New Features and Required Server Roles

Communicator 2007 R2 provides several new features, some of which require deployment of additional Office Communications Server 2007 server roles.

• New Calling Features. No additional server roles required. Use alternate phone numbers to invite participants; use the keyboard during a call; and copy and paste numbers into the dialpad.
  
  
• Contact List Enhancements. No additional server roles required. Sort contacts alphabetically, display Delegates, or display your Team-Call Group. Search for a contact that corresponds to a Response Group and add it to your Contact List.
  
  
• Phone-only contacts. No additional server roles required. Add phone numbers to your Contact List for quick calling (for example, add phone numbers for friends and family members).
  
  
• Voice Mail Enhancements. No additional server roles required. Access a contact’s voicemail directly, or change your voice mail greeting.
  
  
• Call Delegation. No additional server roles required. Select one or more assistants (delegates) to receive your incoming phone calls. Delegates must use Office Communicator 2007 R2 Attendant instead of Communicator.
  
  
• Team Call. No additional server roles required. Set up a group of contacts who can answer your incoming phone calls.
  
  
• Dial-In Audio Conferencing. Requires Unified Communications Application Server. Add a conference call number to a Communicator conference so that invitees can dial into the audio using any phone.
  
  
• Response Groups. Requires Unified Communications Application Server. Create workflows to route and queue incoming phone calls to one or more designated agents.
  
  
• Desktop Sharing. Requires Application Sharing Conferencing Server. Display entire computer desktop to other Communicator participants.
  
  
• Meet Now. Requires Application Sharing Conferencing Server. Quickly create a conference and invite internal or external (anonymous) participants through e-mail. Participants use Communicator or Communicator Web Access to join the conference.
  
  
• Automatic Updates. No additional server roles required. Configure Communicator to receive automatic updates.
  
  
• Archiving, Call Detail Records, and QoE. New Monitoring Server combines Call detail record (CDR) and Quality of Experience (QoE) functionality. Archiving Server provides archiving.
  
  
• Video enhancements. Requires in-band provisioning option to enable/disable receiving video capabilities. VGA (640x480 at up to 25 frames/sec ) and HD (1280x720 @ up to 25 frames/sec) resolution format supported for peer-to-peer calls as long as hardware, webcam and bandwidth requirements are met.
  
  
• Desk Phone Integration. No additional server roles required. When the USB cable is used to connect the desk phone to the computer, the desk phone becomes the preferred audio device for calls, conferences, and Microsoft Office Live Meeting sessions.