In the July Server Updates a change was made to allow the Callers Name to be passed from the PBX\Gateway to the Mediation Server and in turn passed in to OCS; the change also flows the other way as well.
This change goes back on previous comments made by Microsoft in that they would not trust any information from the PBX with the exception of the Callers Phone Number.
In an mixed telephony environment were users are split between Enterprise Voice and Traditional Telephony passing the Callers Name is an important feature, as there are often phone numbers which are not listed in Active Directory. For example Shop Floor Phones, Hall Phones etc.
The change is equally if not more important the other way as well, as traditional PBXs only store Name to Extension mappings for Extensions that exist on the PBX.
This functionality has existed for years with trunking methods such as QSIG which allows for Display Names to be passed between PBXs.
So lets look at how this is handled by OCS.
Below is a screenshot of the Toast for an incoming call into OCS, in this case the Callers extension is not in Active Directory.
The name is shown in Italics to show that the Callers Name has come from the PBX in this case a Cisco Call Manager rather than from Active Directory.
One thing to note is that this does not work on Tanja Phones, all that is shown in the Callers Phone Number; this is tested on 3.5.6907.35.
This information can also be seen in the SIP Trace as shown below:
The Callers Information is also shown in the Invite out to another Phone if you are using Simultaneous Ring; although this is only useful if you are calling a phone that can understand this:
The final part is an OCS User calling a PBX Phone, this functionality is not enabled by default and requires a changed on the Mediation Servers.
The screenshot below is a Toast on the Cisco IP Communicator, the Phone Number is not known to the PBX and as such would result in just the Callers Phone Number being displayed prior to the July Update.
This information can also be seen in the Invite shown below:
The change required to enabled the Callers Name for Outbound OCS calls is detailed in the KB972721, but is covered below for completeness.
A file called MediationServerSvc.exe.config should be created in the Mediation Installation Directory which be default is at %programfiles%\Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007\Mediation Server
This file should contain.
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
<configuration>
<appSettings>
<add key="forwardDisplayName" value="True" />
</appSettings>
</configuration>
Once this file has been created the Mediation Server should be re-started. I am somewhat surprised this is not a WMI setting, since a number of Mediation Server settings were moved to WMI in R2 rather than creating\modifying this file.
Just to add if you are not seeing the Callers Name being passed between the PBX\Gateway and OCS or vice versa you should ensure that the Gateway\PBX is configured to allow the Callers Name to be passed.
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