Installing and configuring the Verba SfB - Lync Announcement service
For a general overview of the function refer to the Announcement article.
Prerequisites
The Verba Announcement service is available in the following server roles:
- Media Repository & Recording Server
- Media Repository
- Recording Server
- Announcement Server
To enable the service, the following tasks need to be executed on all Verba servers where the service needs to be enabled:
Step 1 - Add the Windows user account used during installation to the following groups:
- CSAdministrator
- Local Administrator
- RTCUniversalServerAdmins
Step 2 -  Install the following features on the server(s) if they are not installed already.
- Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5
- Microsoft .NET Framework 4.0/4.5
- Media Foundation (Windows Server 2012 or newer) / Desktop Experience (Windows Server 2008 R2)
Step 3 - Install the Microsoft UCMA Runtime 4.0 on the UCMA application servers
Step 4Â -Â Configure your firewalls
Step 5 - Create a Trusted Application Pool/Server in your Skype for Business / Lync environment
Step 6 - Request / assign a certificate for/to the Announcement Server
Step 7 - If there are multiple announcement servers, create a new DNS entry for each server using the pool FQDN.
Installation and service activation
Verba Announcement Server installation
If you want to run the service separately, you need to install a Verba Announcement Server role on dedicated server(s).
Follow the guidelines at Installing a Verba Announcement Server
Enabling the Verba SfB/Lync Announcement service
If you already have the desired server role installed, you just need to enable the service.
Step 1 - Using the web application, navigate to the System / Servers page and select the server.
Step 2 - Click on the Service Activation tab.
Step 3Â -Â Click on theÂ
 button for the Verba SfB/Lync AnnouncementService to activate the service.Configuring the Verba SfB/Lync Announcement Service
When the above steps are completed, the Verba Announcement service can be configured as any other server component in the system using the Verba web interface.
For more information see Configuring Verba recording announcement service.
Configuring Verba components for announcement
Configuring the Verba SfB/Lync Call Filter for announcement
Step 1 - Open the Verba web interface, click on the System / Servers and select the SfB/Lync Front-End / SBA / SBS server, or select the appropriate Configuration Profile at System / Configuration Profiles.Â
Step 2 - Go to the Change Configuration Settings tab, then expand the SfB/Lync Call Filter / Recording Announcement node.
Step 3 -Â Configure the following settings:
Configuration Parameter Name | Description | Sample Value |
---|---|---|
Recording announcement | Enable the announcement feature | Yes |
Recording announcement for incoming PSTN calls | Enable voice announcement for incoming PSTN calls. | Yes |
Enable Announcement for Outgoing PSTN calls | Enable voice announcement for outgoing PSTN calls. | Yes |
Enable Announcement for Incoming Federated calls | Enable voice announcement for incoming Federated calls. | Yes |
Enable Announcement for Outgoing Federated calls | Enable voice announcement for outgoing Federated calls. | Yes |
Apply announcement to forwarded calls | Enable voice announcement for forwarded calls. | Yes |
Enable announcement for Team calls | Sets whether the announcement should be played in the case of all users in the team, or to none of them. | Yes |
Remove route information from SIP INVITE messages | Â | Yes |
Verba Announcement URI | The SIP addresses of the announcement service. If there are multiple announcement service pools, then all SIP addresses have to be provided, separated by a new line. | sip:VerbaAnnouncement@yourDomain.com |
Internal Number Pattern | Defines the internal numbers | ^(([4-9][0-9]{3})|[\+]?[0-9]{5})$ |
Internal SIP Domains | Defines the internal SIP domains. One at each line. | yourDomain.com |
Verba Announcement services | Configure the installed announcement services | announcementserver:10210|ComputerGRUU |
Lync/SfB Contact Center UCMA B2B Agents | List of user agents where the announcement should not be played, separated by a new line. | RTCC/5.0.0.0 ACE |
Step 4 -Â Click theÂ
 icon to save your settings.Step 5 - The system will notify you that the changes need to be applied to the server by restarting the involved services. Execute the required tasks.
Step 6 - Repeat the steps on each Front-End / SBA / SBS server.
Configuring the Verba Media Collector and Proxy for announcement
Step 1 - Open the Verba web interface, click on the System / Servers and select the Verba Media Collector and Proxy (Proxy Server, Edge Server or Mediation server in case of mediation based recording), or select the appropriate Configuration Profile at System / Configuration Profiles.Â
Step 2 - Go to the Change Configuration Settings tab. Expand the Media Collector and Proxy node.
Step 3 - Under the General section provide the SIP URI of the announcement service(s) at the Announcement Service Uris setting.
Step 4 -Â Click theÂ
 icon to save your settings.Step 5 - The system will notify you that the changes need to be applied to the server by restarting the involved services. Execute the required tasks.
Step 6 - Repeat the steps on each Proxy Server, Edge server or Mediation server in case of mediation based recording.
Configuring the Verba Passive Recorder for conference call announcement
Step 1 - Open the Verba web interface, click on the System / Servers and select the Recorder Server, or select the appropriate Configuration Profile at System / Configuration Profiles.Â
Step 2 - Go to the Change Configuration Settings tab, then expand the Passive Recorder / Recording Announcement for Lync Conference node.
Step 3 -Â Configure the following settings:
Configuration Parameter Name | Description | Sample Value |
---|---|---|
Announcement Service Urls | Conference call announcement settings in the following format: https://announcement_server_IP_or_hostname:12222|Priority or List of IP addresses of FE/AVMCU servers
 | Load balancing and failover configuration with priorities (2 announcement servers per datacenter): https://192.168.1.166:12222/|0 Load balancing and failover configuration with FE / AVMCU preference (1 announcement server per data center): https://192.168.1.166:12222/|192.168.1.210,192.168.1.211,192.168.1.217 |
Announcement Service Uris | The SIP addresses of the announcement service, one in a line. Required for hiding transfer information in metadata. | VerbaAnnouncement1@yourDomain.com |
Step 4 -Â Click theÂ
 icon to save your settings.Step 5 - The system will notify you that the changes need to be applied to the server by restarting the involved services. Execute the required tasks.
Step 6 - Repeat the steps on each Recording Server.
Configuring custom prompts for users (optional)
Available in version 8.3 and later |
---|
It is possible to configure custom notification sounds on a per user basis. To achieve this follow these steps:
Step 1 - Login to the Announcement server, and go to the C:\Program Files\Verba\resources\announcement folder.
Step 2 - Copy the .wma files to the conference, inbound and outbound folders.
Step 3 - Open the Verba web interface, click on the System / Servers and select the Media Repository server, or select the appropriate Configuration Profile at System / Configuration Profiles.Â
Step 4 - Click on the Change Configuration Settings tab. Expand the Web Application section.
Step 5 - Expand the Lync recording Announcement node, and add the names of the .wma files to the PSTN Inbound Announcement Prompt Files and the Conference Announcement Prompt Files, one in a line .
Step 6 -Â Click theÂ
 icon to save your settings.Step 7 - The system will notify you that the changes need to be applied to the server by restarting the involved services. Execute the required tasks.
Step 8 - Repeat the steps on each Media Repository server.
To configure the custom prompt for the users please see the User Configuration configuration.
Configuring announcement transfer hiding (optional)
Available in version 8.3 and later |
---|
It is possible to hide the announcement transfer information using Verba Announcement service. To achieve this follow these steps:
Step 1 - Open the Verba web interface, click on the System / Servers and select the SfB/Lync Front-End / SBA / SBS server, or select the appropriate Configuration Profile at System / Configuration Profiles.Â
Step 2 - Go to the Change Configuration Settings tab, then expand the SfB/Lync Call Filter / Recording Announcement node.
Step 3 - Set Hide transfer information from Announcement service to Yes.
Step 4 -Â Click theÂ
 icon to save your settings.Step 5 - The system will notify you that the changes need to be applied to the server by restarting the involved services. Execute the required tasks.
Step 6 -Â Repeat steps 1-5 on each SfB/Lync Front-End / SBA / SBS servers.
Step 7 - Navigate to System / Servers and select the Recording Server, or select the appropriate Configuration Profile at System / Configuration Profiles.Â
Step 8 - Click on the Change Configuration Settings tab. Expand the Passive Recorder / Recording Announcement for Lync Conference section.
Step 9 - At Announcement Service Uris, enter the SIP address of your announcement services.
Step 10 -Â Click theÂ
 icon to save your settings.Step 11 - The system will notify you that the changes need to be applied to the server by restarting the involved services. Execute the required tasks.
Step 12 -Â Repeat steps 7-11 on each Recording Servers.
Configuring redirect on failed transfer (optional)
Available in version 9.0 and later |
---|
In the case of the incoming calls, it is possible to also play announcement when the callee is not available actually. In the cases like this, an alternative destination has to be specified where the incoming call will terminate instead of the original callee.
Step 1 - Open the Verba web interface, click on the System / Servers and select the Announcement server, or select the appropriate Configuration Profile at System / Configuration Profiles.
Step 2 - Go to the Change Configuration Settings tab, then expand the SfB/Lync Recording Announcement / Advanced node.
Step 3 - Redirect targets can be configured at the "Redirect Targets for Failed Transfers" setting. The format is the following: sip_ui_or_line_number|response_code
One can be provided in each line. If the transfer fails, the service will try to redirect the call to the target with the matching response code. Wildcard (x) can be used in the response code.Â
john_doe@adatum.com|486 peter_parker@adatum.com|408 bruce_wayne@adatum.com|4xx
In this example, if the callee returns a busy (486) response, then the incoming call will be transferred to john_doe@adatum.com.
If the callee doesn't answer the call, just returns a timeout (408), then the incoming call will be transferred to peter_parker@adatum.com.
In the case of all other response codes starting with 4, the service will try to transfer the call to bruce_wayne@adatum.com, since it matching to all response codes starting with 4.
For the list of the response codes, see:Â https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_SIP_response_codes
Step 4 - Click the  icon to save your settings.Â
Step 5 - The system will notify you that the changes need to be applied to the server by restarting the involved services. Execute the required tasks.
Step 6 -Â Repeat steps 1-5 on each Recording Servers.