Month: November 2011


The Lync ‘How To’ Guide


If you’re implementing Lync, or already have it, chances are user training is/was part of the implementation. Great. But what about those “remind me how I..” and “what does this do again?” that you know will come up?

Microsoft have done you a huge favour here.

I personally think Lync is hands-down the most superbly well documented product ever to roll out the doors of Redmond. Sure there’s stuff that could be better documented, but the planning, implementation, support, and (yup) training material available is beyond compare.

There is a huge list of pre-canned resources available at http://lync.microsoft.com/Adoption-and-Training-Kit/rollout-and-adoption/Pages/Resources/Intro-to-Resources.aspx that includes the likes of reference sheets, training decks, and videos, but what I really want to flag for attention is the ‘How To Guide’. Quite simply – it’s brilliant.

The guide is a Silverlight and/or HTML web application that contains a huge range of common (and not so common) Lync user tasks, presented in a sensibly structured manner that any user should have no issue following. It even comes with a handy set of instructions that outlines how to easily add your own items to the list – useful if you perhaps have a custom app integrated with your Lync platform.

lynchowto

The package can be downloaded from http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?displaylang=en&id=5735

Setup is a peice of cake, and should take less than five minutes. Here’s the basics for IIS7/7.5

  • Create a folder on your webserver
  • Extract contents of the zip file
  • Create an IIS site and point it at the folder you created
  • Define your default document as either rolodex.html (for Silverlight version) or jQueryRolodex.html (for the HTML version).
  • Configure your host headers and DNS entries
  • Done

The only difference if you’re doing this on older versions of IIS is you need to manually create a MIME type for .xap extensions, defined as application/x-silverlight-app

JB / The Daywalker

Ginger IT dude hanging out down in New Zealand, playing with technology since ages ago.

Currently Service Delivery Manager at Silicon Systems, formerly Skype for Business MVP, and generally into all things Microsoft (and a few things that aren’t).

When I’m not nerding out on technology, you can find me running ultramarathons, brewing beer, or in my woodshop building something.


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