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Response Group Service Support

Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 and Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2 will reach end of support on January 9, 2018. To stay supported, you will need to upgrade. For more information, see Resources to help you upgrade your Office 2007 servers and clients.

 

Topic Last Modified: 2016-12-01

The Response Group Service is a server application that enables you to create workflows that route incoming calls to groups of agents. This section describes planning considerations for the Response Group Service including the following:

  • Required Components

  • Technical Requirements

  • Deployment Process

Required Components

The Response Group Service can be installed on any of the following:

  • Office Communications Server 2007 R2 Standard Edition

  • Office Communications Server 2007 R2 Enterprise Edition servers

The Response Group Service must be installed and identically configured on all Front End Servers in a pool.

Note

Each Front End Server has a Match Making service, which is an internal service that is responsible for queuing calls and finding available agents. Only one Match Making service per pool is active at a time--the others are passive. If a Front End Server with the active Match Making service becomes unavailable, one of the passive Match Making services becomes active. The Response Group Service does its best to make sure that call routing and queuing continues uninterrupted. However, there may be instances when active calls are lost as a result of the transition. Any calls that are in transfer when the service transition occurs are lost. If the transition is due to the Front End Server going down, any calls currently being handled by the active Match Making service on that Front End Server are also lost.

The following list describes the Office Communications Server components that are required to implement the Response Group Service.

  • Application Server and Response Group Service: The Response Group Service is one of the applications that are hosted on the Application Server. By default, the Application Server and Response Group Service are installed during Office Communications Server deployment. For details about the components required by the Application Server, see Unified Communications Application Server Components.

  • Language pack: A language pack is required to support text-to-speech and speech recognition. These speech technologies are used when you configure a welcome message or interactive voice response (IVR) for workflows. By default, the English (United States) language pack is installed when you deploy Office Communications Server 2007 R2.

  • Administrative tools: The Office Communications Server 2007 R2 Response Group Administration Snap-in and the RGSCOT.exe command-line tool are available in the Office Communications Server Administrative Tools package.

  • Web Components Server: The Response Group Configuration Tool, which is a Web-based tool that is used to create and manage workflows, is installed with the Web Components Server.

  • Internet Information Services: Internet Information Services (IIS) is required to support the Response Group Configuration Tool and the agents’ sign-in and sign-out functionality.

  • Microsoft Office Communicator 2007 R2: Microsoft Office Communicator 2007 R2 is required if you have agent groups that are configured to require agents to sign in and out. In this situation, the agents use a custom tab on the Office Communicator 2007 R2 client to sign in and out.

Technical Requirements

The following sections describe the requirements for deploying the Response Group Service. They include hardware requirements, software requirements, and implementation requirements.

Server Platform Requirements

The Response Group Service has the same server requirements as Office Communications Server 2007 R2 servers. For details about the server requirements, see Internal Office Communications Server Component Requirements.

Client Requirements

The Response Group Service works with a wide variety of clients including Office Communicator Phone Edition device, Office Communicator 2007 R2 Attendant, Office Communicator 2007, or Office Communicator 2007 R2. The clients that you can use depend on whether you are a caller or an agent. For details about the client requirements for each end user type, see Deploying Response Group Clients in Deploying Response Group Service in the Deployment documentation.

Important

For Office Communicator 2007 to coexist with Office Communications Server 2007 R2, you need to apply the latest update rollup package for Office Communicator 2007. For details and the latest update rollup package, see Microsoft Knowledge Base article 957465, “Description of the Communicator 2007 hotfix rollup package: December 19, 2008,” at https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=128254.

Response Group Configuration Tool Requirements

The Response Group Configuration Tool is a Web-based tool that is used to create and manage workflows. For details about the combinations of operating systems and Web browsers that are supported by the Response Group Configuration Tool, see Requirements for the Response Group Configuration Tool in Deploying Response Group Service in the Deployment documentation.

Port Requirements

The following table describes the ports that are used by the Response Group Service.

Table 1.  Response Group Service Ports

Port number Description

5071

Used for SIP listening requests

8404

Used for interserver communications

Implementation Requirements

Implementing the Response Group Service also requires the following:

  • Response Group Service supports speech recognition and text-to-speech. In order to use these technologies, a language pack must be installed. By default, the English (United States) language pack is installed when you deploy Office Communications Server 2007 R2. You must install additional language packs if you require support for another language. For details about language packs, see Installing Language Packs in Deploying Response Group Service in the Deployment documentation.

  • Agents are users who handle incoming calls routed to them from the Response Group Service. In order to be an agent, a user must be enabled for Office Communications Server and Enterprise Voice.

  • The Enterprise Edition expanded topology requires an additional certificate be installed on the Web Components Server. This certificate establishes mutual TLS (MTLS) connections between the Web Components Server and the Front End Server where the Response Group Service is installed.

    Note

    The Web Components Server certificate is installed in addition to the IIS certificate.

Deployment Process

This section describes the Response Group Service deployment process. This includes the permissions that are required in each step of deployment, and the documentation you can use during deployment. For details about the Response Group Service deployment process, see Deploying the Response Group Service in the Deployment documentation.

The table provides an overview of the deployment process.

Table 2.  Response Group Service Deployment Process

Phase Steps Permissions Documentation

Install the Response Group Service.

Install the Response Group Service and the other required components:

  • The Response Group Service is installed by default when you deploy Office Communications Server 2007 R2. In either the Configure Pool Wizard (Enterprise pool) or the Deploy Server Wizard (Standard Edition server), on the Application Configuration page, verify that the Response Group Service check box is selected.

  • Depending on your topology, you may also need to install the Web Components Server. The Response Group Configuration Tool is installed with the other Web components.

  • If you have an Enterprise Edition expanded topology, you must install an additional certificate on the Web Components Server (in addition to the IIS certificate).

  • Install the Office Communications Server 2007 R2 administrative tools. This installs the Office Communications Server 2007 R2 Response Group Administration snap-in and the RGSCOT.exe command-line tool.

  • Install additional language packs.

RTCUniversalServerAdmins group

Domain Admins group

Configure Pool and Applications in Deploying Office Communications Server 2007 R2 Enterprise Edition in the Deployment documentation (Enterprise pool)

Install Standard Edition Server in Deploying Office Communications Server 2007 R2 Standard Edition in the Deployment documentation (Standard Edition server)

Add Servers to the Pool in the Deploying Office Communications Server 2007 R2 Enterprise Edition documentation

Installing Administrative Tools in Administering Office Communications Server 2007  R2 in the Operations documentation

Installing Language Packs in Deploying Response Group Service in the Deployment documentation

Add agents, create agent groups, and create queues for the server pool.

Agents, agent groups, and queues can be created by using the Office Communications Server 2007 R2 Response Group Administration snap-in:

  1. Add agents. Agents are users who handle incoming calls routed to them from the Response Group Service. In order to be an agent, a user must be enabled for Office Communications Server and Enterprise Voice. Agents are assigned to groups.

  2. Create agent groups. An agent group is a collection of agents. Each agent group has additional settings, such as routing method, which can be configured. Groups are assigned to queues.

  3. Create queues. Queues hold callers until an agent becomes available. Queues are assigned to workflows.

RTCUniversalServerAdmins group

Configuring the Response Group Service in the Deploying Response Group Service documentation

Create the workflows.

Workflows route and queue incoming calls to groups of designated agents. When you create a workflow, you do the following:

  1. Create a Contact object by using the RGSCOT.exe command tool. This creates an Active Directory object that is later associated with a workflow. A single Contact object can be associated with only one workflow.

  2. Use the Response Group Configuration Tool to create the workflow. When you create the workflow, you can specify the Contact object and queue to use, and other settings such as the welcome message, music on hold, business hours, and questions asked to the caller.

RTCUniversalServerAdmins group

Creating a Contact Object

Creating a Workflow
topics in the Deploying Response Group Service documentation

Configure the Response Group Tab.

The Response Group Tab is a custom tab on the Office Communicator 2007 R2 client that agents can use to sign in and sign out of groups. Being able to sign in and out of groups is a setting that is configured in the agent group. For details about group settings, see Creating an Agent Group. If you have agents that must sign in and sign out of groups, do the following:

  1. Create a custom tab definition file that contains the settings for the Response Group Tab.

  2. Use a Group Policy object (GPO) to deploy the custom tab.

Domain Admins group

Configuring the Response Group Tab in the Deploying Response Group Service documentation

See Also

Other Resources

Deploying the Response Group Service