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Creating Online Meetings from Outlook Web App in Exchange 2013 CU1

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One of the new features in Exchange 2013 CU1 is support for creation of Online Meetings in Outlook Web App (OWA). When you create a new event in OWA you can click on Online meeting, and the meeting is created as an Online meeting. You can also update an existing event to be an Online meeting. See Figure 1 for a screenshot showing the Online meeting button.

Figure 1 Creating an Online Meeting

       

Prerequisites

In order for this feature to work, the following needs to be in place:

  • The scheduling user needs to be Lync enabled and homed on a Lync 2013 pool
  • The mailbox of the scheduling user needs to be hosted on Exchange 2013 CU1
  • Server to Server authentication (S2SOAuth) needs to be configured between Exchange 2013 and Lync 2013
  • The Lync Autodiscover service needs to be configured (https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh690030.aspx) with DNS records for lyncdiscover.<SIP domain> and lyncdiscoverinternal.<SIP domain>

How it works

OWA use the Unified Communications Web API (UCWA) interface to create the Online Meeting. When OWA boots, and whenever you create a new event in Calendar tab, OWA checks, if UCWA is enabled for the user. OWA uses the Lync Autodiscover service to find the user's pool and the UCWA Url. If UCWA is enabled (happens automatically if the user is homed on a Lync 2013 pool) OWA shows the Online meeting button.

The communication between OWA and Lync happens via Server to Server OAuth (S2SOAuth).

When the Online meeting button is clicked, OWA is creating the Online Meeting. It sets the parameters used for the meeting based on the relevant CsMeetingConfiguration setting (Global, Site or Service scope) in Lync 2013. The parameters used are:

  • PstnCallersBypassLobby
  • LogoUrl1
  • LegalUrl2
  • HelpUrl
  • CustomFooterText

In addition to these parameters, it creates the meeting with the options that all company employees joins as presenters and bypass the lobby.

You are able to join the Online Meeting from the OWA calendar peek via the Join button (see Figure 2). You can also join from the Calendar read form (see Figure 3).

Figure 2 Calendar peek with Join button

Figure 3 Calendar read form with the Join button

Configuration

Let me show how to configure the integration. I will use the following sample environment to illustrate the configuration:

  • One Exchange 2013 CU1 Client Access server with FQDN e15fe.contoso.com
  • One Exchange 2013 CU1 Mailbox server with FQDN e15be.contoso.com.
    • The test user has Exchange 2013 CU1 mailbox with the primary SMTP address test1@contoso.com
  • One Lync Server 2013 Enterprise Edition pool with one Lync Server 2013 Front End Server lyncfe1.contoso.com
    • Pool FQDN is lync.contoso.com.
    • One test user is enabled with SIP URI test1@contoso.com
  • A DNS record for autodiscover.contoso.com points to e15fe.contoso.com
  • A DNS record for lyncdiscoverinternal.contoso.com points to lync.contoso.com
  • The url pointing to legal text is https://web.contoso.com/legalurl.txt
  • The url pointing to help text is https://web.contoso.com/helpurl.txt
  • The custom Contoso logo is https://web.contoso.com/logo.jpg

Step 1: Exchange 2013 Autodiscover Service

Configure the Exchange 2013 Autodiscover service to be available on the FQDN autodiscover.contoso.com. Use the following Exchange Management Shell command on e15fe.contoso.com.

Get-ClientAccessServer | Set-ClientAccessServer -AutoDiscoverServiceInternalUri https://autodiscover.contoso.com/autodiscover/autodiscover.xml

Step 2 Exchange S2SOAuth configuration with Lync

We now need to configure the Exchange 2013 side of things. Use the following Exchange Management Shell commands:

Step 3 Lync S2SOAuth configuration with Exchange

We now configure the Lync side of things. Use the following Lync Server Management Shell commands:

Step 4 Lync Meeting Configuration

We now configure the Lync meeting configuration for the pool. Use the following Lync Server Management Shell commands:

Troubleshooting

In situations, where the Online meeting button does not appear or the creation of the Online meeting fails, the administrator will have to enable logging in OWA to get diagnostic information about the potential issues. Logging is enabled by editing the web.config file in C:\Program Files\Microsoft\Exchange Server\V15\ClientAccess\Owa on the Exchange 2013 CU1 mailbox server and changing the line <add key="OWAIsLoggingEnabled" value="false" /> to <add key="OWAIsLoggingEnabled" value="true" />. After saving the changed web.config, recycle the MSEXchangeOWAAppPool in IIS Manager for OWA to pick up the change. OWA will now log information to log files in the directory C:\Program Files\Microsoft\Exchange Server\V15\Logging\OWA\server\.

Ask the user to repro the problem and examine the log file in the directory above. Look for lines with the keywords GetUcwaUserConfiguration and CreateOnlineMeeting and timestamps matching the repro. Hopefully he information in the log file can point to the root cause of the issue.

  1. In Exchange 2013 CU1 the logo will only be shown, if the CustomFooterText has text in it
  2. In Exchange 2013 CU1 the hyper link for the legal URL will always be empty no matter, if it is set or not

Comments

  • Anonymous
    January 01, 2003
    Case of the missing Online Meeting button in OWA finally solved - Thank You!

  • Anonymous
    January 01, 2003
    Here's an article for Hybrid Exchange Environment - http://www.xlync.com/my-blog/Article/43/solved-online-meeting-icon-missing-from-owa-in-exchange-online

  • Anonymous
    April 30, 2013
    Awesome. Just what i was looking for!

  • Anonymous
    September 12, 2013
    it does not seem to work when Lync and Exchange are in different resource forests GetUcwaUserConfiguration receives AuthenticatedAutodiscover_WebException_OAuthTokenRequestFailedException_The trusted issuers contained following entries ''00000002-0000-0ff1-ce00-000000000000@MY-DOMAIN,00000003-0000-0ff1-ce00-000000000000@01b01632-2b22-4356-830c-b9073ee87373,00000004-0000-0ff1-ce00-000000000000@MY-DOMAIN''. None of them are configured locally." But they are :-( as all works well including UCS and IM in OWA

  • Anonymous
    September 26, 2014
    This won't work in a hybrid Exchange environment if your Autodiscover is hosted by your on-premises servers. Autodiscover must be hosted on Exchange 2013 as well as the user's mailbox.

  • Anonymous
    May 25, 2015
    The comment has been removed