Setting up the offline messaging service for all community servers 

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Use Community Server Global Settings to enable the offline messaging service and define default settings for all community servers. You can also decide how many offline messages to save for each user and the length of time to save delivered and undelivered offline messages. After you enable the service, you must also set the Instant Messaging policy called "Allow users to send offline messages." The policy allows specific users to send messages to offline users and those whose status is "Do not disturb."

Before you begin

If you are running Sametime® Community Servers in a cluster, verify that the cluster meets these requirements before enabling offline messaging.

• A home cluster is defined for all users.
• All Community Servers in the cluster are running Sametime 8.5.2 Interim Feature Release 1 or later.
• The Community Server cluster is running on a Domino® cluster to prevent lags in database replication time.
• You have synchronized the time for all Community Servers in the cluster.
  
  

About this task

Use the Sametime System Console to enable the offline messaging service and to set defaults for offline messages. These settings apply to all Sametime Community Servers managed by the Sametime System Console.

Procedure

1. Log in to the Deployment Manager Integrated Solutions Console.
2. Click Sametime System Console -> Sametime Servers -> Sametime Community Servers.
3. Click Community Server Global Settings.
4. Click Enable offline messages.
5. Decide how many delivered and undelivered offline messages to store for each user.
   
When the limit is reached, no further offline messages are accepted until some messages expire. Do not set this to a large value because of database size and performance concerns. The default is 50.

6. Decide how long to save offline messages after they have been delivered.
   
By default, offline messages are stored for 5 days. To refrain from saving offline messages, set the value to 0.

Saved offline messages allow users running the Sametime 8.5.2 IFR1 client to retrieve their messages again if the chat history is disabled on the client.

7. Decide how long to hold undelivered offline messages before flagging them as expired.
   
By default, undelivered offline messages are held 60 days and then marked as expired. Expired undelivered messages are deleted from the server. The sender receives notice of any undelivered messages, including the time and text of each deleted message, so that the message can be sent again if necessary. This notification is sent as an offline message and the sender receives at login time or after exiting the "Do not disturb" state.

8. Click OK.
   

Results

Community Server Global Settings are also backed up in the Sametime Community Server data directory in the offlineMessages.xml file. This file provides offline message settings for the Sametime Community Server if the Sametime System Console is shut down.

Parent topic: Configuring a Sametime Community Server

Related tasks
Enabling local chat logging
Defining offline message settings for individual Community Servers

Related reference
Sametime Instant Messaging user policy settings