How to Collaborate with Federation Partners
OCS has an exciting feature called federation that allows for OCS users at UK to be able to view presence, send instant messages and place computer-to-computer voice calls (provided that your computer is equipped with speakers and a microphone or a headset) with OCS users from other institutions that are federated with UK. Below is the list of current federation partners and instructions on how to get setup and start collaborating with colleagues at these partner sites. This list will be updated as the number of federation partners grows. Please check back periodically for updates.
Adding Federated Users to Your Communicator Client
Adding federated partner OCS users is as easy as adding UK OCS users to your communicator contact list. The one stipulation is the remote user must be an OCS user in the federated partner's system AND have their account enabled for Federation! There is one difference however, in that we can't see a federated partner's Global Address List, so it will not work by simply typing the person's name like it does within our own system. Therefore, you must know the person's OCS Sign-in address (basically their email address) in order to add them to your contact list. The easiest way to get things setup is for you and the remote person you wish to add to your communicator contact list to exchange emails so you both have each other's OCS Sign-in address. Here at UK, your OCS Sign-in address it is your Active Directory userid: userid@uky.edu.
In your communicator client you see a line below your presence indicator
that says
Type a name or phone number
This is where you will enter the SIP address of the remote person you wish to add to your contact list.
When typing in the user's OCS Sign-in address, in this example someone@federation.partner.domain, their presence will always show up as "Presence unknown". This is because the way federation works, remote users are not validated until they are added to your contact list. Once you have the entire address typed in, click on the username, even through it is showing "Presence unknown", and drag them to the contact group you want them to be in and drop them there.
If this example, had been an actual valid user at one of our federated partners, and that user was a valid OCS user in their system, adding them to the list of contacts would have displayed their current presence information: Available, Busy, Away, In a meeting, Offline, etc.
Current Federation Partners
Kentucky Community and Technical College System (KCTCS)
The KCTCS OCS domain is: kctcs.edu
To add users from the KCTCS domain to your communicator contact list, email the person at KCTCS you wish to collaborate with and exchange OCS Sign-in information.
Indiana University
The Indiana University Domains are: indiana.edu, iu.edu, iupui.edu
To add users from one or more of the Indiana University domains to your communicator contact list, email the person at Indiana University you wish to collaborate with and exchange OCS Sign-in information.
Microsoft Corporation
The Microsoft OCS domain is: microsoft.com
To add users from the microsoft.com domain to your communicator contact list, email the person at Microsoft you wish to collaborate with and exchange OCS Sign-in information.
Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology
The Rose-Hulman domain is: rose-hulman.edu
To add users from the rose-hulman.edu domain to your communicator contact list, email the person at Rose-Hulman you wish to collaborate with and exchange OCS Sign-in information.
Tandberg Corporation
The Tandberg Domain is: tandberg.net
To add users from the Tandberg Corporation domain to your communicator contact list, email the person at Tandberg you wish to collaborate with and exchange OCS Sign-in information.
Vanderbilt University
The Vanderbilt University Domain is: vanderbilt.edu
To add users from the Vanderbilt University domain to your communicator contact list, email the person at Vanderbilt University you wish to collaborate with and exchange OCS Sign-in information.
Western Kentucky University
The Vanderbilt University Domain is: wku.edu
To add users from the Western Kentucky University domain to your communicator contact list, email the person at Western Kentucky University you wish to collaborate with and exchange OCS Sign-in information.