Cisco Unified MeetingPlace, Release 6.x -- User Information

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Revision as of 17:03, 20 May 2009

Cisco Unified MeetingPlace, Release 6.x > Cisco Unified MeetingPlace Audio Server > Planning the installation > Information Types

Most people who use Cisco Unified MeetingPlace must be assigned a user profile. User profiles identify and define the limits of user access. The information in each person's user profile identifies the person as an end user, a contact, attendant, or system administrator. User profiles also contain administrative and preference information.

Because multiple users might share common attributes, the database includes user groups, with which you enter information for several users simultaneously. You can also import profile information from another database (for example, from your voice-mail or e-mail system).

A user profile is required for anyone who wants to schedule a meeting, including vendors, consultants, and other people who may not work for your company. People who use Cisco Unified MeetingPlace only to attend meetings or to listen to recorded meetings do not need user profiles.

Synchronization between the Cisco Unified MeetingPlace database and a corporate database is automatic if you have Cisco Unified MeetingPlace Directory Services installed. For more information, see Maintaining Cisco Unified MeetingPlace Directory Services.

If no value is specified for a user group field, the default is the value for that field in the guest profile. Ensure you have the correct information by reviewing the guest profile settings before you enter user profiles and user groups.

Creating User Groups

When you have several users with common attributes, create a user group with those attributes. Then, assign the individual users to the user group. Doing so saves the time and energy of creating and maintaining duplicate information, and reduces errors. The information defined for the user group applies to every user who belongs to the group. (For more information, see the Creating User Profiles.)

Each person who belongs to the user group must also have an individual user profile. When their profile information differs from the information for their user group, the user profile information takes precedence.

We recommend that you create user groups before you create user profiles. You can set up user groups in the following ways:

• Set up groups based on a user's class of service (as described in the Planning for Groups and Teams).
• Define groups by region, department, or level of management, and then assign a contact to represent each functional group. Additionally, your company may define particular groups by their billing codes.

Planning for Groups and Teams

As you plan a database, understanding the differences between the following terms is important:

• "Teams" define users who will most likely attend the same meeting. Users can belong to multiple teams.
• "Groups" define users with a shared set of attributes, such as common system settings (for example, classes of service and regions) and common business characteristics (for example, departments, levels of management, and billing codes). Users are assigned to only one group.

Table: Planning Groups and Teams shows user groups defined by class of service (COS).

Table: Planning Groups and Teams

Creating User Profiles

Any user who will schedule meetings in Cisco Unified MeetingPlace must have a user profile. User profiles identify each user to the system and classify the system access that each user requires.

The classification assigned to a user determines which Cisco Unified MeetingPlace features the user can access. When users attend meetings, Cisco Unified MeetingPlace identifies them by their user profiles and assigns them privileges based on their profiles. For example, a profile determines whether a person can outdial during a meeting.

To allow users without profiles to attend meetings, a guest profile (profile number 0000) resides on the system. This profile defines the privileges of all guests and is used whenever users do not identify themselves to the system. System administrators can modify the guest profile but they cannot delete it.

The guest profile acts as a template. When you create a user profile, the profile derives its attributes from the guest profile. However, the guest profile does not provide values for the first name, last name, user ID, and profile number fields.

Because two users cannot have the same user ID or profile number, the values for these fields must be unique. We recommend the following values for assigning to user IDs and profile numbers, which will be easy for your users to remember:

After you create user profiles, users can change their meeting preferences.

Each user profile includes a time zone setting. Set the time zone to reflect the geographical location in which users do business. When a user schedules a meeting, the system uses the home time zone setting to determine the time. For guest profiles, set the time zone to the location of the Cisco Unified MeetingPlace system.

Remember the following information:

• For a description of each parameter in a user's profile, see Worksheet 5-18: User Profiles.
• One of the most important settings in the guest profile is whether to allow users to outdial. To help prevent unauthorized outdialing from your system, we recommend that guest participants not be allowed to outdial.
• Reservationless meetings use profile numbers as reservationless meeting IDs. When the Reservationless Meetings feature is turned on, profile numbers cannot match existing meeting IDs. If you try to create a profile number that matches an existing meeting ID, the system notifies you of the conflict. To resolve the conflict, either change the meeting ID or assign a different profile number for the user.
• After you add a new user or update the information for a user, you must wait for the information to be propagated to the Cisco Unified MeetingPlace web cache before the change takes affect. This usually occurs at midnight. You can also manually propagate the change by ....

Importing User Profile and Group Information

If the information required for user profiles or user groups already exists in another database, such as an e-mail directory, a voice-mail directory, or a human resources database, you can import the profile information directly into the Cisco Unified MeetingPlace database.

This section contains the following information:

• Importing with Cisco Unified MeetingPlace Directory Services
• Importing Files Manually
• Required File Format

Importing with Cisco Unified MeetingPlace Directory Services

Using a directory service, a company can store information about all its resources and personnel in one place, and allow other applications to access that information from a single source. Using the Directory Services integration application decreases the cost of managing information, which increases control and consistency of information, and makes security uniform across applications.

Directory Services synchronizes information in your corporate directory server with information in Cisco Unified MeetingPlace Audio Server. It interacts with common corporate directories such as Microsoft Active Directory and Netscape Directory Server through Lightweight Data Access Protocol (LDAP).

Information about new employees is entered into the corporate directory when they join the organization. Directory Services detects the addition and instantly creates a profile for new employees. As employees change departments and offices, their contact information changes. To ensure that Cisco Unified MeetingPlace has the most accurate information, changes to a person's information in the corporate directory are recognized and replicated on Directory Services. These automatic profile updates ease system use and limit calls to the help desk.

For more information, see Cisco Unified MeetingPlace Directory Services, Release 5.4.

Importing Files Manually

If you do not have Cisco Unified MeetingPlace Directory Services installed, you must complete a manual file import. To simplify this process, you can import only those fields that contain profile- or group-specific information, such as user IDs, profile numbers, group names, group numbers, and contact information (such as e-mail addresses and phone numbers).

For specifications on the database fields, see File Import Specifications.

Required File Format

The import file must be a .csv file or a comma-delimited ASCII file (an unformatted or flat file). The first line of the file is a group of keywords that acts as a header and identifies the order in which data appears in all subsequent lines.

For example, if each line of information starts with the first name of the user and then lists the person's last name, user ID, profile number, phone number, contact user ID, group name, and time zone code, it would look like this:

fnm,lnm,uid,prfnum,phnum,ctcuid,name,tzcode

Chris,Lee,Lee,206,5551234,Patton,system,87

Pat,Park,Park,202,5556789,Patton,system,87

Before creating an import file, remember the following information:

• Any spaces placed at the beginning or end of a value is automatically deleted during the import process unless the value and the leading or ending spaces are enclosed in double quotation marks (" "). Spaces within a value (for example using Tech Support as a billing code) are imported without being deleted.
• Any commas used in a value must be enclosed in double quotation marks, as in "Lee,Chris" for a user ID.
• Text types are not case sensitive.