Office Communications for developers

Software-powered communications can streamline interactions between people and machines by reducing human latency when a business process is waiting for a human decision, or by extending the reach of your application to a phone or mobile device.

Microsoft Unified Communications Managed API 2.0 supports the development of server-side, middle-tier applications targeting Microsoft Office Communicator 2007 R2 and Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2. It includes a SIP stack, a media stack, and powerful speech engines for both automatic speech recognition (ASR) and speech synthesis (TTS).

UCMA 2.0 provides the following capabilities:

• Alerts or notification
• Surveys
• Inbound speech technology enabled interactive voice response applications
• Automated agents, also known as query response bots

Amongst the more advanced developer scenarios that it enables are: Automated Call DistributorsConferencing ServicesCustom client gatewaysInteractive Voice Response platforms, and Speech servers using the Microsoft ASR and TTS engines.

The UCMA 2.0 Core SDK ( 32-bit and 64-bit) abstracts away most of the Office Communications Server SIP/SIMPLE-based protocols by offering an API that exposes almost all of the features of the protocol, but is simpler to understand and use.

The UCMA 2.0 Speech API is a server-grade speech API that allows developers to build multi-channel speech recognition and speech synthesis enabled applications using Microsoft state-of-the-art speech technology. The UCMA 2.0 Speech API supports 12 languages, including English (North America, United Kingdom), French (France, Canada), German, American Spanish, Portuguese (Brazil), Italian, Japanese, Korean, and Chinese (Simplified and Traditional).

The UCMA 2.0 Workflow API is a higher API abstraction layer of the UCMA Core and Speech APIs. It adds unified communications Windows Workflow Activities to the .NET 3.5 SP1 Workflow Foundation for querying Presence and IM or speech technology enabled dialogs in Workflow-based applications built, for example, on Microsoft SharePoint Server 2007.

Both Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 and Office Communications Server 2007 R2 contain the Speech Server (2007) server role. Speech Server (2007) is the IVR platform in the Microsoft Unified Communications Platform. It includes a comprehensive toolset for building speech-enabled self-service applications, and it supports Speech Recognition and Speech Synthesis in five languages: English (North America, United Kingdom), American Spanish, Canadian French, and German. Additionally, it supports DTMF applications and Speech Synthesis in nine more languages: Australian English, French French, Castilian Spanish, Portuguese (Brazil), Italian, Japanese, Korean, and Chinese (Simplified and Traditional).

Speech Server (2007) Developer Edition is available as a free download at the Microsoft Download Center.

Alerts and Notifications

See Custom Alerting for a sample alerting application.

Automated Agents (bots)

Speech Server supports application development using the Voice Response Workflow Designer (based on Windows Workflow), speech and telephony Workflow Activities, and standards such as W3C VoiceXML 2.1. Speech Server (2007) is different from the other OCS server roles in that it can be installed as stand-alone, i.e., without any other OCS server role.

For Office Communications Server 2007 R2, developers are encouraged to choose the UC Managed API Workflow Activities to develop speech technology enabled bots (simple navigational and query-response type of interactions that have simple grammars). Where more sophisticated natural language interactions are required, Speech Server is the recommended platform.

Useful Links

• InstantMessagingBot (Communications Workflow Example)
• Pizza Shop (Speech Server tutorial)

Query Presence

• SharePoint Sequential Workflow (Communications Workflow Sample)

Automated Call Distribution

• MultipleCallsInAWorkflow (Communications Workflow Sample)
• BlindTransfer (Communications Workflow Sample)
• RejectIncomingCalls (Communications Workflow Sample)

Recording

• PlayAudioFromDisk (Communications Workflow Sample)

Alerts and Notifications

The BroadcastIM sample demonstrates how to send a text message to the members of a distribution group in Active Directory. The application provides progress information and the result of the notification to each member of the distribution group. This sample application is meant to provide a quick start for use of the Microsoft Unified Communications Managed API. It is not meant to run in production.

The BroadcastIM sample is included with the Microsoft Unified Communications Managed API 2.0 Core SDK ( 32-bit and 64-bit).

Automated Agents (bots)

Conference Audio Recording Server is a console application built using the Unified Communications Managed API 2.0 Core SDK. It can be deployed as a trusted server application in any Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2 production environment.

The sample is available with the Microsoft Unified Communications Managed API 2.0 Core SDK ( 32-bit and 64-bit), and can be found in the %ProgramFiles%\Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2\UCMA SDK 2.0\UCMACore\Sample Applications\Collaboration\Cars\ folder.

See also the Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Activity.

Query Presence

The PublishPresence QuickStart sample publishes a user’s Presence. The sample initializes a CollaborationPlatform instance and then a UserEndpoint instance and proceeds to publish the user’s Presence as Busy.

The sample is available with the Microsoft Unified Communications Managed API 2.0 Core SDK ( 32-bit and 64-bit), and can be found in the %ProgramFiles%\Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2\UCMA SDK 2.0\UCMACore\Sample Applications\Collaboration\QuickStarts\PublishPresence\ folder.

The PublishAlwaysOnline QuickStart sample publishes the availability of an ApplicationEndpoint instance. The sample initializes a CollaborationPlatform instance and then an ApplicationEndpoint instance and proceeds to publish the endpoint’s availability as Always Online.

The sample is available with the Microsoft Unified Communications Managed API 2.0 Core SDK ( 32-bit and 64-bit), and can be found in the %ProgramFiles%\Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2\UCMA SDK 2.0\UCMACore\Sample Applications\Collaboration\QuickStarts\PublishAlwaysOnline\ folder.

The SubscribePresence QuickStart sample subscribes to the Presence information from a specific user. The sample initializes a CollaborationPlatform instance and then a UserEndpoint instance. The sample then specifies the remote endpoint on which to subscribe for Presence information and waits for the remote endpoint to publish Presence changes.

The sample is available with the Microsoft Unified Communications Managed API 2.0 Core SDK ( 32-bit and 64-bit), and can be found in the %ProgramFiles%\Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2\UCMA SDK 2.0\UCMACore\Sample Applications\Collaboration\QuickStarts\SubscribePresence\ folder.

Automated Call Distribution

Automatic Call Distributor is a sample collaboration-enabled and communication-enabled service that illustrates how developers can take advantage of multi-modal, multi-party communications and enhanced Presence awareness capabilities in the middle-tier to innovate and improve the way information workers communicate with automated systems.

This sample application is modeled after an automated technical support system (Helpdesk). It routes incoming audio and IM calls from an information worker who needs technical assistance to agents selected by the system, based on the skills requested by the caller and on the availability and willingness of the agents to communicate.

The sample is available with the Microsoft Unified Communications Managed API 2.0 Core SDK ( 32-bit and 64-bit), and can be found in the %ProgramFiles%\Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2\UCMA SDK 2.0\UCMACore\Sample Applications\Collaboration\AutomaticCallDistributor\ folder.

See also:

• Walkthrough: Create an Automated Call Distributor
• Walkthrough: Switch Call Contexts in a Workflow

Efficient and effective communications require that the right parties be located at the right time and with the right capabilities. The Microsoft Unified Communications platform is designed to support these and other communication requirements.

For example, the Enhanced Presence framework allows users to publish their own presence and query or subscribe to the presence of others. The presence information shows users availability, willingness or capabilities to communicate. With Microsoft Office Communicator, you can seamlessly transition from an IM conversation to a voice or video conversation. You can even add application sharing to the conversation.

Thanks to the Microsoft Unified Communications APIs, these features are available for any UC applications. The supported application scenarios include:

• Publish and subscribe to Enhanced Presence: Presence is a cornerstone for discovering the availability, willingness or capabilities of a potential communication partner.
• Click to communicate to streamline communications.
• Provide context to facilitate communications: Informing a call recipient of the subject of the ensuing conversation is an example of providing a simple context in the communication.

More advanced scenarios built on the client APIs are:

• Building your custom Communicator client, such as a softphone.
• To have a line-of-business application become a communications endpoint.
• Building client-side business logic around communications.

Embed Presence and Click to Communicate

Embedding presence means making the presence information available in an application and using the presence information to facilitate communication and collaboration. Click-to-communicate is about unifying disparate communication means or modalities and providing a simplified user experience for people to connect to each other even if a call has to deal with different communication capabilities. Presence plays an important role in enabling click-to-communicate.

Contextual Collaboration

Contextual collaboration refers to interactions involving communications of context-appropriate information at a given point of time. The context-appropriate information facilitates the interaction by reducing potential latency during the interaction. For example, a customer can enter a case number while dialing a Help Desk. The backend of Help Desk can then fetch the customer's profile and present it to the support engineer when the engineer answers the call. The customer information can help the support staff to better understand the customer's problem and to provide a quick solution.

Microsoft Unified Communications APIs provides support for contextual collaboration with the help of the Enhanced Presence framework. Office Communicator Automation API provides limited support of enhanced presence, while Unified Communications Client API provides a full support of the enhanced presence. Both can be used to enable contextual collaboration to different extent.

Communicator 2007 Custom Tabs

Note: The Communicator 2007 Custom Tabs sample is compatible only with the 2007 version of Office Communicator.

Embed Presence and Click to Communicate

Microsoft Unified Communications APIs and SDKs enable developers to write unified communications applications running on desktop, a web browser and even mobile devices.

The following is a list of downloadable samples that illustrate how Enhanced Presence is used to facilitate communication and collaboration.

• Office Communicator SDK Wrapper -- Illustrates the creation of a single managed code class that encapsulates the functionality of the Office Communicator Automation API. It has a length treatment of memory management of unmanaged resources in a managed application.
• Communicator Add In For Outlook 2007 -- Demonstrates how developers can integrate the Office Communicator client directly into Microsoft Outlook, using Visual Studio 2008, Visual Studio Tools for Office, and the Office Communicator 2007 Automation API.
• WPF Presence Controls for Microsoft Office Communicator 2007 -- Illustrates how to implement Presence and Collaboration features into Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) clients using the Office Communicator Automation SDK.
• Presence Screen Saver -- Shows developers how to create a WPF-based screen saver that displays your contact list as floating Presence indicators. Note that you cannot create Collaboration sessions with this sample.
• Integrating Web Chat Functionality -- Demonstrates the creation of an asynchronous XML-based client capable of managing a contact list and participating in IM conversations.
• Presence in Lotus Notes -- Illustrates how to use the Office Communicator Automation API to place ActiveX controls on your Web page for displaying the enhanced Presence of a contact list.

Browser-based Unified Communications Applications

The following two XML-based samples demonstrate how to implement Presence and Collaboration in a Web browser using the Microsoft Unified Communications AJAX SDK.

• Presence in Web Applications
• Presence in Rich Clients

Developing Lotus Notes applications for Windows

This sample illustrates the use of a Microsoft Office Communicator 2007 Presence control that provides both Presence and Collaboration capabilities in a Lotus Notes application (not supported for MAC OS X or Linux based computers.)

• Presence in Lotus Notes

Communicate with Context

The following two samples demonstrate how to create Presence and Collaboration user controls in either C# or VB.NET based on the Office Communicator Automation SDK. Note that these sample solutions were created with Visual Studio 2005.

• Office Communicator 2007 Automation API Capabilities
• Ethical Walls for Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007