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Technical description of Cisco TMSXN
Technical description of Cisco TMSXN
Overview
The Cisco TelePresence Management Suite Extension for IBM Lotus Notes allows Lotus Notes Client
users connected to a Domino Server to book, update and delete video conferences directly from within
their Lotus Notes client. The integration is based upon representing each system in Cisco TMS as a
room in a resource reservation database in Domino. Video conferences are scheduled by inviting the
rooms to a meeting in the Calendar, or by making reservations directly in the Resource Reservation
Database. Notes functionality such as free-time information and Address Book entries from the
Resource Reservation Database are kept intact, but reservations/cancellations in this database will
not be committed until they have been processed by the Cisco TMS server and committed in Cisco
TMS. The mail template of the Lotus Notes users can be replaced or updated to allow video
conference-specific properties to be specified when scheduling a meeting with video rooms. The Lotus
Notes client will never contact the Cisco TMS server directly.
Synchronizing changes from Cisco TMS
The Scheduled Synchronizer Agent is installed on the Domino server and propagates all the
bookings/changes/cancellations performed on Cisco TMS into the Domino Resource Reservation
Database. Cisco TMSXN tracks a transaction log kept on the Cisco TMS server to make sure that the
database is up to date. The Scheduled Synchronizer Agent polls the Cisco TMS server at a specified
time interval to retrieve changes, and updates and processes changes in the Resource Reservation
Database, as required. Activity for the Scheduled Synchronizer Agent can be viewed in the Domino
Server log.
Synchronizing changes to Cisco TMS
Bookings and updates from the Lotus Notes clients are delivered by the Domino Mail system to the
Resource Reservation Database and queued. After a request reaches the database, the
AgentManager initiates the Java agent TMSTrigger installed on the Domino Server to process the
request. This agent submits the booking or meeting update to Cisco TMS, which in turn tries to commit
the change to the Cisco TMS database. After successfully booking in Cisco TMS, this process moves
the Lotus Notes client's request from the pending queue to the Reservations view in the Resource
Reservation Database on the Domino server, and sends a meeting acceptance email to the Notes
user who submitted the reservation, together with the information about the meeting (call route, web
conference details etc.). If the meeting could not be booked in Cisco TMS, the agent will send a
meeting reject email to the Lotus Notes user who submitted the reservation—with the reason why the
meeting could not be booked (such as system not available, no MCU to host the meeting, no gateway
available). Once booked, the meeting appears in Cisco TMS with the owner of the meeting being the
Cisco TMS Service Account created during installation. All meetings booked through Lotus are owned
by this user account in Cisco TMS.
Cancellations from the Lotus Notes client are not queued, but are performed "on the fly". The Lotus
Notes client tries to delete the reservation in the Resource Reservation Database, and this event will
be handled by the compiled TMSEventCatcher.dll on the Domino Server that will start a java agent
that will contact the Cisco TMS server and cancel the meeting. If the meeting is active, the video
conference is ended. If the Cisco TMS server cannot be contacted, the reservation will not be deleted.
Only Resource Calendars are modified by Cisco TMSXN. User Calendars are not modified, and users
are responsible for adding/removing changes if they are not the user who is initiating the meeting
change.
Communication between Cisco TMS and IBM Lotus Domino
All communication with the Cisco TMS server is done using web services (HTTP), implemented in
Java on the Domino server. The network link between the Cisco TMS server and the Domino server
Cisco TMS Extension for IBM Lotus Notes – Installation and getting started guide
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Troubleshooting
