The 2007 R2 release of the Conferencing Add-in for Microsoft Office Outlook has some new functionality for scheduling dial-in conferences.

• Users can connect directly from Outlook to the Dial-In Conferencing Settings Web page on the Communicator Web Access server.
  
  
• Meeting creators can enable dial-in conferencing as an audio option.
  
  

When Outlook starts, the internal and external URLs of the Communicator Web Access server are provisioned to Outlook from the pool by using the connection information that is configured in the Live Meeting client.

When the Outlook user selects Dial-In Conferencing Settings from the Conferencing menu, Outlook first tries to open the \dialinsite on the external URL of the Communicator Web Access server. If this fails, then it retries on the internal URL.

To enable dial-in conferencing for users, the meeting creator must enable dial-in conferencing for the meeting using the Conferencing Add-in Audio optionsmenu.

When an Outlook user clicks Schedule a Live Meeting, the client makes a SIP request to the user’s pool stipulating that it wants to schedule a dial-in enabled meeting and generates a 32-character hexadecimal Meeting ID. The pool checks that it has the capability to support a dial-in meeting and obtains from the Focus Factory the dial-in numbers that are assigned to the user’s pool, a Conference ID, and sends it back to the client. The Add-in inserts this information into the meeting invitation.

If the meeting is set to allow anonymous participants and if meeting policy mandates use of passcodes or if the meeting creator chooses to use one, the client will also generate a random passcode and send it (encrypted) to the Focus Factory. This passcode is also included in the meeting invitation.

If the Outlook clicks Schedules a Conference Call(instead of a Live Meeting) and the invitation’s audio option is set to Use my assigned conference ID for each conference, the same process occurs, except that the conference ID and passcode (if mandated by meeting policy) are the ones that were previously generated by the Dial-In Conferencing Settings Web site. The result will be an audio-only meeting, to which non-phone participants access using Office Communicator instead of Live Meeting. If the audio option is Use a new conference ID for each conference, the Focus Factory will assigna new Conference ID.

The Meet Now feature of the Live Meeting 2007 client enables users to create unscheduled conferences that support dial-in users.

If dial-in conferencing is enabled, the Focus Factory assigns the meeting a Conference ID and the client generates a random passcode (if forced by meeting policy or if the meeting creator chooses to use one). This information, and the dial-in numbers, is displayed in the client when the meeting organizer clicks View Call-In Detailson the Meetinglist or on the Optionsmenu of the Voice & Videolist. However, unlike the Conferencing Add-In for Outlook, the Live Meeting client does not automatically distribute this information to participants. Even if the meeting organizer uses the By E-mailmenu option in the client (under the Attendeesmenu, under Invite) to create an e-mail invitation, the organizer must manually insert the meeting’s dial-in information into the body of the message.

Although Office Communicator 2007 R2 does not provide a means for users to create scheduled meetings, it does enable users to create unscheduled audio/video meetings. However, Office Communicator does not contain provisions for inviting dial-in attendees to these meetings. (Office Communicator-based participants can use the client’s dial-out feature to add phone users to these meetings.)

Nevertheless, Office Communicator users can click a menu option that links them to the Communicator Web Access server to view and modify their dial-in conferencing settings. Office Communicator obtains the internal and external Communicator Web Access URLs using in-band provisioning upon sign-in and uses these to open the Dial-In Conferencing Settings Web page in a separate browser window.