Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2 and Microsoft Office Communicator 2007 R2 Developer FAQ

Use this FAQ to help you get started with the OCS 2007 R2 and OC 2007 R2 development. Please ping me with any additions, comments or feedback!  

• Q: What can I build?
• A: On the client side you can integrate OC 2007 R2 features into your client applications (presence, contact list and click-to-call including IM, voice, video) or create your own OCS 2007 R2 client for situations where OC 2007 R2 doesn't fit the scenario (for example creating a client specific to the needs of a particular industry).  On the server side you can create services that allow you to integrate presence, contact information and communications into your business processes.  Solutions can be as simple as adding voice or IM communications to a workflow or as powerful as creating a highly scalable and highly reliable communications solutions based on OCS 2007 R2, such as large call center.  In both cases, you use the tools and skills you already use today as a .NET developer, including Visual Studio 2008, .Net Framework 3.5 and your lauguage of choice (such as VB, C#, VC++).

• Q: Where can I get a quick overview?
• A: The following are a great place to start:
  • UC R2 Webcasts - The follwing webcasts will provide you an end to end look at the platform.
    • MSDN Webcast: Communications Server 2007 R2, Exchange Server 2007 SP1, and the Unified Communications Platform (Level 100) 
    • MSDN Webcast: Adding Instant Messaging, Voice, and Video Communication to Your Applications with Office Communicator 2007 R2 (Level 200)
    • MSDN Webcast: Unified Communications Development with Exchange Server 2007 SP1 Web Services (Level 200) 
    • MSDN Webcast: Under the Hood: Developing Unified Communications Solutions with Communications Server 2007 R2 and Exchange Server 2007 SP1 (Level 300) 
    • MSDN Webcast: Windows Workflows That Talk and Instant Message with Communications Server 2007 R2 (Level 300) 
    • MSDN Webcast: Building Services That Manage Communications with Communications Server 2007 R2 (Part 1 of 2) (Level 300) 
    • MSDN Webcast: Building Services That Manage Communications with Communications Server 2007 R2 (Part 2 of 2) (Level 300) 
    • MSDN Webcast: Communications Server 2007 R2 Architecture and Deployment for Developers (Level 300)
  • Programming for Unified Communications - After watching the webcasts, this book can provide more depth along with code samples and help setting up a development environment.

• Q: What are the SDKs?
• A: Here are links and brief overviews of each SDK/API:
  • Microsoft Office Communicator 2007 SDK - Embed OC 2007 R2 presence, contact information, contact lists and calling (including IM, voice and video) into your applications.  Used by various Microsoft products to integrate presence, contact and call features.
  • Microsoft Unified Communications Client API SDK - Used to build OC 2007 R2.  You can use it to build your own OCS 2007 R2 clients.
  • Microsoft Unified Communications Managed API 2.0 SDK (32 bit) and (64-bit) - Used to build highly scaleable and highly reliable services that integrate OCS 2007 presence, contact information and communications.  Includes a Core SDK that includes managed classes that abstract the underlying SIP protocol and innerworkings of OCS 2007 R2 and a workflow activities API that allows you to build IM and voice based workflows (such as an IM based robot or IVR application).
  • Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2 UCMA 2.0 Speech Language Packs - The speech recognition and text-to-speech packs for UCMA 2.0.
  • Office Communications Server 2007 R2 SDK - Used to create SIP server applications that customize and extend the OCS 2007 R2 SIP processing and to create applications that manage OCS 2007 R2 deployments.

• Q: How do I set up a development environment?
• A: For simple development using the OC 2007 SDK, all you need on your development machine is OC 2007 R2, the OC 2007 SDK (works with OC 2007 or OC 2007 R2) and Visual Studio 2008.  For more sophisticated development and testing, you'll want to create a virtualized development environment.  Step by step process including pre-built VMs provided here.

• Q: Is there a developer center on MSDN?
• A: Yes, at https://msdn.microsoft.com/uc.

• Q: Where is the MSDN document library for the SDKs?
• A: Here.

Office Communciator 2007 SDK:  

• Q: How do add Office Communicator 2007/R2 presence and calling features to an intranet or SharePoint site (where OC is deployed on the client)?
• A: Use the name.dll, the same dll used to show presence and click to call in Outlook 2007/SharePoint 2007.

UCMA 2.0:

• Q: Is the Enhanced Presence Schema for OCS 2007 R2/UCMA 2.0 documented anywhere?
• A: Here.

• Q: How do I expose OCS 2007 R2 presence/communications on a web site without requiring OC 2007 R2?
• A: You can use a UCMA 2.0 UserEndpoint to expose presence and communications uisng AJAX.