DC Analytics : The Microsoft Lync Business Intelligence - Reporting & Billing

DC Analytics is a Lync reporting and billing software which helps you understand the business value of Lync deployment. The decision makers, IT managers and everyone involved in Lync product roadmap in any organisation require insight of Lync databases. An effective visual analytics of Lync databases in a meaningful construct, increases quick decision making abilities and helps to do predictive analysis of the business trend immensely.

 Some of the features:

• Overall Modality Trends
• Overall Audio / Video Session Trends
• Adoption & Trend (Know ROI and Plan the Infrastructure)
•  Call Quality Details
• Hardware Usage
• External Communications Reports

Some of the benefits:

·         Increased Adoption

·         Healthy ROI

·         Helps you meet compliance & IT governance

·         Companywide conferences, audio, video communication saves money:

·         Improved quality of experience

To know more: http://devcentrics.com/Home/Reporting

Microsoft Lync Call Quality Factors

If you are using a VoIP phone system (any platform), there is a good chance you have experienced poor call quality. Is this statement true? My personal experience of a decade into communications world, says something else. In my opinion, if the deployment is done with holistic understanding of product and considering various factors which determine call quality, then there is extremely remote chance of users experiencing poor call quality.

Many Lync customers complaint about the call quality issues. When they try to connect to a Lync conference or make a peer to peer call, the audio or video quality may be choppy, tinny, or delayed. Ever wondered what could be the contributing factors? In this article, we would try to understand such factors which play an important role in determining Lync call quality.

Read more: http://blog.devcentrics.com/2014/09/05/microsoft-lync-call-quality-factors/

Why Ethical Wall for Microsoft Lync?

Power of Microsoft Lync

Microsoft Lync Server is unified communications (UC) platform which provides an infrastructure to integrate communication modalities like instant messaging (IM), Presence, VoIP (voice over IP), file transfer, Web conferencing, voice mail and email etc. Microsoft Lync enables seamless communication within a single organization, between multiple organizations, and with external individuals.

Why Information Barrier?

While seamless communication helps companies to increase their ability to reach internal/external workforces brilliantly, it throws compliance challenges to some of the industries. With so much information created, saved and accessible via collaboration tools, it becomes equally important to ensure internal and government compliance are met during this seamless form of communication between the agents.

Read more at http://blog.devcentrics.com/2014/10/07/ethical-wall-content-filter-for-microsoft-lync-dc-stockade/

MSFT released a cumulative update for Lync 2013 : April 2014

MSFT released a cumulative update for Lync 2013.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2880474

This cumulative update resolves the following issues:

• 2941631  Cannot drag a distribution group to change position in your contact list in Lync 2013
• 2941639  Call forwarding to the Response Group fails in Lync 2013
• 2941640  Desktop sharing session stops in Lync 2013 when all screen data is updated
• 2941643  Caller cannot close the window of a transferred call in Lync 2013
• 2941654  Update sorts and searches contacts by Furigana in Lync 2013
• 2941658  CTRL+TAB does not work when you switch between conversation windows in Lync 2013
• 2941682  Instant message appears using incorrect text format when the DisableRTFIM setting is enabled in Lync 2013
• 2941659  Callee’s name and detailed information is missing from the conversation history of a Lync 2013 outgoing call
• 2941636  Search fails in Lync 2013 when non-Latin characters are used in a different case from the AD DS attributes
• 2941635  Can’t sign in to Lync 2013 when Office 365 account UPN differs from domain account UPN
• 2954951  Slow screen update in application sharing or desktop sharing session in Lync 2013
• 2955577  Lync 2013 takes a long time to sign in after reconnect to the network
• 2955579   Lync 2013 displays un-encoded texts in a toast notification or an instant message sent to another messaging client
• 2955580  Update adds a button to show details about limited functionalities when Lync 2013 connects to a backup pool

Additionally, this cumulative update resolves the Lync 2013 issues that are described in the following KB articles:

• 2863908  Description of the Lync 2013 update 2863908: March, 2014
• 2817430  Description of Microsoft Office 2013 Service Pack 1 (SP1)
• 2825630  Description of the Lync 2013 update 15.0.4551.1005: November 7, 2013
• 2817465  MS13-054: Description of the security update for Lync 2013: July 9, 2013
• 2768004  Description of the Lync 2013 update 15.0.4481.1004: May 2013
• 2760556  Description of the Lync 2013 update 15.0.4481.1000: March 2013
• 2760512  Description of the Lync 2013 update: February 2013

 

Unified Communications Product Evaluation

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Microsoft Lync Server 2013 Documentation Help File Update

Microsoft releases updated version of Microsoft Lync Server 2013 Documentation Help File.

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=35405

 

Call Quality Methodology – a practical approach

Want to know more about Call Quality Methodology? It's time to go through the updated version of Lync Server Networking Guide v2.


What is CQM?

CQM is a holistic way to systematically define and assert call quality based upon the methods outlined in the Networking Guide. CQM divides a Lync implementation into ten discrete areas that impact quality, defining targets and a remediation plan for each one. CQM is a framework to tackle call quality problems – you can modify or extend it to address the particular conditions on your network.

For more details: http://blogs.technet.com/b/nexthop/archive/2013/10/21/announcing-the-release-of-the-lync-server-networking-guide-v2.aspx

Configuring DHCP scope options for Lync phone in non-windows environment

Dealing non-windows environment has always been exciting for a windows professional. A non-windows DHCP server can be configured with hex value to support Lync phone login.  Usually this is what you configure in Windows DHCP server.

Option Number	Option Name	String Value
1	UCIdentifier	MS-UC-Client
2	URLScheme	https
3	WebServerFQDN	Lyncweb.contoso.com
4	WebServerPort	443
5	CertProvRelPath	CertProv/CertProvisioningService.svc
120	SIP-Servers	lyncpool.contoso.com

 

Which you can convert to hex using any online string to hex converter. However it may not be sufficient. During an engagement I used several string to hex converters, but of no use. Finally I used the tool which I should have used at first go; DHCPUtil.exe. :)
 
Located DHCPUtil.exe on Lync server (%ProgramFiles%\Common Files\Microsoft Lync Server 2013) command prompt. Ran following command.

DHCPUtil.exe -SipServer lyncpool.contoso.com -WebServer lyncweb.contoso.com >Hex.txt

It created a file Hex.txt under %ProgramFiles%\Common Files\Microsoft Lync Server 2013. This file has corresponding hex values for DHCP scope options. We could login in Lync phone clients (hard reboot is required) successfully after configuring the DHCP server with HEX values.

For detailed instruction on how to configure DHCP scope options for Lync phone client: http://blog.schertz.name/2010/12/configuring-lync-server-for-phone-edition-devices/
 

Step by Step: Enabling Lync 2013-Skype federation.

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Lync 2013 Duplicate Contacts Entry (From Outlook)

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