TMS: Automated Conference Booking for Single Endpoint

[Steve Ogg]

We have a deployment where we are using TMSXE to monitor Exchange mailboxes and schedule conferences in TMS using Conductor.

Everything is functioning as expected, however we would like all bookings to be scheduled as a Conductor conference, even if only 1 Endpoint is scheduled via TMSXE. This is to allow one Endpoint to be booked via Exchange, but have multiple external participants join a conference with the endpoint.

Is there a way that we can force TMS to always create a conference for single endpoint bookings?

We have already set the "External MCU Usage in Routing" setting under Conference Settings to  "Always", but this only affects bookings with 2 or more endpoints (i.e. turning what would be a point to point conference into a Conductor conference). To enable more than the scheduled amount of endpoints to join the Conductor conferences, we have turned Off "Limit Ports to Number of Scheduled Participants" under the Conductor Extended Settings in TMS (TPS resource is not an issue).

At this point, even if we could add a "SIP Dial-in" participant that is always automatically added to every conference picked up by TMS and this would trigger the "External MCU Usage in Routing" rule to create a conference, this would be satisfactory!

The versions in use are:

TMS 15.3.0

TMSXE 5.3

Conductor XC4.2

Thanks in advance for any ideas on this or replies.

Steve

[Patrick Sparkman]

You can add call-in and call-out participants using the Cisco TelePresence Advanced Settings Form, refer to the TMSXE 5.3 User Guide on pg 7.  How to deploy this form is covered in the TMSXE 5.3 Deployment Guide starting on pg 53.

[Steve Ogg]

Hi Patrick,

Many thanks for the reply.

My apologies for missing this out, but the Form cannot be used in this particular environment due to the Outlook Client in place (and as an added bonus removes steps from the user work flow for booking conferences). Unfortunately we just need a way to change the behaviour of booking a Conductor conference for all meetings with 2+ endpoints scheduled, down to 1+ endpoints scheduled without adding anything; but I don't think this is going to be possible by design as there are probably far more situations where you wouldn't want a conference scheduled on booking a single room, than when you would.

I think we may just have to train the users to use a Rendezvous conference in this scenarios, unless anyone can come up with an idea.

Steve

[Patrick Sparkman · Accepted solution]

A new feature in TMSXE 5.3 called "Scheduling Mailbox" might help and be the solution you're looking for.  In short, you have a mailbox that has X amount of video or audio ports reserved, and when you create your meeting invite with that mailbox added, the number of video/audio ports that the mailbox is configured for within TMSXE is added to the conference.

TMSXE 5.3 Release Notes

[Steve Ogg]

Thanks again for the reply Patrick.

We decided to try the Scheduling Mailbox for this purpose. All was well until we tried to book a second concurrent meeting with the Scheduling Mailbox included. The Exchange mailbox responded accepting the meeting (we configured the mailbox as per the guide), but TMS would not book the conference replying: "Cisco TMS could not schedule the necessary telepresence resources for this meeting. Try rescheduling with a different time or different telepresence rooms, or contact your administrator for assistance."

Do you know if you can use this in more than one concurrent meeting?

If not, this isn't a very useful feature, so I was assuming at this point we might have a config issue somewhere.

Thanks again,

Steve

[Patrick Sparkman]

I don't know exactly how it works, but if I had to guess, TMSXE is denying the schedule request because the scheduling mailbox is already in use.  You can create two scheduling mailboxes within TMSXE, have you tried the second one?

[Steve Ogg]

Haven't tried the second one yet, but I suspected this might be the issue so will give it a go. Working with Cisco at the moment as well, as the option to have only 2 conferences like this at the same time isn't really a long term solution.

Thanks Patrick.

[Kristian Aasen]

Hi Steve

Did you get this to work?

I have somewhat the same challenge, but with Meeting Server (Acano).

Looking to book 1 endpoint through Outlook, but still generate a Meeting server link to external parties.

[Steve Ogg]

Hi Kristian,

In theory the scheduling mailbox should work, but we are having difficulty in getting it to work consistantly at the moment. We have a TAC case open at the moment as all mailbox settings look correct, so we hope it's something config related.

Personally I've not tried scheduling on Acano/CMS via TMS yet as I was under the impression it was still on the road map and the functionality wasn't in TMS yet, sorry.

Good luck!

Steve

[Chuck Hong]

Hi Steve, was TAC able to help you resolve this in the end? Can you share the final fix? Thanks a ton in advance!

[Steve Ogg]

Hi Chuck,

In the end, after some technical problems elsewhere, we got the Scheduling Mailbox feature working within TMSXE.

Essentially, when creating the conference with only one scheduled endpoint, you must add the dummy mailbox as well to the Outlook/Exchange conference. TMSXE then picks that up and a conference can be scheduled as there are now 2 participants. In my scenario, I have TMS configured to create a conference for 2+ endpoints and allow more than the scheduled amount of endpoints to join Conductor conferences (a setting within TMS on the Conductor device settings itself); so I have TMSXE set to reserve only 1 port in conferences where the Scheduling Mailbox has been added to the meeting, and this works fine for allowing multiple non-scheduled devices to join the conference (such external participants or S4B via CMS).

Good luck!

Steve

[Marcel Bissonnette]

Hi all,

If the requirement is to add two external participants (in or out connect), is there a way around this?

We do not use TMSXE.  Just TMS and PE.

This would be to schedule a call for clients to dial-into them-selves.

Also, when creating the scheduled conference, we would like to be able to set it as "Secure" or Yes.

Thanks.

Marcel B.

[Chuck Hong]

hi Kristian, did you ever figure this out? I have the exact same requirement, I.e. CMS booking. We even opened a ticket half a year ago, but it never yielded anything. Sigh

[Kristian Aasen]

Hi

No luck. Had to write a doc for the users on how to do this manually (log in to TMS and manualy add CMS).

Haven't tried the Scheduling mailbox yet.

Now having issues with reoccuring meetings. When changing on of the meetings in the set, the ID is regenerated and all of the meetings stop working...

[Zac Colton]

The scheduling mailbox works just like the WebEx mailbox. It can be used over and over again on multiple conferences.