1. Permissions
Users can adjust the permissions for
each conference to prevent specific types of attendees from
participating. This gives end users the option to prevent meetings from
being forwarded or from being accessed by anonymous participants on a
per-meeting basis.
2. Flexible Conference IDs
When this is enabled for Lync
Server, users are assigned a static, unique conference ID that is used
for all of their meetings. A user’s conference ID is persistent by
default, but if a user has back-to-back meetings, it is beneficial to
schedule the second meeting with a unique ID. End users can do this
easily when creating a conference, and it helps to prevent attendees
from the second meeting from joining the first meeting if it runs to
the end of the time slot.
3. Lobby
The Lync Server lobby feature can be
considered a type of waiting room where meeting attendees can be held
before the meeting begins. As a presenter, the meeting can be
configured to automatically admit all attendees from the lobby, admit
only authenticated corporate users from the lobby, admit only
authenticated corporate users invited specifically by the organizer, or
admit no user from the lobby without manual acceptance. Attendees are
allowed to join the meeting, but when held in the lobby, they are
unable to hear the presenter or other users. The meeting organizer has
the ability to allow or not allow attendees waiting in the lobby to
attend the meeting.
As the organizer, participants are listed in
the visual roster. Authenticated users show a display name, and users
joining from the PSTN can display the phone number they dialed in from.
Lync Attendee or Lync Web App users can enter a display name, which is
shown in the roster, too.
4. Announcements
Typical conferencing services prompt a user
to record his name, business name, or possibly location when dialing in
to a meeting from the PSTN, and then the user can play that recorded
greeting as he enters or leaves the conference. In Lync Server, where a
visual roster is available to all participants, the need for this
service is greatly diminished and can become a distraction to the
actual meeting as attendees enter and leave.
Organizers can enable or disable the
announcement service on a per-meeting basis, and it is disabled by
default. Attendees who dial in from a PSTN telephone and want to hear a
roster might use Dual-Tone Multi-Frequency (DTMF) tones to request a
roll call, which is played only to the attendee. Additionally, the
conferencing service aggregates announcements when batches of users
enter or leave at the same time and make an announcement such as “Eight
users are leaving” instead of announcing each user individually.
5. Languages
Administrators can define regions,
and dial-in numbers for the regions can be associated with specific
language support. If multiple languages are associated with the region,
users are presented with the option to select a language when joining
via the PSTN. This enables users who speak different primary languages
to participate in a single audio conference and hear menu or
announcement recordings conducted in their selected language.
