1. Integration with Exchange
Lync Server 2013 will continue to provide the
integrations with Exchange that existed in previous versions, and will
introduce several additional integrations as well.
Note
All the new Exchange integration features
offered with Lync 2013 also require Exchange 2013. Therefore, an
organization must upgrade both products to the newest versions in order
to use all the Exchange integration features.
Continuing in Lync 2013 is integration with
Exchange Outlook Web App (OWA). Lync and OWA integration allows
Presence and IM capabilities within an OWA session, and includes the
following useful features:
• Presence for internal and federated Lync Server contacts
• The capability to start and maintain chat sessions directly from OWA
• Lync Server contact list integration, including adding and removing contacts and groups
• The capability to control Lync Presence states from OWA
As in previous versions, Lync Server
integrates with the Unified Messaging role in Exchange, which allows
Lync Server to use Exchange as a replacement for traditional voice mail
systems. Voice messages stored in Exchange can then be retrieved from
the Lync client as well as from the user’s Exchange mailbox.
Lync Archiving Integration is a brand-new
feature that integrates the Lync Archiving role with the Exchange
In-Place Hold feature, resulting in a common repository of archival
data that simplifies compliance and eDiscovery tasks across the two
communications platforms.
An additional new integration feature between
Lync 2013 and Exchange 2013 is the Unified Contact Store, which
presents a common repository for user contacts that is shared between
the Lync and Outlook clients. When enabled, the Lync client connects to
Exchange Web Services (EWS) to read and maintain contacts instead of
using SIP to connect the Lync Front End server for contacts, as in
previous versions.
Note
Unified Contact Store requires both Lync 2013
and Exchange 2013, however, it is an optional feature that can be
enabled or disabled, even if the 2013 versions of both products are
deployed.
Rounding out the new integration
features between Lync and Exchange is the storage and retrieval of
high-resolution photos that are shared between the two platforms. Both
Lync 2013 and Exchange 2013 support photos of up to 648×648 pixels,
which are stored in Exchange 2013 and are added to contacts within the
Lync and Outlook clients. The photos are stored as a hidden item in the
root of a user’s Exchange mailbox. Having the option to store these
photos in Exchange is an improvement from previous Lync versions, since
the photos were typically stored in Active Directory, which presented
some limitations due to potential problems with replication.
2. Integration with SharePoint
Similar to Exchange, Lync Server 2013
continues to offer integrations with SharePoint that were available
with previous versions of the two products, and provides some
additional functionality that is available only with the latest
versions of both. Whenever a contact is shown in a SharePoint page,
Lync presents Presence information along with the associated contact
card for the user, and Lync functions can be initiated via a simple
click on the Presence icon.
An interesting SharePoint
integration feature that was introduced with Lync 2010 and will
continue to be supported in Lync 2013 is Skill Search. With Skill
Search, the Lync client can be used to search SharePoint My Site pages
to find individuals with a specific skill set. With SharePoint
integration, users are also able to access their SharePoint My Site
profile page from the Options dialog box within the Lync client.
New with Lync 2013 and SharePoint 2013 is the
ability to use SharePoint to search Lync archives using an eDiscovery
site collection. The Lync archive data must first be integrated with
Exchange 2013 to form a common repository for archive data to allow
this search functionality within SharePoint.
This type of bidirectional
integration presents many options for organizations to allow productive
and efficient communication for the user base. For example, it can be
challenging for new employees in a large organization to find the right
resource to handle a particular question. With Lync and SharePoint
integration, that employee can use Skill Search to display a list of
employees who have a particular expertise, quickly determine whether
they are available to communicate, and then initiate the communication
using various methods. All of this can be accomplished using a single
interface, compared to searching a company intranet, looking for the
appropriate department, digging up contact information for individuals
with the right skill set, and then manually contacting each one until
someone is available.
3. Integration with Microsoft Office
On the client side, integration between Lync
and Microsoft Office has provided valuable features with previous
versions of Lync, and that will continue to be the case with Lync
Server 2013. Some of the more compelling features provided through the
integration of Lync and Microsoft Office are the following:
• Lync automatically updates the user’s Presence status based on information in the user’s Outlook calendar.
• The Online Meeting Add-in for Lync
allows users to create a Lync conference from the Outlook client and
automatically schedule the meeting in the user’s calendar, providing a
single interface to service all meeting requirements.
• Presence information is automatically displayed wherever mail recipients are shown in Outlook.
• Lync IM conversations are recorded in
the Conversation History folder in Outlook, and can be viewed and
searched along with other Outlook data.
• The Office Sharing Add-in for Lync
allows users to view Presence status, initiate a Lync IM, and initiate
a collaborative document-sharing session from within Microsoft Word,
PowerPoint, and Excel (versions 2007 and above are required).
• The Lync client can be used to record personal notes regarding a meeting that are stored in a OneNote 2013 notebook.
• The Lync client can be used to open a
shared OneNote 2013 notebook and distribute a link to connect to the
shared notebook for all meeting participants.
