1. Client Integrations with Other Applications
As is typical with many Microsoft back office
applications, one of its key value propositions is its integration with
other Microsoft applications. Microsoft always touts its concept of
“better together” when selling its products and Lync Server 2010 is no
different. After the client is installed, there are hooks into several
other Microsoft applications, which are discussed in the following
sections.
Integration with Outlook
One of the strongest areas of integration for the
Communicator client is with Outlook. When the Communicator client is
installed, it adds hooks into the Outlook view that integrate into
contact information. For example, when an e-mail is received in
Outlook, you can immediately see Presence information for any Lync
Server users that are listed in any of the To, CC, or From fields. This
immediately tells the recipient whether these people are available. By
placing the mouse over a name with Presence information, you receive
information about the users and are presented an interface that
contains many of the Communicator buttons, as shown in Figure 1.
Visible in the initial pop-up is the display name of
the user, the current status, calendar information, and the status
message. The available options include the following:
Focusing
on the options that are specific to the Communicator client
integration, clicking Send an instant message spawns the typical IM
window from within Communicator. Sending an IM results in the contact
getting a pop-up that the other person is requesting an IM
conversation. This pop-up can be either responded to or ignored. This
process is effectively identical to finding the contact in the
Communicator client and launching an IM conversation, but with the
added convenience of having done it directly from Outlook. In this
manner, you get additional choices in terms of how you will interact
with another user. Rather than being forced to reply to an e-mail
through e-mail, you can choose to communicate through instant messages.
Clicking Call contact results in the contact getting
a pop-up that the other person is requesting an audio call. Accepting
the call connects the two users through an audio conference that is
hosted by Lync Server. This is a useful option to avoid a lengthy
e-mail reply or if a conversation is of a sensitive nature and
shouldn’t be stored in e-mail.
Clicking Start a video call results in the contact
getting a pop-up that the other person is requesting a video
connection. Assuming the user has a camera, she is able to join a video
call with the other person. As with any video call, the person who
receives the call needs to start the video if she has a camera and
wants the other person to see her. Similarly, video calls include audio
so that the two are able to easily communicate with each other.
Clicking Add contact to instant messenger contact
list adds contacts that don’t yet exist in the Communicator contact
list. Using this interface effectively invokes the normal interface for
adding contacts, but it prepopulates the e-mail address of the contact
you want to add. Just click Next and Finish to add the user.
Optionally, you can type a message to personalize the invitation.
The Communicator client also accesses your calendar
if you are hosted on Exchange. From this connection, it is able to see
calendar availability and can automatically change your status based on
the calendar. For example, if you are in a meeting, your status
automatically changes to Busy (In a meeting).
Integration with Office
Communicator offers some integration with
Microsoft Office that can make it easier to collaborate with other
users. For example, in the Review tab in Microsoft Word, you can choose
to share a document through an instant message. This offers contacts
from Communicator or enables the user to choose Other. Clicking Other
gives access to the full contact list from Communicator or enables you
to type an e-mail address to which to send the document. Selecting an
IM contact invites the contact to a conversation and offers the contact
a file transfer with the document in it. This is a quick and handy way
to have a coworker perform a document review for you. Somewhat oddly,
Excel 2011 and PowerPoint 2011 don’t offer the IM option in review.
2. Tuning Hardware for Communicator Client
The
Communicator client for Macintosh enables users to communicate with
each other through both audio and video. As such, it’s a good idea to
tune the audio and video subsystems of the Macintosh that is running
the client in order to optimize the experience for the user.
For those that might not be familiar with the
Macintosh operating system, items such as audio and video are managed
through System Preferences. This can be accessed either through the
Dock (the icons displayed on the bottom of the screen) or by clicking
the Apple logo at the top left corner of the screen and choosing System
Preferences. When looking for System Preferences in the Dock, look for
a grey square with a large gear and two smaller gears.
Tuning the Display
The System Preferences interface is broken up into
five rows including Personal, Hardware, Internet & Wireless,
System, and Other. Clicking the Displays icon, located in the Hardware
row, opens a new menu. From this menu, you can select screen
resolutions. In general, for the best visual results, pick the native
resolution of the screen. This is especially important when using an
LCD or liquid crystal display. Although displays can generally run in
multiple resolutions, they are optimized for one particular resolution.
As Wikipedia describes it, “While CRT monitors can usually display
images at various resolutions, an LCD monitor has to rely on
interpolation (scaling of the image), which causes a loss of image
quality. An LCD has to scale up a smaller image to fit into the area of
the native resolution. This is the same principle as taking a smaller
image in an image editing program and enlarging it; the smaller image
loses its sharpness when it is expanded.” Thus when using an external
LCD or the built-in LCD display on a Macintosh laptop, it is important
to ensure that it’s running at its native resolution. Typically, a
monitor can inform a computer of its native resolution through extended
display identification data (EDID). If a monitor doesn’t support this
standard, search online for the native resolution. If it can’t be
found, experiment with various resolutions. Generally, it is obvious
when you select the native resolution because the text will look
crisper.
Another feature that is available on the Macintosh
laptops is support for automatically adjusting brightness as ambient
light changes. This enables the laptop screen to adjust to the
conditions of the room and is helpful when users move their laptop back
and forth between well-lit and poorly lit locations.
Clicking the Color button offers additional options
for managing the display profiles. Picking a profile that matches the
output monitor can result in a more accurate representation of colors,
which means people will look more natural when in a video call.
Tuning the Audio
In
the Hardware row of the System Preferences page is an icon for sound.
Clicking this icon opens a screen with three tabs, which include Sound
Effects, Output, and Input. Sound effects are used by various
notifications within the Communicator client and their relative volume
can be managed here.
Clicking the Output tab enables you to control
overall volume of the output and gives you control over basic audio
features such as left/right balance.
Clicking Input enables you to modify the
sensitivity of the microphone. This is probably the most critical step
in optimizing the experience in audio calls. If the microphone is too
sensitive, it can clip or send a distorted signal. If sensitivity is
too low, other users will have a difficult time hearing the person
speaking into the microphone. One excellent feature offered on the
Macintosh is native noise reduction. By checking the box labeled Use
ambient noise reduction, there will be less distracting background
noise sent over the microphone and this will benefit anyone in the
audio conference.
3. Troubleshooting
The Communicator client is stable and easy to configure, but there are a few things that might go wrong in a large deployment.
If the client doesn’t connect, try setting
the client to a manual configuration and list the pool name. If this
results in the client connecting, your service records in DNS are not
configured properly.
If a manual
connection still doesn’t work, try pinging the pool name. If it fails
to resolve, there might be an issue with DNS. Try pinging the DNS
server as well; it’s possible you’re having other network issues.
If
you’re getting audio feedback when conferencing, your sound card might
not support noise cancelation. Having a good sound card results in a
better overall experience. Another possible fix is to run the
configuration utilities for your sound card. This enables you to
correctly set levels for the speakers and the microphone. This can
prevent clipping of the signal that can result in a distorted voice.
If
you aren’t getting presence information or if the client complains
about Outlook integration, it’s possible that you activated an account
for Lync Server 2010 and created a SIP name for the user that doesn’t
match the e-mail address. These need to match for everything to work
perfectly.
If you are using certificates
from your own CA and external users are having issues connecting, they
might not trust your root CA. The public certificate from the Root CA
needs to be imported into the Trusted Root store in Keychain. If
external systems trust the Root CA but aren’t able to reach the
Certificate Revocation List for the CA, they will fail to connect.
If
you are having problems connecting through the Silverlight client,
double-check the security zone settings. If you aren’t able to run
JavaScript or if pop-ups are blocked, you will have problems connecting.
If you’re having issues with the Lync client, check the Application event log.
An excellent way to check on network
connection to Lync Server 2010 is the netstat command. If a connection
on TCP 5061 is in a Syn_sent state, it means the Lync Server is
unavailable. If the connection is sitting at Time_Wait, odds are the
application is having issues. It means that the connection was
acknowledged, but that the application isn’t sending data.
