Chat room categories are used to develop a
logical structure for the organization of chat rooms, and also serve as
a mechanism for controlling which users and groups are permitted to
create or join the chat rooms within those categories. Each category
also contains properties that determine the options available for the
chat rooms within that category.
Each chat room has only one parent category.
For each category created, Persistent Chat administrators can allow or
deny membership to rooms that belong to that category, and can also
assign users to be creators for the category. A user who is assigned as
a creator for a category has permissions to create chat rooms, assign
members, and assign managers for the chat rooms within that category.
Assigning creator rights at the category level is therefore an
effective means for Persistent Chat administrators to delegate chat
room management to responsible users, typically department heads or
power users. Users who have creator rights can then in turn assign
other users to be managers of individual chat rooms. Chat room managers
can configure many aspects of the chat rooms for which they have been
assigned as a manager, including chat room membership.
Categories that are well-designed result in
an effective chat room structure that meets the needs of the users, and
at the same time simplifies delegated administration of the Persistent
Chat environment. Figure 3 shows an example of a category and chat room structure that might be used to model an organization’s departmental structure.
Figure 3. Example of a Persistent Chat category and chat room structure.
Following are the options that are available for configuration with each category:
• Invitations—Controls
whether chat rooms within the category will support invitations, which
are used to notify users when they have been added as chat room members.
• File Upload—Determines whether file uploads are permitted for chat rooms within the category.
Note
The File Upload setting applies only in
environments that include legacy Group Chat clients, since these are
the only clients that can post files to a chat room. The Lync Server
2013 Persistent Chat client does not have file upload/download
capability; therefore, this setting does not have any effect on a
native Lync Server 2013 environment.
• Chat History—Determines
whether chat history will be maintained for chat rooms within the
category. Disabling chat history at the category level effectively
makes chat nonpersistent for all chat rooms in that category.
• Allowed Membership—Determines which users are allowed to be members of chat rooms in the category.
Tip
Adding Active Directory objects to the
allowed membership at the category level does not automatically cause
the affected users to become members of any chat room. It simply allows
those users to be added as members to the chat rooms in that category,
which is configured at the chat room level. Users who are denied at the
category level cannot be members of any chat room in that category.
The following steps would be used to create one of the Persistent Chat categories shown earlier in Figure 3:
1. Log on to a system where the Lync administrative tools are installed using an account that is a member of the CsAdministrator or CsPersistentChatAdministrator security groups, and open the Lync Server Control Panel.
2. In the left pane, select Persistent Chat, and then click the Category tab at the top.
3. Click New; then, at
the Select a Service dialog box, select the Persistent Chat pool that
will be associated with this category, and click OK.
Note
The Select a Service dialog box determines
the Persistent Chat pool that will be used by Lync clients to identify
which pool a particular category belongs to. After it has been created,
a category can belong to only one pool, and cannot be moved to a
different pool.
4. At the New Category screen, enter the name for the category, and optionally enter a description.
5. Select the chat
room options that will be enabled for the chat rooms in this category:
invitations, file upload, and chat history (see previous description).
6. In the Allowed Members section, click Add.
7. The Select Allowed
Members dialog box now appears, which allows the option to search for
four types of Active Directory objects that can be added as allowed
members: organizational units, distribution groups, domains, and
individual user accounts. Enter the name of an AD object to search and
click Find.
8. After the object appears in the list, select the object and click OK.
9. The New Category screen now shows the AD object as an allowed member for the category, as shown in Figure 4. Repeat steps 6 through 8 as needed to add additional allowed members.
Figure 4. New Persistent Chat category.
10. Scroll down farther in the New Category screen to bring the Denied Members and Creators sections into view.
11. In the Denied Members section, click Add.
12. The Select Denied
Members dialog box now appears, which allows the option to search for
Active Directory objects that can be added as denied members. Enter the
name of an organizational unit, a distribution group, a domain, or an
individual user account and click Find.
13. After the object appears in the list, select the object and click OK.
14. Repeat steps 11 through 13 as needed to add additional denied members.
15. In the Creators section, click Add.
16.
The Select Creators dialog box now appears, which allows the option to
search for Active Directory objects that can be added as creators.
Enter the name of an organizational unit, a distribution group, a
domain, or individual user account and click Find.
Note
Each user who is added as a creator must
first be added to the allowed member list for the category, either
explicitly or via membership in an organizational unit or a
distribution group. Also, a user must not be a member of the denied
member list for the category to be added as a creator.
17. After the object appears in the list, select the object and click OK.
18. Repeat steps 15 through 17 as needed to add additional creators.
19. When finished, click Commit to save the new category.
