowerSaveDuringOfficeHoursTimeoutMS
powerSaving.idleTimeout.offHours
PowerSavePostOfficeHoursTimeoutMS
up.screenCapture.enabled
AllowScreenCapture
up.oneTouchVoiceMail
EnableOneTouchVoicemail
device.prov.user
LocalProvisioningServerUser
device.prov.user.set
device.prov.serverType
LocalProvisioningServerType
device.prov.serverType.set
device.prov.password
LocalProvisioningServerpassword
device.prov.password.set
device.prov.serverName
LocalProvisioningServerAddress
device.prov.serverName.set

other features


  • When users sign into Skype for Business on their phone, they can choose to set the time zone, time format, and date format before they start using their phone, This feature is disabled by default.
  • Modified the encoding modes on the onscreen keyboard for VVX 500 and 600 phones.
  • Removed the Pin Authentication feature when the phone is operating in a Skype for Business environment where STS-URI is not configured either through DHCP Option 43 or configuration parameters. 
  • Updated the Lync Status menu in the Web Configuration Utility to show status information for all Skype for Business and Office365 features to support debugging and managing Skype for Business and Office365. 
  • Modified some existing parameters and removed the need for a reboot after the parameters are modified. 
  • Added a single installation package for the Polycom Better Together over Ethernet (BToE) application. 
  • Added support to launch the Web Configuration Utility from the Polycom BToE application. 
  • Added support for Office365 wildcard certificates supported on Microsoft domains.
To get the firmware S4B CAB version check this URI, for normal update check this URI.
for more information please check below URI:



Saturday, September 12, 2015

New Group Series Major Release

As Usual Polycom Prove that it is the best choice for integrate with MS Lync/SFB and it is really complete the UC solution of MS.
Polycom had released a major release with Native MS RDP which will enable Group Series to view Microsoft Lync/SFB desktop native without using Polycom infrastrcuture special in Point-Point Calls.
Also this release has a lot of new amazing feature like:

  • Microsoft Office 365 calendaring.
  • first release of the Polycom RealPresence Touch device.
  • add provisioning capabilities.
  • support for Lync Response Group registrations.
  • support for Link Layer Discovery Protocol (LLDP)/MED.
  • support for new EagleEye IV Inverted mounting option.
  • Acoustic Fence technology.
  • includes support for several experimental features like (Dual Live-Stream, Content Stretch, and Touch Monitor UI Control)
below is the Documentationnotes for more details

Monday, June 15, 2015

Polycom Major Infrastructure releases

Polycom has released today new major release for most of its Infrastructure devices the most important feature is support for Hyper-v and lync Federation AV MCU integration.
you could find below some of major new features with URI for the realease notes for more details. 

RMX 8.6

  •  Support connect to AV MCU on federated Lync
  • SVC is increased to provide 5:1 instead of 3:1  for SVC:HD ports in 8.5
  • Support of DNS load balancing and FE failover
  • Support of waiting lobby in conference.
  • failover to another RMX and transfer the call to it when it has AV MCU


RM 8.4

  • Support for the RealPresence Group Series 310
  • Subnet Overlap Allowed in Site Topology
  • Support for Additional Direct Conference Template Parameters
  •  Calendar Connector for RealPresence Group and Polycom HDX Systems
  • Encryption License Required for XMPP
  • Virtual Edition Supported on Microsoft Hyper-V
  •  Phone Management Enhancements


RPAD 4.2

  •  STUN and TURN Support for WebRTC Video Conferencing
  • High Availability
  • Virtual Edition Support for Microsoft® Hyper-V
  • Security Updates