Publication date: 2013-05-23
Author: Kjetil Ree, Cisco CIBU
Products affected: Cisco TMS 14.2.0 and 14.2.1
CDETS ID: CSCuh09140
Problem Description
A defect (CSCuh09140) in Cisco TelePresence Management Suite 14.2.x could severely affect customers and products using the Cisco TMS Booking API (Cisco TMSBA).
The issue impacts Cisco TelePresence Management Suite Extension for Microsoft Exchange (Cisco TMSXE) and the Cisco TelePresence Management Suite Provisioning Extension (Cisco TMSPE) Smart Scheduler, as well as custom booking applications.
Customer communication
Cisco has detected that a defect (CSCuh09140) in Cisco TelePresence Management Suite versions 14.2.0 and 14.2.1 affects integration with products that rely on the Cisco TMS Booking API (Cisco TMSBA).
The issue occurs if single (non-recurrent) bookings are modified using the Cisco TMS web interface, so that they get a new start time. A defect in the Cisco TMSBA GetRecurrentConferenceById method makes it return incorrect start and end times for such conferences, so that clients using Cisco TMSBA get incorrect data and thus are unable to display free/busy information correctly.
The following Cisco TMS extension products use Cisco TMSBA:
- Cisco TelePresence Management Suite Extension for Microsoft Exchange (Cisco TMSXE)
- Cisco TelePresence Management Suite Provisioning Extension (Cisco TMSPE)
Customer deployments where all booking activities are done exclusively in either Exchange or using the Smart Scheduler are not affected by the defect.
For Cisco TMSXE, the defect causes the replicator component to erroneously move conferences to incorrect times in Exchange resource calendars, so that Exchange and Cisco TMS get into an inconsistent state ("out of sync"). An Exchange video resource would then appear as available to Outlook end users, but bookings will be rejected once they reach Cisco TMS.
Note that the re-replication of bookings from Cisco TMS to Exchange that is executed as part of upgrading to Cisco TMSXE 3.1 will trigger the defect.
For Cisco TMSPE’s Smart Scheduler, bookings appear to have incorrect start and end times when end users view meeting details, while the “My Meetings” list view shows the correct start and end times.
Solution
Cisco will address the issue in a Cisco TMS maintenance release in the near future.
Until the issue is addressed, customers that rely on the Cisco TMSPE Smart Scheduler or Cisco TMSXE should not update non-recurrent bookings using the Cisco TMS web interface.
