Configuring Location Services in Lync Server 2010 - Part 2 [FW]

In my last post, I talked about how to configure Lync Server 2010 to allow users to enter their detailed location in Lync 2010 for use during a call to E.911 emergency services.  Today, I will talk about how to create and manage a central location database, and how to link the location information with your users.

Giving users the ability to manually input their location is important, especially when they are outside the office. However, when inside your corporate network, requiring all your users to input their specific location is an unnecessary burden, not to mention the inevitable errors that can delay emergency services.  Lync Server 2010 allows administrators to create a database of locations that map to your internal network topology.  

Location information can be set as high level as an entire internal network subnet, or can be as granular as individual switch ports.  Lync Server 2010 allows you to link locations to the following:

• IP subnet via Set-CSLISSubnet
• Wireless access point (basic service set identifier (BSSID)) via Set-CSLISWirelessAccessPoint
• Switch (either MAC or IP address) via Set-CSLISSwitch
• Switch port (switch MAC or IP address and port ID) via Set-CSLISPort

When you create a location database entry using the above Powershell commands, you can also enter all the location-specific information you have available. Hopefully, you have all the information you need in a CSV file that you can manipulate and import, saving you the tedium of manual entry. One thing to note is to make sure you DON'T publish any VPN subnets in your database. Since users who VPN in could be physically anywhere, you don't want to have their location be set to the office when they're really at home.  When a user is at home, they will have to enter their location information manually, as described inyesterday's post.

Once you've populated the location information database, you should validate it against the Master Street Address Guide (MSAG) maintained by your E911 call routing provider.  Microsoft has partnered with a few E911 routing providers in the US:911 Enable and Intrado, with more to follow.  I understand that there will also be some E911 routing providers in Canada at some point as well.  If you don't have a E911 provider, you can skip these steps and continue on to publishing.

You setup your connection to your E911 provider using the following command:

$pwd = Read-Host –AsSecureString
Set-CsLisServiceProvider -ServiceProviderName  -ValidationServiceUrl -CertFileName -Password $pwd

Once setup, you can validate your addresses via the following command:

Get-CsLisCivicAddress | Test-CsLisCivicAddress –UpdateValidationStatus

You can also test addresses individually using Test-CSLisCivicAddress by itself.

Once you've validated your addresses (assuming you have a E911 provider), you have to publish the database:

Publish-CSLisConfiguration

If you successfully validated your addresses, your users' location will be automatically set when they are in a supported location (and can't be changed).  

If you are outside the US and can't validate your addresses against a MSAG provider, your users will see the following when they click on Set your Location:

The Suggested Location is populated from the Location Database information.  When a user selects the Suggested Location, they are brought to the same location information entry screen as when the user is outside a corporate network, except the address information is already populated. 

 

The user just has to type in a Location Name that is shown to other users.  The next time the user is at this location, the location will be automatically set.

For the location to be auto-populated, the civic addresses entered have to be validated against a MSAG.  If you're outside the USA, you won't be able to do this. 

An UNSUPPORTED way to gain the same auto-location setting capabilities for non-US installations is to directly edit thedbo.CivicAddresses table in your LIS database using SQL Management Tools and change the MSAGValid field from Falseto True on all your civic addresses.  If you're running Lync Standard Edition, install the SQL Server 2008 R2 Express Management Tools, or use SQL Management Tools from another SQL server. Keep in mind that this is UNSUPPORTED, and I can't be liable for any issues that arise. If you're unfamiliar with SQL, its best to leave things alone.

UPDATE:  The January 2011 Rollup 1 for Lync 2010 includes an update that removes the requirement for addresses to be validated against a MSAG. 

This post is meant as a basic overview of how to enable location services in Lync Server 2010.  If you want more detailed information on specific aspects of how to perform location or E911 tasks, please refer to the help documents contained with the Lync Server 2010 RC eval.

Configuring Location Services in Lync Server 2010 - Part 1 [FW]

What is Lync Server 2010, you may ask?  If you haven't seen it mentioned anywhere else yet, then I guess I'm the first to let you know that CS "14" is now officially known as Microsoft Lync Server 2010.  The client is simply known as Lync 2010.  I'm not all that crazy about the name yet, but hopefully it will grow on me. If you want to try it out, the release candidate is now publically available from here.  You really should put it in a lab, but I've been running it in a limited production environment for several months now with very few issues. Its a very solid product. Now on to our regularly scheduled posting....

One important feature added to Lync Server 2010 is support for E.911.  E.911 (or Enhanced 911) is the next-generation of 911 emergency services in North America.  It provides location information for non-landline-based telephone numbers, like mobile phones and IP phones.  

The three most important things to note about E.911 is the same three things you need to worry about with real estate:  location, location, location.  Due to the inherent mobility of Lync users, it is critical that the telephony solution provide some manner of ensuring users can be automatically located in the event of a 911 emergency call.  

Lync Server 2010 provides several ways to ensure locatability (is that a word?).  The simplest method is to allow or force users to enter their location information at login to Lync.  By default, this feature is turned off in Lync Server 2010 RC, but you can enable it by typing the following command:

Set-CSLocationPolicy -Identity Global -EnhancedEmergencyServicesEnabled:$TRUE -LocationRequired:Yes

The default Location Policy is called Global, but you can create new site-level or user-level location policies if required by your deployment.

EnhancedEmergencyServicesEnabled enables the location features in Lync Server 2010. This must be set to $TRUE for anything else to work.

LocationRequired can be set to No (Don't prompt for location), Yes (prompt for location, but allow user to ignore) andDisclaimer (prompt for location and don't allow user to ignore).  If LocationRequired is set to Yes, users will see Set Your Location when they log into Lync for the first time at an unrecognized location:

If LocationRequired is set to Disclaimer, users will see the following:

If they dismiss the prompt, a message like this will pop-up:

The message can be changed by using the command Set-CsEnhancedEmergencyServiceDisclaimer.  The current documentation says that when using the Disclaimer option, users will not be able to make non-emergency calls if they ignore the prompt, but in the Release Candidate I was still able to make calls. 

When they type in a location name such as Home, a dialog box will pop up with additional address information:

To make this information available to emergency services, you have to make a few more modifications to the location policy using Set-CSLocationPolicy:

Set-CSLocationPolicy Global -EmergencyDialString "911" - EmergencyDialMask "112" -PSTNUsage "Emergency"

EmergencyDialString is the number that will be treated as being an emergency call. The call SIP data will include the user's location. This is 911 in North America.

EmergencyDialMask is an alternate number that will be converted to EmergencyDialString for the location profile. In this case, 112 (emergency dial number for many countries) would be converted to 911 and treated as an emergency call.

PSTNUsage is the Phone Usage that will be used to route the emergency call. In this example, I used "Emergency", which is a Phone Usage I created that contains a route for 911 calls.  

With this enabled, your users will be able to input their own specific location information so that emergency services can easily find them if they call 911.  The nice thing about it is that if a user goes to several locations and properly enters their address information, Lync will recognize those locations and will select it automatically the next time they are at that location.  

However, since this particular solution depends on users inputting their location information correctly, it isn't ideal for a corporate setting.  My next blog posting will detail how administrators can assign locations to users based on information stored in a central database.

Until then,
Cheers!
Ken