Save Jabber chat history in outlook

[Joe]

Hi

We are rolling out BE6k's for customers, and one question keeps surfacing: if there is a way to save employee chat history, and search it.

I realize there are 2 sides of this... one being a way to save it, and the second is being able to search (and moderate) the chat history.

Ideally, the chat history could get saved to Outlook the same way Lync does... in a simple folder in Outlook.

As for searching chats, it's important to be able to go back and pull them up.

This is also being asked from some government agencies and smaller financial institutions as they want to be able to go through chats for compliance (and other) reasons.

Is anyone aware if this can be done natively within the Business Edition 6000/7000 series (running 10+) OR if there is a third party application that does this?  

Thanks!

[Jaime Valencia]

Yes, it's called compliance and you need a PostgreSQL or Oracle DB set up for this, you can find documentation about this on CCO in the IM&P docs.

[sporterdmc]

I have been trying to find this out for over 2 months, I was told that this was possible. The only way I found is by using SQLIte to read the local database. This is by no means user friendly. Are you saying that we have to now add yet another database server to store the history? How are normal users supposed to do this. Lync works great, I have used XMPP with multiple other clients and the history is quite easily accessible by the end user typically with an interface to read them. Pidgin lets the user simply pick a user and search all the history.

[Jaime Valencia]

The latest release of Jabber allows you to save the chat you had in html by enabling EnableSaveChatToFile

But yes, IM&P requires a separate server in which to hold all the messages that go thru the server, this is for management purposes, not really meant for users.

Persistent chat will hold all the messages, but this also requires a separate DB server to hold them.

You're free to use any other XMPP client you prefer which has this capabilities on the client side.

[sporterdmc]

I will have to hit up our vendor for the latest version of the client. It seems when I ask for any updates for the client the server is not configured properly. So by saving the chat in html then that is per user and no need for the database server? The way you describe it that would be for if we did not want to maintain it locally. Thank you for the quick response, I will need to come here more often for answers, appreciate it. 

[sporterdmc]

Jamie, I got 9.7.2. I am not seeing an option for this in the client, can I assume that is a server side setting? I did find that I right click on a conversation and save it as html. It looks as if that has been there for a few versions. Albeit better still not as good as other Jabber clients. I am going to try another client. It is disappointing that such a basic function is not built in. Please let me know if I missed something here that makes this better, thanks. 

[Jaime Valencia]

The setting is configured in the jabber-config.xml file, and what you mention, that's all you get. You need to save each conversation, again, you might want to look into other XMPP clients that have this built-in, in the client side. Of course, then losing some of the Jabber features as telephony, CTI, etc.

http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/voice_ip_comm/jabber/Windows/9_7/JABW_BK_C4C679C9_00_cisco-jabber-for-windows-97/JABW_BK_C4C679C9_00_cisco-jabber-for-windows-97_chapter_0110.html

If you want this in a future release, engage your account team to submit a PER.

[sporterdmc]

Again, thanks for the quick response. Kind of a catch 22. I will certainly look into providing feedback, this seems like a basic function that as you stated many others including Lync provide. 

Cheers

[Joe]

Hey Jamie

With the new 10.5.0 client (using build 37889) is this now a feature?

What our client is asking us for is really simple on the surface.

They want their chat history to be recorded and viewable in Outlook - be it a folder or in a special place, the way that Lync stores history. This way it can also be archived etc.

Thoughts?

[Jaime Valencia]

The name is Jaime, not Jamie

No, what you're asking is not possible, if you want to review the new features on 10.5, the RNs has them all listed

All we provide is that either you configure compliance, on PostgreSQL or Oracle, or use a 3rd party to record the messages.

From client side, the save to chat to html option is all you have.

[sumit.lubal11]

This site simply solves this problem  http://www.2010bit.com/saving-history-in-cisco-jabber/

[Josh Edwards]

Hi Joe - I realize that this is a fairly old post but Cisco has now made this feature available in Jabber for windows 10.6/11.0 and later:

You can enable the client to automatically save chat histories to a Cisco Jabber Chats folder in users' Microsoft Outlook application. When a user closes a chat window, the client saves the IM conversation to the Exchange server.

To enable the feature, you must:

• Set the EnableSaveChatHistoryToExchange parameter to true in the jabber-config.xml file.

• (optional) Set up a method to authenticate users to the Exchange server. If you don't specify an authentication method, then users can authenticate directly from the Outlook tab in the Options menu of their clients.

• Specify the method for determining which server to use.

The details are the Jabber Deployment and Installation Guide:

http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/voice_ip_comm/jabber/11_0/CJAB_BK_D657A25F_00_deployment-installation-guide-jabber-110/CJAB_BK_D657A25F_00_deployment-installation-guide-jabber-110_chapter_01110.html#CJAB_RF_SAB1DB8B_00