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Integrating a Third-Party Collaboration Program with Communicator

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.

You can integrate Communicator 2007 R2 with any third-party online collaboration program by adding the same registry settings as those used by Live Meeting 2007.

The integration process described here is the one used for Live Meeting 2007. Therefore, some steps might not apply to other online collaboration programs.

You can use Communicator 2007 R2 to start data conferencing sessions hosted on an in-house server, an Internet-based service, or both. The collaboration or data conferencing session can be started from the Contact List, or from an existing instant messaging, voice, or video session. Communicator acts only as the vehicle for starting the program. Any existing Communicator 2007 R2 conversations remain active after the online collaboration session has begun.

The following sections describe how Communicator 2007 R2 is integrated with Internet-based and server-based collaboration programs.

Integrating an Internet-Based Collaboration Program with Communicator 2007 R2

Generally, the steps involved in integrating a third-party collaboration program are as follows:

  1. Information about how the program is added to the registry, as described in the following table.

  2. The organizer signs in to Communicator and selects contacts for data sharing and collaboration. Or, the organizer may already be in a conversation and decides to add data conferencing.

  3. Communicator 2007 R2 reads the registry, starts the collaboration program, and then sends a custom SIP message—an appINVITE—to the selected participants.

  4. Participants accept the invitation, and the collaboration program is started on each persons computer. Communicator 2007 R2 uses the registry to determine which collaboration program to use, and then starts that program by using the parameters included in the appINVITE message.

The following table describes the registry entries required to integrate an Internet-based collaboration program with Communicator 2007 R2.

Registry entries for an Internet-based collaboration program (HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Communicator\SessionManager\Apps\<GUID of Application>)

Name Type Data

Name

REG_SZ

The program name for Communicator 2007 R2 menus.

SmallIcon

REG_SZ

Path to 16-pixel x 16-pixel icon, BMP or PNG.

LargeIcon

REG_SZ

Path to 28-pixel x 28-pixel icon, BMP or PNG.

Path

REG_SZ

Participant path for starting the online collaboration program.

OriginatorPath

REG_SZ

Organizer path for starting the online collaboration program. This path can contain one or more custom parameters as defined in the Parameters subkey. For example, https://meetserv.adatum.com/cc/%param1%/join?id=%param2%&role=present&pw=%param3%

SessionType

DWORD

0 = Local session. The application is started on the local computer.

1 = Two-party session (default). Communicator 2007 R2 starts the application locally, and then sends a desktop message to the other user. The other user clicks the message and starts the specified application on their computer.

2 = Multiparty session. Communicator 2007 R2 starts the application locally, and then sends desktop alerts to the other users, prompting them to start the specified application on their own computer.

LiveServerIntegration

DWORD

0 or not present = The application has its own conferencing mechanisms and does not require Office Communications Server 2007 R2 (default).

1 = Integrates with an in-house server.

ApplicationType

DWORD

1 = Sets the application type to protocol. The other possible values do not apply in this case. If not present, ApplicationType defaults to 0 (executable).

ExensibleMenu

REG_SZ

A list of the menus where this command appears, separated by semi-colons. Possible values are as follows:

  • MainWindowActions

  • MainWindowRightClick

  • ConversationWindowActions

  • ConversationWindowContextual

  • ConversationWindowRightClick

  • ConversationWindowButton

If ExtensibleMenu is not defined, the default values of MainWindowRightClick and ConversationWindowContextual are used.

ButtonPriority

DWORD

0 = Application is displayed on the button (default).

Registry entries for an Internet-based collaboration program (HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Communicator\SessionManager\Apps\Parameters<GUID of Application>)

Name Type Data

Param1

REG_SZ

Used in tokenized format (%Parm1%) to add user-specific values to the OriginatorPath registry key.

Param2

REG_SZ

See Param1.

Param3

REG_SZ

See Param1.

The following example registry settings integrate ADatum Collaboration Client with Communicator 2007 R2.

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Communicator\SessionManager]
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Communicator\SessionManager\Apps]
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Communicator\SessionManager\Apps\{C3F6E17A-855F-44a0-B90D-C0B92D38E5F1}]
"Path"="https://meetingservice.adatum.com/cc/%param1%/meet/%param2%"
"OriginatorPath"="https://meetserv.adatum.com/cc/%param1%/join?id=%param2%&role=present&pw=%param3%"
"SessionType"=dword:00000002
"ApplicationType"=dword:00000001
"LiveServerIntegration"=dword:00000000
"Name"="ADatum Online Collaboration Service"
"Extensiblemenu"="MainWindowActions;MainWindowRightClick;ConversationWindowActions;ConversationWindowContextual;ConversationWindowRightClick"

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Communicator\SessionManager]
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Communicator\SessionManager\Apps]
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Communicator\SessionManager\Apps\Parameters]
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Communicator\SessionManager\Apps\Parameters\{C3F6E17A-855F-44a0-B90D-C0B92D38E5F1}]
"Param1"="meetserv"
"Param2"="admin"
"Param3"="abcdefg123"

Integrating a Server-Based Collaboration Program with Communicator 2007 R2

The settings to add commands for starting a server-based collaboration program from within Communicator 2007 R2 are similar to those described in the section, Integrating an Internet-Based Collaboration Program with Communicator 2007 R2. However, the OriginatorPath is not required, and some values are changed, as described in the following table.

Registry entries for a server-based collaboration program (HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Communicator\SessionManager\Apps\<GUID of Application>)

Name Type Data

Name

REG_SZ

Name of the application as it appears on the menu.

ApplicationType

DWORD

Value = 1. Sets the application type to protocol. The other possible values do not apply in this case. If not present, ApplicationType defaults to 0 (executable).

Path

REG_SZ

Protocol used to execute the collaboration program. For Live Meeting 2007, the value of Path is set to meet:%conf-uri%.

SessionType

DWORD

0 = Local session. The application is launched on the local computer.

1 = Two-party session (default). Communicator 2007 R2 launches the application locally, and then sends a desktop alert to the other user. The other user clicks the alert and starts the specified application on their computer.

2 = Multi-party session. Communicator 2007 R2 launches the application locally, and then sends desktop alerts to the other users, prompting them to launch the specified application on their computer.

LiveServerIntegration

DWORD

1 = Hosted on the in-house server.

MCUType

REG_SZ

DATA = The type of server.

ExtensibleMenu

REG_SZ

A list of the menus where this command appears, separated by semi-colons. Possible values are:

  • MainWindowActions

  • MainWindowRightClick

  • ConversationWindowActions

  • ConversationWindowContextual

  • ConversationWindowRightClick

If ExtensibleMenu is not defined, the default values of MainWindowRightClick and ConversationWindowContextual are used.

The following example adds commands to launch ADatum Collaboration Client from within Communicator 2007 R2.

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Communicator\SessionManager]
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Communicator\SessionManager\Apps]
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Communicator\SessionManager\Apps\{27877e66-615c-4582-ab88-0cb2ca05d951}]
"Path"="meet:%conf-uri%"
"SessionType"=dword:00000002
"LiveServerIntegration"=dword:00000001
"ApplicationType"=dword:00000001
"Name"="ADatum Collaboration Client"
"MCUType"="Data"
"Extensiblemenu"="MainWindowActions;MainWindowRightClick;ConversationWindowActions;ConversationWindowContextual;ConversationWindowRightClick"