Not many of us my know this yet, except for those with some product experience, but in Exchange 2010 Microsoft have changed the name of what we have traditionally know as Outlook Web Access to Outlook Web App. No worries though, its still abbreviated as OWA so our users won't be confused by it. The change in name is brought on by the new interface and host of additional freatures that have been added, one of which I will address in this post: Outlook Web App Integration with Office Communications Server 2007 R2.

So basically, now, with OWA 2010 we can integrate OWA and OCS so that the users who are logged into OWA 2010 have the ability, not only to work with their emails as everyone is used to, but also to see presence information and even exchange Instant Messages. Pretty cool huh?

So how do you do this you ask? Well its quite simple, really, but you do need to have the supporting infrastructure in place:

1. Exchange 2010
2. OCS 2007 R2

With those in place you can get started with the following Step-by-Step guide which was kindly provided by a colleage Gregory Horn for use in this blog post. Cheers Dude!!

Integrating Outlook Web App with Office Communications Server 2010

The technet article for how to do this can be found here. Although this article is pretty comprehensive, there are a few "gotcha's" we came accross prompting this blog post.

So now, down to the step by step:

  1. Download the Office Communications Server 2007 R2 Web Service Provider from here.

  2. Download the Office Communications Server 2007 R2 hotfix KB968802

  3. Copy both the downloaded files onto the server which is running the Exchange 2010 Client Access Server role

  4. (on the Client Access Server) Run CWAOWASSPMain.msi which you downloaded in step 1

  5. Find the directory where the files from CWAOWASSPMain.msi were placed. The default is C:\Web Services Provider Installer Package\

  6. Double-click on vcredist_x64.exe and follow the default installation steps

  7. Double-click on UcmaRedist.msi and follow the default installation steps

  8. Open a command window using "Run as Administrator" and run CWAOWASSP.msi

  9. If you are running Windows Server 2008 R2, you must install a patch for UcmaRdist.msi (downloaded in step2)

10. On the Client Access From Exchange Management Shell run this command: "Get-ExchangeCertificate | fl" Keep this window open for now

11. Edit C:\Program Files\Microsoft\Exchange Server\V14\ClientAccess\OWA\web.config

You need to change the three entries <add key="OCSServerName" value="" /> <add key="OCSCertificateIssuer" value="" /> <add key="OCSCertificateSerialNumber" value=""/> Your OCS server FQDN <add key="OCSServerName" value="pool-a.domain.local" /> Get this next info from step 9 <add key="OCSCertificateIssuer" value="CN=ca1, DC=domain, DC=local" /> You must put a space between each pair of figures <add key="OCSCertificateSerialNumber" value="52 98 3T 3P 00 00 00 00 00 9A"/> Save and close the file

12. From EMC run this command: Get-OwaVirtualDirectory | Set-OwaVirtualDirectory -InstantMessagingType OCS

13. Restart IIS (from CMD run IISRESET)

14. From OCS server add the “FQDN of the certificate” that you specified in the web.config as a trusted host to your OCS environment.  To do so, right click your pool and select Properties –> Front End Properties.  Click the Host Authorization tab and then click Add.  Add the FQDN of your Client Access and check the “Throttle as server” and “Treat as authenticated” check boxes.

There we go, having done that, you should not be able to log into Outlook Web App and see the presence information as well as interact with other users that you have added to your friends list.