Lync

13 years of blogging and 2 000 000 views

Ståle Hansen Leave a comment

Today, January 26th 2023, I hit a huge milestone. 2 000 000 views since I started blogging in 2009. msunified.net has been the home for me to share technical nuggets about Exchange, OCS, Lync, Skype for Business, Teams and Microsoft 365 for over 13 years. I have even shared productivity tips which has culminated in to my Digital Wellbeing thinking. I want to reflect and share my 10 all time most visited blogposts, my 5 favorited blogposts, some external articles I have written and share what I am working on these days.

If you have found any of my articles useful at some point, give this article or the social media post you found this through a like 👍 :)

10 all time most viewed blogposts

My 5 favorite blogposts which I often use today

External articles I have written for other sites and Tech Community

Office 365 for IT Pros

For four years, between 2018 and 2022, I contributed to the calling and meetings chapter for Office 365 for IT Pros. I strongly believe in that format, because it gets updated monthly😱 Tony Redmond heads up that book and the author team does a fantastic job of keeping you up do date on best practices and technical facts in Office 365. Blogposts are seldom kept up to date and that is why you have seen less blogposts here these years, since they get outdated faster than you can type :) I recommend you go and buy a subscribtion to Office 365 for IT Pros right now👍

msunified.net moving forward and what I am currently working on

Do I think blogposts are still worth it today? yes and no. No for “how to” blogposts because learn.microsoft.com is so much better than Microsoft documentation has ever been. Maybe you would rather suggest a change to the learn article if you find information missing. Yes when you want to share a routine, script, your understanding and design principles. I would say no to opinion pieces on a personal blog, maybe you want to share those on LinkedIn or a third party blogsite

These days I work mainly in two areas

  • Digital Wellbeing and working smart with Microsoft 365 combined with Microsoft Viva
    • I published 8 hours of deep dive training for free on YouTube which are indexed here
    • I recently rebranded as a Digital Wellbeing coach delivering inspiration talks, keynotes, leadership training and organizational training based on my Digital Wellbeing thinking :)
    • I run workshops, proof of concepts and talk at conferences about Microsoft Viva
    • I am part of the #VivaExplorers an enthusiastic gang of over 60 MVPs who bring their own angle in to the broad world of Microsoft Viva thought leadership and understanding.
  • Complex hybrid deployment for Exchange/Skype for Business/Teams
    • I see larger more complex and risk averse companies stretching or migrating to Microsoft 365
    • In those more locked down environments we need to be more precise in knowing what works and how
    • These past years i have spent a lot of time as advisor and hands-on with hybrid Exchange solving problems like free/busy, Autodiscover, oauth, hybrid modern auth, Outlook Mobile and making sure nothing is more open than it should be, some of it resulted in this blogpost and I might blog more about troubleshooting these scenarios
    • Same for hybrid Skype for Business, but that is easier than hybrid Exchange, if you have gone down the route and set up a proper Edge server topology :)
  • Make sure you check out my YouTube channel to get my latest videos and talks I do that other channels shares

Thanks to everyone who visits my blog on a daily basis and I think I struck a nerve when blogging about Set the custom Focusing status in Microsoft Teams from PowerShell using Power Automate which is daily the most visited blogpost on my site :)

How to set custom presence states in Skype for Business on your Windows machine

Ståle Hansen 37 Comments

This works on Windows 10, Windows 8, Windows 7, Lync and Skype for Business desktop clients. Requires administrative rights to your computer. If you are interested in setting Microsoft Teams status, check out how to set the custom Focusing status blogpost

Wouldn’t it be cool if you could change your presence state in Skype for Business to match you current task such as busy in a Workshop, Do Not Disturb in a Pomodoro Sprint or Away Getting Coffee?

Turns out, you can by creating an XML file and adding a setting in your local registry. How? The easy way is to download my script, change the custom presences that is predefined in the script and run it.

  1. Download the script from GitHub
  2. The default custom presence states are shown below
  3. To change the names you need to open the script and write your own presence states
    • Away does not work as a custom presence state, if you put that in no custom states will show up in the client
    • The presence states that works are: Online, Busy, and Do-Not-Disturb
  4. To run the script, just type the following in PowerShell in elevated mode from the location you saved it
    • .\Set-CsCustomPresence.ps1
    • It works for Lync and Skype for Business
    • It works for 64-bit and 32-bit office
    • It works for MSI installed Office and Click-to-Run Office
    • The xml file will get stored under c:\_CustomPresence\CustomPresence.xml if that is your systemdrive
  5. You need to sign out of the client and back in for the changes to take effect
  6. The presence states works in the following scenarios
    • On English Skype for Business clients for you and your colleagues
    • On Skype for Business clients in your local location retrieved using (Get-Culture).LCID
    • For everyone in your Colleagues relationship level as long as they are running a client language version specified above
    • If you want external contacts to see your custom presence state you need to elevate them as colleagues in the relationship pane
      • Understand that they will also see you as in a meeting, in a call, your note and your location as well
    • If you are in an environment with more than two languages for you Office deployment, make sure you add an LCID per language in the script

Download the script here and use PowerShell to control your presence using the Lync 2013 Client SDK described here

You can now control you custom presence states using PowerShell, if you have installed the SDK, using the Publish-SfBContactInformation.ps1 found on GitHub here with this syntax

Publish-SfBContactInformation -CustomActivityId 1 -PersonalNote "Getting Stuff Done" -Location "@HomeOffice"

You are now ready to use this in a Pomodoro context, read how to get started with the open source PowerShell based Pomodoro timer here: https://msunified.net/2013/11/25/lock-down-your-lync-status-and-pc-notifications-using-powershell/

Ppt and video is now available from my talk at Microsoft Ignite

Ståle Hansen Leave a comment

May 2015 I had the honor to talk at Microsoft Ignite in Chicago. That was great fun and 300 showed up at my session about how to save time by automating phone number management in Skype for Business Server. Before this talk I released a new scritp called Get-SfBNumbers.ps1 which you can download and find more information about at http://SfBNumbers.net. Look for more Enterprise Voice tips and scripts at that site, and I will in time blog about examples for how to use the script.

I had a great time attending Microsoft Ignite, lots of networking and I got to attend some great sessions with interesting content. We also did a live recording of The UC Architects podcast with Jamie Stark joining us. Check out some images at the bottom of this blogpost

Download the ppt here: http://video.ch9.ms/sessions/ignite/2015/decks/BRK4112_Hansen.pptx

Download or view the session at Channel 9

video

Some images from the conference

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Five years of blogging and 1,000,000 hits!

Ståle Hansen Leave a comment

ThankYou!First off, thanks to all who have visited msunified.net and given feedback to the blogposts. I am stoked that my blog msunified.net now has more than 1,000,000 hits. Since I started blogging in 2009 it has been the place where I post my notes from the field, collections of links and Thoughts on UC.

Some of the most popular blogposts of all time

  1. Installing Exchange 2010 Prerequisites on Server 2008 R2
  2. Enabling Lync Server 2010 for Lync Mobile Clients
  3. Installing Lync Server 2010 Prerequisites on Windows Server 2008 R2
  4. Configure Exchange 2010 InternalUrl PowerShell script
  5. Lync Server 2010 features and how to configure them
  6. Lync Server Mobility Troubleshooting Tips
  7. Lync Server 2010 Troubleshooting Tips
  8. Installing OCS 2007 R2 Prerequisites on Windows Server 2008 R2
  9. Script for Configuring Exchange 2010 Internal and External URLs
  10. Lync Server Front End: Lost connection to the Web Conferencing Edge Server
  11. Lync client sign-in and DNS records recommendations

Some of the most popular blogposts the year of 2014

  1. Installing Exchange 2010 Prerequisites on Server 2008 R2
  2. Lync client sign-in and DNS records recommendations
  3. Enabling Lync Server 2010 for Lync Mobile Clients
  4. Lync 2013 Downloads
  5. Configure Exchange 2010 InternalUrl PowerShell script
  6. Lync Server Mobility Troubleshooting Tips
  7. Troubleshooting Office Web Apps Server for Lync
  8. You see only a white screen when viewing Lync 2013 desktop sharing
  9. Installing Lync Server 2010 Prerequisites on Windows Server 2008 R2
  10. TEL, SIP, mailto, and Lync meeting links association

Where do the all time visitors come from

  1. Search engines
  2. TechNet Forums
  3. Twitter

Some thoughts on the activity

  • People are still installing Exchange on Server 2008 R2 :)
  • The old blogposts from 2010 are still relevant
  • Twitter is a relevant platform to reach out to my audience as it is number three all time source for visitors
  • The type of article that drives recurring hits are
    • the ones that solves a specific problem
    • troubleshooting guides
    • link repositories
    • articles explaining how stuff works
  • I also use this blog as a landing page for all my content, but articles like this one will not drive much recurring users, but helps me communicate my thoughts in a better format than the 140 characters on Twitter :)
  • I always try to remember to blog solutions I find to strange problems, typically the solution was tips from multiple sources and by collecting them and describing how I solved the problem is a good blogpost, and will help others having the same problem.

Afterthought

The amount of hits really motivates me to continue share my experiences as an IT-PRO with solutions to problems, but also highlighting not so mainstream knowledge like I do in my LyncPro Tips series and Thoughts on UC YouTube series. Thank you for your continued support :)

OneMillHits1

On December 23 2014 msunified.net reached 1,000,000 views!

Lync HA/DR Deep Dive Class in Norway

Ståle Hansen Leave a comment

January 19-22 I am running a 4 day Lync High Availability and Disaster Recovery Deep Dive class in Oslo, Norway. The focus of the class is to get a deep understanding of the concepts and features of how a highly available Lync deployment works. I am running the class together with my colleague at Knowledge Factory, Morten Enger, to ensure that the hands on labs run smoothly and that the content have hight quality.

SLA

Here is an overview of the content we are focusing on. Each day starts with a deep dive in to how stuff works and then the rest of they day will be spent in the custom made lab setup.

  • Day 1 – SLA, Disaster recovery and high availability concepts deep dive and initial lab setup
  • Day 2 – Configure and experience the effects of Disaster Recovery hands-on labs
  • Day 3 – Configure High Availability using KEMP load balancers, SQL Server mirroring and redundant SIP Trunks hands-on labs
  • Day 4 – Experience the effects of High Availability during production and maintenance hands-on labs

The goal of the class is that attendees will experience how failover and disaster scenarios behave on server level and for end-users. After completing this class the students will be able to tune their own environment and decide how to best implement DR or HA for Lync environments.

All the content will be created in english and if we have english speaking students, the class will be delivered in english.

Sounds interesting? Sign up at Global Knowledge http://www.globalknowledge.no/kurs/microsoft/voice/gklyncic.html

 

Succeed with Lync, BYOD and WiFi

Ståle Hansen Leave a comment

This fall I had the honour of talking at TechEd Barcelona and TechDays Sweden about how to Succeed with Lync, BYOD and WiFi. This is a topic I am quite passionate about since it affects end-user experience. I believe that this is THE key focus areas for a successful Lync deployment. There is a saying that we as consultant, technicians and System Integrators always succeed with implementing the technology, but that does not mean the business are succeeding. Continue reading →

Lync 2013 Basic with gallery view and recording

Ståle Hansen Leave a comment

The Lync 2013 Basic client just got epic with the October 2014 update it can do gallery view and recording. These where major features for not running the Basic client in production.

Basic

Gallery view and recording

If you are using advanced Enterprise Voice features like Response Groups, Manage Delegates, Call Pickup or Call Park then you need the full rich client that is part of Office 2013 Pro plus.

  • If you deploy Lync from Lync Online from the Business SKU you wont get the Lync client because it includes Office 2013 Business.
  • Basic is now feature rich enough to be a valid client for those types of users, since Lync Online does not have Enterprise Voice features.
  • This also applies to those customers that have an Open License of the Office suite and needs to roll out Lync
    • You can not combine Lync click to run provided by Office 365 with locally installed office from media
  • This means you can easily combine Office 2010, if you for some reason need it, with a Lync 2013 client without needing the Office 2013 License

Lync 2013 Basic features

Taking a closer look at the Client comparison tables for Lync 2013 clients is seems like it is quite outdated.

Notable features the Lync Basic client now can do is

  • Click to call (not new)
  • Transfer Calls (not new)
  • Manage call forwarding
  • Client-side recording of audio, video, application sharing, desktop sharing, and uploaded content
    • In conferences, tested ok
    • Could not verify in peer to peer call
  • Select preferred recording resolution
  • Users can use the gallery view to see all users’ video instead of only the active speaker’s in a video conversation that has more than two people.
  • Users can switch mode between gallery and speaker.

Call Forwarding setings

Call Forwarding setings

Download the clients

Remember to apply the October update
Microsoft Lync Basic 2013 (64 Bit)
Microsoft Lync Basic 2013 (32 Bit)

 

Thoughts on UC: Productivity

Ståle Hansen Leave a comment

As an Information Worker I am passionate about productivity and finding techniques, equipment and devices that may make me more productive.

In this YouTube video I touch upon productivity from a personal perspective and business perspective

About Thoughts on UC YouTube series

I want to share mye ideas on what I  considers to be the defining elements to a successful UC rollout.The goal is to get people thinking by hightlighting important topics in and around UC deployment and adoption phases.

References

“Productivity, Chance Favors the Connected Mind”
-Steven Johnson