Share via

  • Article

Unified Communications Glossary

Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 and Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2 will reach end of support on January 9, 2018. To stay supported, you will need to upgrade. For more information, see Resources to help you upgrade your Office 2007 servers and clients.

This topic describes the terminology used in the release of Microsoft® Office Communications Server 2007 R2 and Microsoft® Office Communicator 2007 R2.

Note

You can download the Office Communications Server 2007 R2 Unified Communications Glossary as a Word file from the Microsoft Download Center at https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=151916.

# A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

#

  • 2007 R2 release of Microsoft Office Communicator Mobile for Windows Mobile
    Instant messaging and presence client for Windows Mobile phones.
  • 2007 R2 release of Microsoft Office Communicator Web Access
    See Communicator Web Access.

A

  • A/V Edge service
    A service on Office Communications Server, Edge Server, that provides a single trusted point through which media traffic can traverse network address translations (NATs) and firewalls.
  • A/V Conferencing Server
    A server role that mixes and manages audio/video inputs from multiple sources for multiparty audio/video conferences.
  • Access Edge service
    A service on Office Communications Server, Edge Server, that validates external users.
  • access level
    A setting in Office Communicator 2007 R2 that determines what information about you is visible to other users. Access levels (from least restrictive to most restrictive) include Personal, Team, Company, Public, and Blocked.
  • Address Book Service
    A service on Office Communications Server, Front End Server, that provides information from the Active Directory global address list to Office Communications Server clients, such as Microsoft Office Communicator, and to Office Communicator Mobile for Windows Mobile. This service also performs phone number normalization for telephony clients.
  • Address Book Web Query service
    A service that provides global address information from the back-end database to Microsoft Office Communicator Mobile for Windows Mobile. This service runs on an Office Communications Server Web Components Server and responds to client search queries over HTTPS.
  • agent
    A user who handles incoming calls that are routed from a Response Group. . See also formal agent, informal agent.
  • Agent Communications Panel for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0
    An application add-in that provides presence information as well as instant messaging (IM) and call control capabilities within Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0.For the Response Group Service, a browser-based client that agents can use to manage phone calls and instant messaging sessions.
  • anonymous user
    An external user who does not have credentials in the Active Directory® Domain Services Unlike a federated user, an anonymous user is not authenticated.
  • Application Server
    A component of the Office Communications Server 2007 R2, Front End Server, that provides a platform to deploy, host, and manage unified communications applications.
  • Application Sharing Server
    A server role introduced in Office Communications Server 2007 R2 that manages and streams shared applications or an entire desktop during a conference.
  • Archiving database
    A SQL Server database thatis stores instant messaging (IM) conversations and IM group conferences for the Archiving service.
  • Archiving Server
    A server role that includes the Archiving service and the Archiving database. The Archiving Server captures all IM conversations and IM group conferences and stores them in a SQL database.
  • Attendant
    See Office Communications Server 2007 R2, Attendant.
  • audio conference
    An audio session that is mediated by Office Communications Server, A/V Conferencing Server. In Communicator Web Access, a call involving at least three people.
  • audio conference provider (ACP)
    A third-party provider that supports audio conferencing on a standard public switched telephone network (PSTN) line.
  • authenticated caller
    A participant who joins a conference over Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) and is authenticated via Active Directory Domain Services.

B

  • Back-End Database
    A server role that hosts the SQL database that stores user information and conference state, including persistent and transient user data, and persistent settings to the Front-End Server. The Back-End Database is collocated with a Standard Edition Server. In an Enterprise pool, the Back-End Database is deployed on a separate, dedicated computer.

C

  • call delegation
    A feature of Office Communications Server 2007 R2 that allows phone calls to be delegated to an individual or individuals other than the person receiving the call. The receiver is notified when a delegate answers a call, along with which delegate answered.
  • Call Detail Record (CDR)
    A function of the Monitoring Server for collecting information such as when a user signs in or out; starts, joins, leaves, or ends a conference or IM session; transfers a file; or places or answers a VoIP call. CDR captures only usage data; it does not archive the content of any communication activity. In Office Communications Server 2007 R2, CDR is performed by the Monitoring Server.
  • call forwarding
    Automatically sending a missed call to a user-designated number, which can be a registered SIP device, a PSTN number, or voice mail.
  • Call Me
    A feature of Communicator Web Access in which a user can join a conference by requesting that Office Communications Server call a specified phone number instead of the user placing a call to a conferencing service.
  • Centralized Conferencing Control Protocol (C3P)
    A custom protocol for communicating conference creation and control commands from clients to Office Communications Server.
  • chat room
    A feature of Office Communications Server 2007 R2 Group Chat. A persistent, topic-based, access controlled forum for text-based conversations.
  • Chat History
    A collection of saved messages from a chat room that are no longer displayed in the chat room itself but that are searchable and readable by members of the chat room to which the messages were posted. See also contextual backchat and historical backchat.
  • Chat Room Invitations
    A setting which may be applied to a chat room that causes the Group Chat Server to issue an invitation to join the conversation to all users who are on the membership list for that chat room.
  • Chat Room Visibility
    A setting which may be applied to a chat room that limits which users can see the chat room when searching for chat rooms to join. Options are Private (chat room can be seen only by users who are members of the chat room) and Scoped (chat room can be seen by any user who is in scope for the category to which the chat belongs).
  • Click to Call
    A feature of Office Communicator 2007 R2 and of the 2007 R2 version of Office Communicator Mobile for Windows Mobile® and Office Communicator Mobile for Java with which a cell phone user can place a voice call by clicking a contact’s single phone number or Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) URI.
  • Communicator Attendant
    An integrated client application for accessing the Conferencing Attendant.
  • Communicator call
    A Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) call that is routed to all of a contact’s devices that are running Office Communicator 2007.
  • Communicator Web Access
    Browser-based client software that allows users to access instant messaging, presence, and desktop sharing capabilities on a computer that is running the Microsoft Windows, Apple Mac OS, or Linux operating system.
  • conference
    An instant messaging (IM), audio, or audio/video session that is mediated by Office Communications Server.
  • Conferencing Announcement Service
    A unified communications application that plays an announcement whenever a conference participant enters or exits a conference.
  • Conferencing Attendant
    A unified communications application that enables dial-in audio conferencing, whereby users can join an audio/video conference from a telephone on the public switched telephone network (PSTN).
  • conferencing server
    A server role that mixes and manages inputs from multiple clients in a group session. Also called multipoint control unit (MCU).
  • contact
    An individual entry in a Contact list.
  • contact card
    A presentation in Office Communicator of information about a contact, including presence status and activity.
  • contact group
    A user-specified collection of contacts. A user can send a message to a contact group, and each available member of the group will be added to a conference.
  • Contact List
    A list of co-workers, family, friends, and associates with whom the user communicates most often.
  • conversation
    A peer-to-peer instant messaging or audio/video session. See also conference.

D

  • delegate
    A person who has been designated to answer phone calls that are directed to someone else.
  • desktop sharing
    Making a view of a user’s desktop available to conference participants.
  • dial-in audio conferencing
    Joining the audio portion of a conference by using a telephone on the public switched telephone network (PSTN).
  • direct inward dialing (DID)
    A block of phone numbers that are provided by the local phone company for use by an organization’s private branch exchange (PBX).
  • Director
    An Office Communications Server role that authenticates internal and external users and routes traffic between Edge Servers and the internal Office Communications Server deployment.

E

  • early media
    Audio and video on a call that are exchanged before the recipient accepts the call. Examples include announcements, requests for input, and caller voice commands.
  • Edge Server
    An Office Communications Server role that is deployed in the perimeter network to provide connectivity for external users, federated users, and public IM connections.
  • endpoint
    The sending and receiving client software or hardware that is used for communication, such as Office Communicator or the Microsoft Office Live Meeting client.
  • enhanced presence
    The capability of publishing customized status information depending on a presence subscriber’s relationship to the source of the status information.
  • enterprise cellular telephony
    Functionality that enables a user of the 2007 R2 release of Office Communicator Mobile for Windows Mobile® and users of the new Office Communicator Mobile for Java to set up and control Enterprise Voice calls over a mobile phone provider’s circuit-switched networks.
  • enterprise user
    A user who has an identity in the Active Directory Domain Services.
  • Enterprise Voice
    The software-powered VoIP solution from Microsoft that provides full unified communication capabilities, including the ability to make single-party and multi-party VoIP calls, configure robust call forwarding features, and receive voice mail over Microsoft Exchange Unified Messaging.
  • external caller
    An unauthenticated user who joins a conference over the public switched telephone network (PSTN).
  • external port
    A computer port that is accessible from the Internet.
  • external user
    A user who connects from outside the organization’s firewall. External users include anonymous users, federated users, and enterprise users who sign in remotely.

F

  • federation
    A trust relationship between two or more SIP domains that permits users in separate organizations to communicate across network boundaries.
  • federated user
    An external user who possesses valid credentials with a federated partner and who is authenticated on that basis by Office Communications Server.
  • filters
    In a chat room, a feature that allows a user to selectively monitor messages based on certain conditions, such as keywords in message content or the value of the “from” field in a message, and to receive notification and execute a specific action when those conditions are met
  • Focus
    A conference state service that manages all group IM, multiparty A/V, and data collaboration sessions on the Front End Server where it resides.
  • Focus Factory
    The part of the Focus that is responsible for creating and destroying an instance of a conference and returning information about the conference to the client.
  • formal agent
    An agent whose availability depends on whether the agent has signed in or out. See also agent.
  • Front End Server
    An Office Communications Server role that is responsible for user registration, presence, instant messaging (IM), and communications routing. May also include the conferencing server that hosts the IM Conferencing Service, Address Book Service, and Telephony Conferencing Service.
  • fully qualified domain name (FQDN)
    The complete name that uniquely identifies a domain, for example, rtc.contoso.com.

G

  • Group Chat
    A feature that allows for a type of text messaging in which messages are posted to a chat room, where they can be viewed and responded do in real time by multiple participants. Group Chat is also the name of the client application that provides access to the Group Chat service.
  • Group Chat service
    A service that provides persistent chat rooms and archiving of their content. This functionality is especially useful for compliance purposes.

H

  • HTTP reverse proxy
    A server in the perimeter network that authenticates external users so they can download meeting content, expand distribution groups, or download files from the Address Book Service. The reverse proxy is not an Office Communications Server role.
  • hunt group
    A collection of phone numbers to which calls of a specific type, such as sales or support calls, can be routed in a sequence that is determined by the administrator.

I

  • IM Conferencing Service
    A service that runs on an Office Communications Server Front End Server to mix and manage inputs from multiple clients in a multiparty instant messaging (IM) session.
  • IM service provider
    A public or private organization that provides instant messaging services for multiple domains.
  • informal agent
    An agent who does not need to sign in or out of a response group in order to receive calls. An informal agent is typically somebody who covers calls on a part-time basis. See also agent.
  • instant messaging (IM)
    A means of communicating interactively with one or more computers by sending and receiving text messages in real time.
  • Interactive Voice Response (IVR)
    A feature of the Response Group Service that processes both speech and dual-tone multifrequency (DTMF) keypad input to route a phone call and/or to provide information to the agent who answers the call.
  • internal IP address
    An IP address that is assigned for the internal network of an organization. Also referred to as a private IP address.
  • IP/PSTN gateway
    A media gateway that supports interoperation between IP-based and PSTN-based telephony systems. See also media gateway.

J

  • Join Conference
    A hyperlink in a Microsoft Office Outlook meeting invitation or meeting reminder that, when clicked, starts the Live Meeting client and joins the associated Web conference on the user’s behalf.

L

  • Least-Cost Routing
    A feature of Office Communications Server 2007 R2 that performs reverse number lookup on a one-number call and then routes the call over an IP connection to the public switched telephone network (PSTN) gateway that is nearest to the location of the destination phone number.
  • Live Meeting 2007 client
    A Windows-based desktop client for Web conferences that are hosted by either Office Communications Server, Web Conferencing Server, or the Microsoft Office Live Meeting service.

M

  • media gateway
    A device that translates signaling and media in different formats between the Enterprise Voice infrastructure and a PSTN or PBX.
  • Mediation Server
    An Office Communications Server role that mediates signaling and media between Office Communications Server Directors or Front End Servers and a media gateway.
  • Microsoft Office Communicator Mobile
    An enterprise messaging client for mobile devices that integrates instant messaging (IM), presence, and telephony.
  • Microsoft Office Communicator Mobile for Java
    An enterprise messaging client for Nokia S40 phones that integrates instant messaging (IM), presence, and telephony.
  • Microsoft Office Communicator Web Access Add-In
    An add-in that allows desktop sharing in Communicator Web Access.
  • Microsoft Office Live Meeting client
    Client software that provides access to Web conferencing and application sharing.
  • Monitoring Server
    A server role in the internal network that collects call detail records and quality of experience (QoE) information.

N

  • network address translation (NAT)
    A means of translating internal IP addresses to external IP addresses so that internal IP addresses are hidden from external computers and so that an organization can access the Internet with a minimum of external IP addresses.

O

  • Office Communications Server 2007
    Part of the Microsoft Unified Communications software solution that enables integration of Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), instant messaging (IM), chat, conferencing, presence, and other communications solutions. Office Communications Server 2007 R2 includes new features for call delegation, team call, server roles, and more.
  • Office Communications Server 2007 R2 Attendant
    An integrated client application from which users can access the capabilities of the Response Group Service.
  • Office Communications Server 2007 R2, Chat Room Administration Tool
    A snap-in that enables a Group Chat administrator or delegated user to manage Group Chat categories and groups, as well as user and group accounts.
  • Office Communications Server 2007 R2, Chat Room Server
    A server role that instantiates, manages permissions for, maintains the state of, and deletes chat rooms.
  • Office Communications Server 2007 R2 Chat Room Server Configuration Tool
    A snap-in that an Office Communications Server administrator or delegate can use to configure the Group Chat Server.
  • Office Communicator
    A Windows-based desktop client from which users can access the communications and collaboration capabilities of Office Communications Server.
  • Office Communicator 2007 R2 Group Chat
    A desktop client application that makes chat room conversations and features available to end users. With Group Chat, users can send and receive instant messages in a chat room, in a peer-to-peer conversation, or in an IM conference.
  • Office Communicator Phone Edition 2007 R2
    An intelligent IP phone that combines network voice, user-driven design, up-time reliability, quality audio, and the enhanced communication and collaboration of Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2.
  • one-number calling
    A feature of the 2007 R2 release of Office Communicator Mobile for Windows Mobile and Office Communicator Mobile for Java that makes all a user’s registered endpoints, including his or her mobile phone, available with a single phone number.
  • outside voice control
    A service that connects a mobile device to the enterprise network. Outside voice control enables mobile devices that are running Office Communicator Mobile for Windows Mobile to send and receive calls that come through the enterprise network, in addition to calls that come through the mobile carrier network.

P

  • participant list
    A list of the names and presence status of all members who are currently signed in to a chat room.
  • PBX
    See private branch exchange.
  • Persistent Shared Object Model (PSOM)
    A protocol for transporting shared content between the Live Meeting client and Office Communications Server, Web Conferencing Server, or the Live Meeting Service.
  • personal note
    A text note provided by a user that is displayed along with his or her presence status.
  • phone-only contact
    An entry in the Contact List that has a phone number but no IM capability because the contact is not an enterprise user, a member of a federated organization, or a subscriber to a public IM service provider.
  • pool
    A combination of one or more Front-End Servers and a Back-End Database that is hosted either on the Front-End Server (Standard Edition) or on one or more Back-End Database servers (Enterprise Edition).
  • presence
    The ability to display in real time an individual’s availability and willingness to communicate.
  • presence-based routing
    In the Response Group Service, an extension to a hunt group algorithm that routes calls to agents only when their presence state is Available.
  • PSTN
    See public switched telephone network.
  • private branch exchange (PBX)
    A switching system that routes internal calls directly without access to the PSTN. A PBX can be a conventional phone network, a VoIP network, or a combination of the two.
  • public instant messaging (IM) connectivity
    The ability to connect to the public IM service providers AOL, Yahoo!, MSN, and the Windows Live network of Internet services from a client of Office Communications Server.
  • public switched telephone network (PSTN)
    The worldwide telephone system network.
  • publicly routable IP address
    An IP address that is part of either an internal network or a perimeter network to which data can be directly routed from outside an organization’s firewall.

Q

  • quality of experience (QoE)
    A measurement of a user’s perception of the quality of an audio communication session. For example, in a voice communication QoE monitors things such as echoes and background noises such as hissing in the line.
  • Quick Reply
    A predefined instant message that can be sent as an automatic reply, such as "Will be back soon."

R

  • regular expressions
    Strings that are used to describe or match sets of strings, according to certain syntax rules. In Office Communications Server 2007 R2, regular expressions have multiple uses, such as specifying media gateway selections and filtering Group Chat messages.
  • remote call control (RCC)
    The ability to dial and answer calls on a desktop phone by using computer-based software such as Office Communicator. Unlike Enterprise Voice, remote call control does not make the computer itself function as a unified communications device (a VoIP client).
  • remote user
    An enterprise user who signs in from outside the organization’s firewall.
  • Response Group
    A Response Group, also referred to as a workflow, routes and queues incoming calls to groups of designated agents. It defines the behavior of a call from the time the Response Group Service answers the call to the time that an agent responds. A Response Group can be as simple as a hunt group, or it can also be configured to support more complex scenarios where an Interactive Voice Response (IVR) solution is used to gather input from the caller to determine how a call should be handled.
  • Response Group Configuration Tool
    A Web tool that is used to create and manage response groups. Used by an administrator to set up a Response Group, including selecting the response group template to use, setting the welcome message, music on hold, questions to ask the caller, music on hold, and the queues to which calls are routed. Also used by designated End users (response group managers) to manage specific response group settings, such as working hours and music on hold.
  • Response Group Service
    An application that enables administrators to create response groups to route and queue incoming calls to groups of designated agents.
  • response group template
    A template that simplifies the process of creating a new response group. Each template has a predefined set of features such as welcome message, music on hold, business hours, and interactive voice response support. When an administrator creates a new Response Group with the Response Group Configuration Tool he or she selects the template to use and then configures the required settings.
  • restoration of service
    The process of bringing service back online after data corruption, hardware or software failure, or disaster by either recovering data and settings or rebuilding a component in order to make its functionality available to users.
  • reverse proxy
    See HTTP reverse proxy.
  • RoundTable
    An audio/video device that creates a panoramic video of a conference room for remote participants and with an array of directional microphones that highlights the person who is speaking.

S

  • server role
    An Office Communications Server that runs a specialized set of functionality, such as audio/video conferencing, edge services, or mediation between Enterprise Voice and the PSTN.
  • Session Initiation Protocol (SIP)
    A signaling protocol for creating, modifying, and ending multi-participant sessions such as Internet phone calls and conferences.
  • SIP
    See Session Initiation Protocol.
  • SIP address
    A URI that identifies an end node in a Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) network, for example, sip:someone@example.com.
  • SIP domain
    A domain that is configured to accept Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) traffic.
  • SIP trunking
    A mechanism for connecting the voice network of an enterprise to a service provider that offers public switched telephone network (PSTN) origination, termination, and emergency services without deploying IP-PSTN gateways.
  • smartphone
    A mobile computing device that has telephony capability, including telephones and Pocket PC devices that can function as a telephone.
  • spim
    Unsolicited bulk commercial instant messages. A shortened form of “Spam on instant messaging.”

T

  • tagged contact
    A contact in Office Communicator whose presence status is displayed in an alert whenever the contact’s status changes to Offline or Available.
  • team call
    Forwarding a call from a team leader to an entire team according to a hunt group algorithm.
  • Telephony Conferencing Server
    A server role that runs on an Office Communications Server Front End Server and manages audio conferencing provider (ACP) integration. This enables multiparty conferencing with PSTN callers who are connecting through an ACP.
  • time-division multiplexing (TDM)
    A circuit-switched technology that converts one or more voice streams into a single stream for transmission.

U

  • Unified Voice-Mail Repository
    A feature of the 2007 R2 version of Office Communicator Mobile for Windows Mobile® and Office Communicator Mobile for Java that enables unanswered calls to a user’s one number to be forwarded to that user’s enterprise voice mail repository rather than to the user’s mobile phone carrier’s voice mail repository. Calls to the user’s mobile phone number continue to be forwarded to the mobile phone carrier’s voice mail repository.
  • universal group
    A security or distribution group whose members can be users, groups, and computers from any domain in its forest.. Universal security groups can be granted rights and permissions on resources in any domain in the forest.

V

  • video negotiation
    The process in which a sending endpoint can determine the video capabilities of a receiving endpoint before it sends a video stream.
  • Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP)
    A protocol that is used to send voice data over a computer network or over the Internet.

W

  • Web Conferencing Edge service
    A service that runs on Office Communications Server, Edge Server, to enable external users to participate in Web conferences that are hosted on Office Communications Server, Web Conferencing Server.
  • Web Conferencing Server
    A server role that manages data collaboration for online conferences.
  • workflow
    See Response Group.
  • working hours
    The hours that an office is normally open. Working hours are used in advanced call handling to determine call forwarding rules.