Unify²'s Presence Privacy Suite enables enterprises to control presence information of Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2 to become compliant with requirements of works councils.

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Presence is a core feature of Microsoft's Office Communication Server 2007 R2, enabling users to reach the right person the first time, avoiding the typical inefficiencies that arise from voicemail and endless phone tag. OCS’ rich presence provides a common, intuitive representation of a user’s availability for communications. It also provides other useful information and features such as the ability to share the time a user is away from their desk and the ability to monitor a user’s presence to help aid in enabling timely communications.

Although presence information is valuable to an organization as it enables users to know the availability of a colleague before attempting to contact him, it also presents privacy issues as users can view presence information of other users and potentially use it for purposes that may not be consistent with the enterprise’s code of conduct or works councils employee privacy requirements.

With Unify²'s Presence Privacy Suite, enterprises have the option of disabling presence information for all users in a given pool. When presence is disabled, users still have full use of all OCS communication modalities, including instant messaging, voice, video and conference calling. With the functionality of the Presence Privacy Suite, Office Communications Server 2007 R2 can be deployed while maintaining the privacy requirements of the works councils or other similar organizations.

The Presence Privacy Suite consists of a set of 3 utilities which provide the following functionality:

• Disabled Presence States (PresenceOffline Utility)
  The PresenceOffline utility sets the presence state for all users to "Offline". Users still are able to place and receive calls using all OCS modalities, including IM, voice and conferencing. Individual users may override this by explicitly setting their OCS presence state by using the “Sign In As” option in Office Communicator.
  
  
  
• Disabled Status Change Alerts (TagFilter Utility)
  The TagFilter utility will turn off all presence state change alerts. An OCS user will still able to tag a contact in his contact list, however no status change alerts will be sent by Office Communications Server.
  
  
  
• Disable state duration information (AwayStatus Utility)
  The AwayStatus utility will disable all presence “away from the desk” or “offline” duration information from being shared. This information is normally made available to other OCS users when the user accessing presence has been assigned to the “Company”, “Team” or “Personal” presence access levels. With the AwayStatus utility, OCS users are not able to see for how long a user has been in the presence state “Away” or “Offline”.
  
  

Unify² Enhanced Presence Privacy Suite for OCS 2007 R2

With the Unify² Presence Privacy Suite, presence information can only be disabled for all users in the given OCS pool. The Unify² Enhanced Presence Privacy Suite allows selectively excluding individual users from the restrictions provided by the Unify2 Presence Privacy Suite utilities. This is useful for response group contacts, attendant console users, or individual users who want to share their presence to enable more efficient communications. This way, OCS with its rich presence can be rolled out across the enterprise, where presence is controlled in a manner that the meets the business requirements while maintaining the privacy requirements of the work councils.

Additionally, the Unify² Enhanced Presence Privacy Suite also contains the following functionality:

• Disable presence polling (NonContact Presence Utility) This application suppresses sharing presence information in the case where the user trying to access presence is not contained in the given user’s contact list.

The purchase of Presence Privacy Suite or the Enhanced Presence Privacy Suite includes a company-wide license of Unify²'s BusyOnBusy tool.

Please contact emeasales@unifysquare.com for additional information.