New Group Chat Server Features

 

Topic Last Modified: 2012-10-18

Microsoft Lync Server 2010, Group Chat enables you to participate in multiparty, topic-based conversations that persist over time. Lync Server 2010, Group Chat can help your organization do the following:

• Improve communication between geographically dispersed and cross-functional teams

• Broaden information awareness and participation

• Improve communication with your extended organization

• Reduce information overload

• Improve information awareness

• Increase dispersion of important knowledge and information

This topic describes feature changes between the new version of Group Chat Server (Lync Server 2010, Group Chat) and the previous version (Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2 Group Chat). For additional details about the latest version of Group Chat Server and Microsoft Lync 2010 Group Chat, the new client, see the following:

• The Lync 2010 Group Chat Help at https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/p/?linkid=209000, which provides a detailed list of Lync 2010 Group Chat features, how they work, and how to use them while running Group Chat.

• The Planning for Group Chat Server in the Planning documentation, Deploying Group Chat Server in the Deployment documentation, Migrating Group Chat Server in the Migrating documentation, and Administering Group Chat Server in the Operations documentation, all of which provide instructions for setting up Group Chat Server.

• The Group Chat Server Documentation.msi file (Windows Installer file) allows users to access comprehensive offline documentation about Group Chat Server.

Lync Server 2010 Platform Compatibility

In this release, Group Chat Server and Group Chat have been rebuilt to be compatible with the Microsoft Lync Server 2010 and Microsoft Lync 2010 code bases: Unified Communications Client Platform (UCCP) and Microsoft Unified Communications Managed API (UCMA) 3.0. Setup versioning has been updated to support Group Chat Cumulative Updates (CUs) and to help make upgrades in the future more seamless.

Lync 2010 Group Chat Monitoring with a New System Center Operations Manager Management Pack

A new Microsoft System Center Operations Manager (formerly Microsoft Operations Manager) Management Pack for Group Chat Server supports health monitoring for a Group Chat installation and these critical Group Chat Server services:

• Channel service

• Lookup service

• Compliance service

The new Group Chat Server System Center Operations Manager Management Pack uses both Windows event logs and the state of the services.

For details about downloading the Lync Server 2010, Group Chat Monitoring Management Pack Group Chat, see “Lync Server 2010 Group Chat Monitoring Management Pack” at https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/p/?LinkId=209888.

Unicode Support

Content—for chat channel names and in-chat content—can now be entered in Unicode. You can name channels in full UTF-8, and users can participate in chat rooms and type messages in Chinese, Arabic, or other UTF-8 languages.

Zero Logging Level

To preserve disk space, Group Chat does not generate log file entries, by default. You can change the logging level by changing the level value in %appdata%\Microsoft\Group Chat\Group Chat Client\GroupChatConsoleLogger.xml from “none” to “fatal,” “critical,” “error,” “warn,” “info,” “debug,” or “trace.” For example:

<log4mgc>
   <file value="%userprofile%\tracing\GroupChatConsole.log" />
   <maximumFileSize value="20" />
   <!-- in MB, 2047 max-->
   <maxSizeRollBackups value="10" />
   <filemode value="append" />
   <level value="TRACE" /> 
</log4mgc>

Ego Filter Enhancements

Ego filtering includes the following enhancements to ignore common terms in user names. By default, the ego filter excludes any text between and including the following characters:

• “(” and “)”

• “[” and “]”

• “<” and “>”

• “{” and “}”

Note

This affects only the default ego filter. You can still customize the filter.

The ego filter no longer triggers whenever you type the letters “IT”; for example, “Sara Davis (IT Dept)”. The text can be excluded only if the “words in brackets” are closed. For example:

• “Sara Davis (IT Dept)” becomes “Sara Davis”

• “Sara Davis (IT Dept” becomes “Sara Davis IT Dept”

• “Sara Davis [IT Dept (HR Unit)” becomes “Sara Davis IT Dept”

New Features and Improvements in the User Interface

The Lync 2010 Group Chat user interface and its accompanying icons, including its emoticons, have been upgraded and resized to match the Lync 2010 user interface.

Presence Privacy Changes

When Lync 2010 Group Chat is not the primary instant messaging (IM) and presence client and is running side-by-side with Lync, Group Chat will not violate the Lync Server 2010 presence privacy mode. For details about Lync Server presence privacy modes, see Administering Group Chat Server in the Operations documentation.

The Lync Server presence privacy mode for Group Chat operates under the following conditions:

• Stop Group Chat from doing any access control entry (ACE) bootstrapping when running side-by-side with Lync.

• If Group Chat already stops IM, presence, and Buddy List operations when running with Lync, stop bootstrapping as well in this mode.

• Presence privacy mode does not work if Group Chat is running in IM and presence mode.

• When running in presence privacy mode, Lync must be configured in its IM and presence disabled mode, or it reverts out of presence privacy mode.

Note

Group Chat should always be running on the same computer as Lync for it to work side-by-side in presence privacy mode. You can run Group Chat without Lync and still run Lync in presence privacy mode on another computer, as long as you keep IM disabled on the computer running Group Chat. We do not recommend this scenario.