Managing the Use of Distribution Groups to Send Instant Messages

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.

In Office Communications Server 2007, you can enable group expansion to allow users to send an instant message or a meeting invitation to a distribution group in Active Directory. Distribution group expansion enables users to invite all or selected members of a distribution group to an IM conversation without having to search for and add each one individually. To do so, Office Communications Server 2007 accesses an IIS server that hosts the distribution group expansion service so that the group membership can be expanded to individual users to whom meeting invitations or instant messages are sent.

Managing the use of distribution groups includes the following:

  • Configuring Group Expansion

  • Viewing URLs for Group Expansion

Configuring Group Expansion

If you chose to install the Communications Server Web Components during setup of a Standard Edition Server or an Enterprise pool, by default, group expansion in enabled for the Enterprise pool or Standard Edition Server on which you install it. You can do the following to manage group expansion:

  • Enable or disable support for group expansion.

  • View the internal and external URLs that identify the location of the Web service that is used to enable distribution group expansion for internal clients and external clients.

  • Change the maximum group size. The default maximum size of the group to which instant messages can be sent is 100. The maximum valid value is 1000.

To configure group expansion

  1. Log on to the Web Conferencing Server using an account in the RTCUniversalServerAdmins group.

  2. Open Office Communications Server 2007.

  3. In the console tree, expand the forest node, and then do one of the following:

    • For an Enterprise pool, expand Enterprise pools, expand the pool, right-click Web Components, and then click Properties.

    • For a Standard Edition Server, expand Standard Edition servers, right-click the pool, click Properties, and then click Web Component Properties.

  4. Click the Group Expansion tab.

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  5. On the Group Expansion tab, do the following:

    • To enable group expansion, select the Enable distribution groups expansion check box.

    • To disable group expansion, clear the Enable distribution groups expansion check box.

    • If group expansion is enabled, to change the maximum number of users to which any instant message can be sent, in Maximum group size, type the maximum group size you want to allow.

Viewing URLs for Group Expansion

In order to expand membership in a distribution group, the Office Communications Server 2007 server contacts an IIS server that hosts the distribution group expansion service. During setup, you can configure two URLs, which you can later view using Office Communications Server 2007. These URLs include the following:

  • Internal URL, which is used when an internal user sends an instant message to a distribution group. The internal URL identifies the location of the Web service that enables distribution group expansion for internal clients. This URL is hosted by the internal Web Components Server. The Front End Server provides this address to clients as part of in-band provisioning.

  • External URL, which is used when an external user sends an instant message to a distribution group within your organization, if support for external users is configured for your organization. The external URL identifies the location of the Web service that enables distribution group expansion for remote clients. This URL is hosted by the reverse proxy in the perimeter network that points to the internal URL. The Front End Server provides this address to clients as part of in-band provisioning.

To view the URLs used for distribution group expansion

  1. Log on to the Web Conferencing Server using an account in the RTCComponentUniversalServices group.

  2. Open Office Communications Server 2007.

  3. In the console tree, expand the forest node, and then do one of the following:

    • For an Enterprise pool, expand Enterprise pools, expand the pool, right-click Web Components, and then click Properties.

    • For a Standard Edition Server, expand Standard Edition servers, right-click the pool, click Properties, and then click Web Component Properties.

  4. On the Group Expansion tab, Internal URL displays the URL used when an internal user sends an instant message to a distribution group and External URL displays the URL used when an external user sends an instant message to a distribution group.