Terminology of Enhanced Presence

  • Article

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  • category
    A data model designed for a unified communications application to publish and subscribe to presence information and other application data. An instance of a category is characterized by a set of properties used by the unified communications server and clients to maintain and manage the data. A category instance also has a value to hold particular presence data. The category instance value is an XML blob and is opaque to the server. Unified Communications Enhanced Presence Schemas, described in this document, prescribe the XML format of the category instance value as defined and used by Office Communicator 2007 and Office Communications Server 2007 applications.
  • contact
    A presentity whose presence information is tracked. In unified communications, a contact registers its status, location, and other attributes with Office Communications Server 2007.
  • container
    Used to hold a set of published presence information. It also contains a list of subscribers allowed to access the contained presence data. The list is referred to as the container's membership scope and functions as an access control list for the contained category instances.
  • enhanced presence
    Refers to the presence information as represented by category instances supported by Office Communications Server 2007. The enhanced presence data model provides the presence publisher with a more flexible and more granular control of how the presence can be tracked by other users.
  • enhanced presence schema
    An XML schema defining the structure of enhanced presence data represented by the value of a category instance as XML elements and attributes. The schema helps an application create, parse, and validate the enhanced presence data before it is published or subscribed to.
  • presence
    Information or data indicating a user's availability, willingness, and capabilities to communicate or collaborate with other users.
  • presence document
    The XML blob, defined by a schema and represented by the DOM that is used in the publication and subscription of enhanced presence.
  • presence publication
    A user publishes his or her presence data to let other users know if he or she is willing, available, or even capable of communicating or collaborating with them. With Office Communications Server 2007, presence publication amounts to putting specified category instances in appropriate category containers with specified membership scope.
  • presentity
    The entity whose presence information can be tracked. This can be a user, a device, or an application. In a unified communications application, a presentity registers its status, location, and other attributes with Office Communications 2007.
  • publisher
    A user who publishes his or her presence. The enhanced presence model allows a publisher to publish the presence in a more flexible way to control how the specified presence data can be received by different subscribers.
  • state
    A combination of availability and activity used to describe the condition of a user or device, such as a machine or phone.
  • subscription
    A continuous process in which a logged-on user receives the published presence data that the user has subscribed to. A user might elect to subscribe to certain presence data by a certain other user, namely, the publisher. The publisher controls whether the subscriber receives the subscribed presence.
  • watcher
    The receiver of presence data. A watcher is also a subscriber.

See Also

Concepts

Presence and Enhanced Presence
Enhanced Presence System
XML DOM of the Enhanced Presence Schema
XSD Files of the Enhanced Presence Schema