Note:
Instant messaging (IM) and presence are enabled by default when you deploy Office Communications Server. If your organization plans to support only instant messaging and presence features, you can skip this task and continue to the next deployment task.

In Office Communications Server, conferencing enables Office Communications Server users to organize and invite other users to Web conferences that are hosted on your own on-premises servers. The default meeting policy, which all users are initially configured to use, prevents users from organizing conferences that use the Web conferencing or audio/video (A/V) conferencing features. To allow access to these features, you must configure a policy that enables Web conferencing and A/V conferencing and then assign this policy to your users. You can define the policy as a global policy so that it applies to all users, or you can apply the policy on a per-user basis.

The meeting policy that applies to a meeting organizer also applies to all attendees of the meeting. For example, if Bob organizes a meeting with IP audio enabled and the meeting policy for Sue does not allow her to use IP audio, as an attendee of Bob's meeting, Sue will be able to use IP audio. However, if Sue organizes a meeting, all attendees of this meeting will use her meeting policy and so IP audio will not be available.

For details about administering Web and A/V conferencing features, see the Office Communications Server Operations section of this documentation.

If you expect heavy audio/video traffic in your environment, you can optimize your network adapter settings to accommodate this volume. For details, see Optimizing Your Network Adapter for High Audio/Video Traffic.

To configure Audio/Video and Web conferencing

  1. Log on as a member of the RTCUniversalServerAdmins group to an Office Communications Server or to any computer that is joined to an internal domain and that has the Office Communications Server administrative tools installed.

  2. Click Start, click Control Panel, click Administrative Tools, and then click Office Communications Server 2007 R2.

  3. Right-click the Forestnode, point to Properties, and then click Global Properties.

  4. Click Meetings, and then do one of the following:

    • To allow all users to organize Web conferences that include anonymous participants, click Anonymous participants, and then click Allow users to invite anonymous participants.

    • To prevent all users from organizing Web conferences that include anonymous participants, click Anonymous participants, and then click Disallow users from inviting anonymous participants.

    • To allow only some users to organize Web conferences that include anonymous participants, click Anonymous participants, and then click Enforce per user.

      Note:
      By default, all users are allowed to organize Web conferences that include anonymous participants unless you disallow them individually as described in Configure Users.

  5. In the Policy Definitionlist, click the name of a policy, and then click Edit.

  6. In the Edit Policydialog box, select the Enable Web conferencingcheck box.

  7. To enable audio, select the Enable IP audiocheck box.

  8. To enable video, select the Enable IP videocheck box.

  9. Click OK.

  10. Click Apply.

  11. After you finish editing the features that are enabled by each policy, decide which policy to apply to Web conferences organized by users, and then do one of the following:

    • To apply the same policy to all users, click Global policy, and then click the name of the policy that defines the features you want to enable for all users.

    • To apply different policies to different users, click Global policy, and then click Use per user policy.

      Note:
      Ensure that you follow the procedures in Configure Usersto configure the Web conferencing policy for individual users.

  12. Click OK.