Free Lync Training!

From http://mctreadiness.com/MicrosoftCareerConferenceRegistration.aspx?pid=316

Deploying, Configuring, and Administering Microsoft Lync Server 2010

Literally hundreds of organizations are recognizing the cost savings and efficiency that results from empowering people with improved collaboration and cross-team communications. Once you learn about what Microsoft Lync can do for your office, as well as your resume, you'll never look back.

Microsoft Learning and the Microsoft Lync team have partnered to bring you an exciting opportunity to learn how to deploy, configure and administer Microsoft’s unified communications solution. Leveraging the popular “Jump Start” virtual classroom approach, two of the industry’s most gifted experts will leverage an accelerated, engaging and demo-rich learning experience to help attendees gain the knowledge and confidence required to prepare for taking Exam 70-664: TS: Microsoft Lync Server 2010, Configuring.

Here are the details:

• Course: “Deploying, Configuring, and Administering Microsoft Lync Server 2010 Jump Start”
  - Accelerated, engaging, demo-rich virtual learning experience – no hands-on labs
• Date/Time: April 17-19, 2012 from 9:00am – 4:00pm PST
• Where: Live virtual classroom (online from wherever you are)
• Cost: FREE!
• Target audience: IT Professionals and telecommunications professionals.
  This is an accelerated course. Attendees should have at least three (3) years’ experience working with unified communications software, including knowledge of and experience with Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2.

 

From http://mctreadiness.com/MicrosoftCareerConferenceRegistration.aspx?pid=320

 

Planning and Designing a Microsoft Lync Server 2010 Solution

The demand for information technology (IT) professionals experienced enough to effectively architect Microsoft unified communications solutions with Lync Server 2010 technologies continues to increase. For those of you who have the Lync Technical Specialist certification (see below) or have equivalent knowledge and experience, this accelerated Jump Start may be for you—so keep reading! If you don’t have the experience with Lync required for this course, we encourage you to check out the prerequisite course, “Deploying Lync Server 2010 Jump Start” scheduled for April 17-19, 2012, first.
Microsoft Learning and the Microsoft Lync team have partnered to bring you an exciting opportunity to learn what you need to know to plan and design Microsoft Lync Server 2010 solution. Leveraging the popular “Jump Start” virtual classroom approach, two of the industry’s most gifted experts will leverage an accelerated, engaging and demo-rich learning experience to help attendees gain the knowledge and confidence to help prepare for Exam 70-665: PRO: Microsoft Lync Server 2010, Administrator, a required exam for the Microsoft Certified IT Professional (MCITP): Microsoft Lync Server 2010 Administrator. Here are the details:

• Course: “Planning and Designing a Microsoft Lync Server 2010 Solution”
  - Accelerated, engaging, demo-rich virtual course – no hands-on labs
  - Level 300 content
• Date/Time: April 24-26, 2012 from 9:00am – 4:00pm PST
• Where: Live virtual classroom (online from wherever you are)
• Cost: FREE!
• Target audience: IT Professionals and telecommunications professionals.
  This is an accelerated course. Attendees are expected to have experience in hands-on deployment and day-to-day management of Unified Communications technologies for enterprise organizations and the Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist (MCTS): Microsoft Lync Server 2010, Configuring or equivalent knowledge.

The Importance of User Experience: Part 2

As I mentioned before, I recently presented at the Know Your Alternatives conference in Toronto about the importance of a Simplified User Experience to user adoption and capturing a full return on your UC investment.

I previously touched on the negative effects of poor Adoption, including lost productivity and an altogether negative perception of IT and the value it brings to the organization.

Challenges in Communication

It’s not news that Information Workers are sending and receiving more and more messages from more and more locations…

“The average Information Worker gets more than 51 messages a day in up to seven different locations” – Harris Interactive

…and we communicate from many different devices and applications.

“Businesses average more than six communications devices and almost five communications applications per employee.” – Sage Research

Multiple disconnected systems leave us confused and wondering where to turn.

We know what we need to do, we are pretty sure there’s a tool somewhere to help, but we don’t remember where to go, who to talk to, which application to start, or how to use the application once we find it.

Once we do land on a tool that is actually useful for it’s purpose, it often comes with it’s own set of challenges and deficiencies.  Have a look at Quit staring at that conference phone and change the dynamic of your meetings for a prime example.

 

So why is Adoption a challenge?

There are many reasons why technology adoption is a challenge, but here a few in particular…

With the constant introduction of new technologies, new software versions, new work challenges, and the increased goal for employees to find a healthy work-life balance, users find it difficult just to keep up.

Many users find what they like and get comfortable doing what they do.  The introduction of new features and capabilities, regardless of how “cool” or seemingly valuable they are, does not correspond to the uptake and adoption because users aren’t compelled to change.

Similar to the above reason, user habits are very hard to break.  A good example of this one is people who still print everything before reading it, or who print presentation materials and bring them to a meeting, rather than leveraging their notebook PC and a soft-copy of the presentation.

Organizations sometimes don’t sufficiently consider personal learning styles, different retention capabilities of users, and the difference between training delivery and effectiveness.  How do you measure if training was effective?  Do you even try to?  Tough to expect healthy adoption if you don’t!

Finally, even if we’ve conducted thorough training and measured it’s immediate effectiveness, we often neglect the ongoing attention needed to ensure adoption continues.  As we move on to the next thing we forget to go back and evaluate effectiveness and adoption 3, 6, 18 months later.

These themes are at a high level.  Let’s bring it back to UC.  How can a Simplified User Experience help improve Adoption of a UC solution?

A Better Way

Microsoft Lync provides a single fully-unified experience that helps overcome many adoption challenges.

With Lync, new features and capabilities and intuitive and easy to understand and use.  User are empowered and unafraid to try something new!  Powerful communications are made available in context within the applications being used everyday such as Microsoft Outlook and SharePoint.  In many rollouts, users look over the shoulders of colleagues enjoying Lync and ask how they can get their hands on it!

Take a quick peek at this video and see how the Commonwealth Bank of Australia saw 60% adoption of Lync in just 24 hours!

Now, User Experience is critical to user adoption but there’s definitely more to consider to really get it right.

Strategies for Adoption

Microsoft has provided a free framework for Facilitating a Successful Rollout of UC solutions.  Even with a product as easy to use as Lync, having a well thought-out plan and team to guide the rollout is critical. 

In addition to process, tools and resources are important and invaluable in planning and executing on a successful rollout.  Microsoft also provides a free Adoption and Training Kit which includes:

• Targeted content for IT pros, Project Managers, Trainers, Help Desk workers, and Users
• Best Practices, Resources, and Strategies
• Fully Customizable material
• Planning workbook
• Guidance and resources aligned to user roles
• Troubleshooting script for level 1 support
• Cost-effective training strategy for each user role
• Custom Intranet Site

Summary

Poor adoption of technology affects everything from user confidence to the bottom line.  Microsoft Lync is a UC solution that is proven to be more readily adopted due to it’s powerful capability, ease of use, and integration into the Microsoft Office suite.

In addition to having the right technology, be sure to take the time and leverage existing resources to properly plan for and manage your rollout.

The Importance of User Experience

I will be presenting at the upcoming Know Your Alternatives conference in Toronto on February 9, 2012.  If you’re in town I hope you can join me as I speak about the importance of a Simplified User Experience to user adoption and capturing a full return on your UC investment.  I will post again after the event with a summary of my presentation and links to some useful materials.

For now, a teaser…

Simplified User Experience

Two powerful advantages that Microsoft Lync enjoys over the competition are:

1. An intuitive and easy-to-understand user experience
2. Native and seamless integration into the applications we use every day, such as Microsoft SharePoint, Outlook, and the rest of the Office Suite.

This is a huge factor is ensuring better, faster, and broader user adoption.

Who Cares?

Technology adoption is a constant challenge for many reasons including difficulties breaking habits and keeping up with today’s fast pace of change.  Users can become frustrated quite easily … can you relate to this?

So What?

Poor adoption of new technology has many negatives effects extending from user frustration and confusion, to lost productivity, and ultimately leading to an altogether negative perception of IT and the value it brings to the organization.

How Can You Help?

Please come to my session and/or read my follow-up post for my thoughts on the importance of a simplified user experience, how Microsoft Lync provides it, and how you can get the most out of your UC investments.

Tip: Stop sharing your desktop for PowerPoint presentations

A very common scenario today is for a person to present a PowerPoint presentation to one or more remote attendees using some sort of web conferencing tool such as Live Meeting or Lync or Lync Online.

As a presenter, a quick and easy way show your presentations to participants is to just share your desktop…

Please don’t do this!  (For PowerPoint presentations, anyway)

Why Not?

I’ll address that, but first let me introduce the (better) alternative.  Now your tool of choice may not have this option, and sharing your desktop may be all you have, but with Lync you can upload the PowerPoint presentation into the meeting space…

Nice, but again, why not share my desktop?

OK, OK.  There are a number of reasons why I think sharing your desktop for PowerPoint presentations is not the best approach:

Privacy – Email alerts and Instant Message popups are all on display for the world to see when you simply share your desktop.  You may inadvertently reveal confidential information, or at best be embarrassed by something becoming public that was otherwise meant to be private such as “Hi Pumpkin-face, I miss you,” or the like.

Unprofessional Presentations – We often need to refer to other material or switch to different slides during the course of a presentation.  When your desktop is on display, these efforts are viewable to all.  As you drop back out of Presentation mode attendees see your slides and possibly speaker notes.  They see you browsing your file system looking for something.  You’re on display and feeling exposed so invariably it takes longer than it otherwise would and your mouse is hovering directly over the file in question but you can’t see it – everyone online is quietly pointing out the obvious and politely waiting for you to catch up.

Scrolling, Scrolling, Scrolling – When you share your desktop your screen resolution may not match those of the participants and therefore, without you realizing it, they have to constantly scroll to see your presentation.  This is very annoying and altogether unnecessary, as you’ll see later.

These are just a few of my thoughts on the experience of sharing your desktop for presentations.

So give me a better way!

Happy to.  With Lync, for example, if you upload the presentation instead of sharing your desktop you not only solve the problems noted above but now also enjoy the following benefits:

Annotations – Lync allows you (and optionally participants) to annotate the presentation adding a whole new dimension of real-time collaboration to your session.  You simply can’t do that if you are sharing your desktop.

Thumbnails – Need to jump ahead in your slides?  Instead of advancing through them in sequence or stepping out of Presentation mode, as you would have to do if you were sharing your desktop, you can see the list of thumbnails during your presentation and simply advance to the exact slide you want – the participants only see the slides you wish to share and don’t know if you are skipping slides or not.

Speaker Notes – What if you had speaker notes with important points to share?  Well, you could print them out or use some split-screen technology to hide them.  But with Lync it’s much easier as your speaker notes are available to you right on screen, and again, the participants do not see this.

Other Rich Content alongside your Slides – With a tool as powerful as Lync your online meetings may often include more than just a slide-sharing session.  If you share your desktop you must show only the presentation.  If you use the uploaded PowerPoint method you can continue to have access to the Instant Messaging conversation, Video, and the Visual Roster of participants.

Summary

So all in all you have a more controlled and feature rich experience as a presenter when you upload your PowerPoint presentations instead of sharing your desktop, and your participants enjoy a more professional and streamlined presentation.

Don’t get me wrong – sharing your desktop, or specific applications, is a powerful feature and should absolutely be used to its fullest potential but not, in my opinion, for presenting PowerPoint presentations.

Lync Management and Operations: Monitoring and Troubleshooting Lync Calls

I’d like to call your attention to a very useful set of videos covering Monitoring and Troubleshooting in Lync Server 2010, posted by our friends over at NextHop.

Unified Communications, by definition, brings together a number of different communications tools and applications which can make nailing down issues a very daunting task indeed.

Lync Server 2010 includes intuitive and powerful monitoring and reporting capabilities to help make this easier, and Microsoft has released some very useful videos to guide you through it.

Background

First of all, you should know about the Monitoring Server role in Lync Server 2010.  From TechNet…

Monitoring Server collects data about the quality of your network media, in both Enterprise Voice calls and A/V conferences. This information can help you provide the best possible media experience for your users. It also collects call error records (CERs), which you can use to troubleshoot failed calls. Additionally, it collects usage information in the form of call detail records (CDRs) about various Lync Server features so that you can calculate return on investment of your deployment, and plan the future growth of your deployment.  For details, see Planning for Monitoring in the Planning documentation.

Lync Server 2010 also ships with ready-to-go SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS) Reports that help make understanding the health of your Lync environment that much easier.

The videos go into great detail on each of System-wide Troubleshooting: Lync Call Connectivity, Help Desk Troubleshooting: Lync Call Issues, and Monitoring and Managing Jitter for VoIP, but for this post I wanted to call out a few things that I really like.

Drilldown

The base Lync Server 2010 Monitoring Server report is actually a list of available reports…

…and clicking into a particular report gets you to the goods…

Now, nice glossy reports that show me what I want are great, but invariably I’ll want to ask that next question … “OK, here’s the list of things I wanted, but I want more details on this one and that one!”

In this example, clicking on one of the columns in the chart on the right gets me to the underlying detail for that data.

You can continue to click-through and get more details as you continue your troubleshooting.  Very easy and very intuitive!

Tooltips

Reports that show lots of information are great, but sometimes they show too much information, or by their very nature can’t show everything.  In the interest of readability and consumption, headings and titles must be used to lay out the data.

But what if you don’t know what the headings mean exactly?  To have to leave the report and go consult a guide or website is counter-productive and time-consuming.  A lethal combination when users are complaining.

In Lync Server 2010, the headings are built with handy tool tips … just mouse over the heading and get a full description of what that data and/or value means!

Highlights

So we’ve got the ability to get to the data easily and we have handy descriptions of what certain data sets are capturing.  But, and this is a big BUT, how do we know what the values mean?  Is a big number good or bad?  Same thing with small numbers.

You will build your expertise over time, but until then, Lync Server 2010 reports actually bring your attention to important data automatically by highlighting the data in the report!

To really take it over the top, mouse over the value and get a full description of, in the case below, the Diagnostic ID value that came back from the voice gateway…

Below you see another example of a report with lots of valuable data and the handy highlighting to help you focus on the most pertinent values to help you in your troubleshooting.  In this case, Lync Server 2010 is telling us that a value of 4% for Avg. concealed samples ratio is something that should be looked at further.

Summary

Lync Server 2010 Monitoring Server Reports include handy out-of-the-box features such as Drill-down, Tool Tips, and Highlighting that help make troubleshooting your Lync environment easier and more fun!  (As if troubleshooting wasn’t already fun, right!?)

So please do take a look at these videos as they give great return for a very short amount of time investment.  Enjoy!

http://blogs.technet.com/b/nexthop/archive/2011/10/10/monitoring-and-troubleshooting-lync-call-videos.aspx

Quit staring at that conference phone and change the dynamic of your meetings

Have you ever been involved in a conference call where one or more participants are in a meeting room and one or more participants are not?  Those of you in the room were likely sitting around a conference phone that looks something like this…

Those of you who were not in the meeting, dialled into an audio conference bridge.  Perhaps you called from the car.  More likely you called while sitting next to a PC (more on that later).

Whether you were in the room or not, chances are you experienced some challenges.

Challenges while in the room

When you’re in the room, you tend to forget there is someone “on the line”.  You remember when one of them finally tries to get a word in edgewise.

When someone does speak who is not in the room, you struggle to first identify who is speaking and then to fully comprehend what they are saying.  This becomes more of a challenge if the person speaks softly or with an accent with which you are not familiar.
You try to overcome these challenges by looking really hard at the conference phone on the table.  A quick glance reveals that everybody else in the room is doing the same.

Oddly, this does not seem to help.

Challenges while not in the room

If you are not in the room, and have dialed in using a phone, you face a similar challenge identifying the speaker, but the problem is often much worse because there are usually more people in the room.  You have no idea to whom comments are directed – it may be that the speaker is targeting someone directly with what he/she is saying, but you have no way of knowing this.

You have a lot to offer...you’ve got something brilliant to say...you put up your hand! 

Nobody notices.

You wait patiently to jump in, but in the end, you can’t help it.  You go against everything your parents ever taught you about manners – you cut in.  It’s the only way, sorry, Mom.

The Problem

The fundamental problem in this scenario is not being able to see who is speaking.  Right now you don’t have much of a choice, though, do you?  People can’t always be in the same room at the same time.  There are geographic boundaries to consider and management has cut business travel spending to combat the economic downturn and to reduce your company’s carbon footprint.  Talk to me, you say, when that phone magically allows me to see everyone on the call as well as hear them.

OK, let’s talk.

The Solution

I’d like to introduce you to the Polycom CX5000, powered by Microsoft Lync Server 2010.

This wonderfully futuristic device takes the audio conference to the next level by adding immersive video to the experience.  The bottom circular platform is similar to your existing conference phone with an integrated dial pad and directional microphones and speakers.

The stem holds on its top 5 cameras arranged in a circle.  These cameras collect a real-time 360 degree panoramic view of the room.  It looks like this…

This view allows participants to see everybody in the room, and the dynamics between them.  Now we can see if someone is directing his/her comments to someone in particular!

The CX5000 also takes care of automatically displaying the current speaker.  So while you always see the full panoramic view, you also get to see the person currently speaking.

No more trying to figure it out based on what you hear, and with the visual you have a much better chance of understanding what is being said.  One study at UCLA indicated that up to 93 percent of communication effectiveness is determined by nonverbal cues. (More)

I mentioned earlier that most of the time, those who are joining from outside the room are sitting at their PC, be it a desktop in an office or more likely a notebook computer while on the road at a customer site or in a hotel room.  This is where the game really changes, because again most of the time you are gathering on this call to review something tangible such as a budget spreadsheet or design layout.  You need to look at a document or screen during the session.

Add Microsoft Lync to the equation and we have finally reached utopia!

Turn a basic conference call into an Online Meeting

Microsoft Lync Online Meetings provide the rich collaborative experience you’ve been looking for, including a real-time view of the active speaker whether they are in the room or not, a full view of the people in the meetings rooms involved, and an integrated document and screen sharing environment . When you pull it all together it looks like this…

This is all accomplished with a single client on the desktop (Microsoft Lync) and a combination of standard webcams and Polycom CX5000 devices.  And you can join from anywhere in the world with a standard internet connection – no Virtual Private Network (VPN) required!

Summary

Microsoft Lync Server 2010 and the Polycom CX5000 combine to provide an immersive and empowered collaboration experience.  Gone are the days of struggling to understand what someone is saying on a call and emailing around documents, or worse, printing multiple copies for participants to review in a meeting.

Warning!  There is no turning back from this experience.  Once you’ve lived the good life, you will find yourself asking “where’s the video” and “show me your screen”.
Please feel free to add your own stories and comments, and if you’re interested in learning more, drop me a line!

Tip: View your Lync Contacts in a 1-line View

Lync 2010 introduces a more informative view of each contact in your buddy list, including Name, Availability Status, Personal Note, and Contact Photo.  It looks like this…

But what if you want to streamline your view a bit, and see only your contacts’ Name and Availability Status, similar to what you may have had using Office Communicator 2007 R2?

The trick is to change the display to Name View…

Your buddy list will no longer show Contact Photos, and instead switches to a 1-line view.

You can toggle between these views by clicking the Display Options icon, or click on the down-arrow at the right-hand side of the icon to see more Layout Options.

Enjoy! 

Lync Server 2010 Audio Test Service

An exciting new feature in Microsoft Lync Server 2010 is the Audio Test Service.  This built-in tool allows you to place a test call prior to making a real call, to ensure there aren’t any severe network or other issues that might affect the quality of your call.

Easy to Use

There are tools available for OCS 2007 R2, such as the Deployment Validation Tool and the VoIP Test Set, that can also help to monitor and evaluate call quality.  But these tools are unfortunately hard to deploy and manage, and so their usefulness has been diminished.

But now you can place a test call directly from the Phone tab in Lync 2010, simply by clicking on Check…

This places a call into the Audio Test Service in Lync Server 2010…

You are prompted to speak a few words, and then what you said is played back to you as it was heard by the Audio Test Service.

Call with Confidence

Laptop chugging away?  Unclear how good your wireless connection really is at the hotel?  This tool can help you ensure the best possible call quality before you make that all-important customer, or otherwise, call!

Top 5 New Features in Microsoft Lync 2010

There are so many new features in Lync 2010 it seems almost cruel to list just 5, but alas, here are the five I am most excited about.

1.  No more Live Meeting client

I have nothing against the Live Meeting client – I think it’s intuitive and powerful, and being able to use the single client for both on-premise OCS conferences and Live Meeting hosted conferences is fantastic.

Having to switch between two applications that were obviously not built with the other in mind is troublesome, however.  Users have to remember and understand which application should be used for what purpose.  And managing the different ports and protocols is non-trivial.

Alas with Lync we have one unified client – Microsoft Lync 2010.  Escalating from an Instant Message conversation, to a Video Call, and to Desktop Sharing is not new, but being able to also upload and share PowerPoint presentations, whiteboards, and polling pages with annotation tools is and very easy to use and understand.

Scheduling a conference?  Easier than ever, and no need to decide between a Conference Call or a Live Meeting – everything is an Online Meeting with various modalities available to participants.

I can’t keep the smile off my face!  :-)

2.  New cost-effective IP phones

One of the biggest barriers to adoption of OCS for telephony has been people’s hesitation in linking their phone availability to that of the PC.  “My phone must be available, even when I’m not signed in to my PC,” is often heard. Also, “my phone is unavailable if my PC crashes.”

While I can argue that you’d be hard-pressed to find any information worker who sits at a desk without being signed in to a PC, and also count on 1 hand the number of times my PC has crashed in the past 3 years, the solution to this dilemma is a dedicated IP phone.  Unfortunately with OCS there is only one supported device, codenamed Tanjay.  This device is $600+ and thus the uptake has been minimal.

Enter new IP phones from Aastra and Polycom at the $200-300 price point, including servicing new scenarios such as conference phones and common-area phones.

The Information Worker models (Aastra 6725ip and Polycom CX600, pictured here) are always-on phones that also include the ability to connect to your PC via a USB cable to enable features such as click-to-call.  It really is the best possible UC phone experience, and at a price that organizations can more than justify.

3.  Branch survivability

Another barrier to adoption of OCS for telephony has been the lack of branch survivability – branch offices are reliant on the core OCS pool in the head office or datacenter; if the WAN link goes down the branch office loses phone service.

With Lync 2010 comes the introduction of the Survivable Branch  Appliance which enables phone service to continue in branch offices in cases where the WAN link is unavailable.  Calls between users in the branch still stay on the local LAN; calls to other company locations and external parties use the PSTN.

This simplifies multi-site architectures and provides a more robust telephony solution with Lync 2010.

4.  Virtualization and Fewer Servers

“Too many servers!”  This is a very common complaint with OCS.  There is not enough support for collocation and adding resilience to your deployment is a very costly endeavor.  Similarly, minimal support for virtualization in OCS (only IM and Presence is supported, effectively rendering this support useless) has gone against the grain for organizations implementing virtualization strategies.

Now with Lync 2010 all workloads are supported for virtualization  including voice and video.  There are many topology choices for what is physical and what is virtual, which should give organizations the flexibility they have been looking for.

And more server roles are supported for collocation, including the Mediation Server being collocated on the Front End server.

5.  Enhanced Office and SharePoint integration

Integration of presence and related features within the Office suite of products and SharePoint has been a big reason why OCS has gained the market share it has thus far.  No other UC applications can claim as tight an integration with the business applications used by most organizations – namely, Office.

Lync 2010 adds Quick Contacts to Outlook 2010 (pictured here), Office Backstage integration, shared contacts, and SharePoint skills search.

A redesigned and more powerful Contact Card, coupled with contact photos which come from SharePoint My Sites, all add to the experience and enable users to find the right person at the right time.

I have been a strong advocate for OCS since the beginning, and there are many amazing stories to tell where organizations have reduced costs and improved productivity.  Microsoft has caused a massive shift in the UC market, and Lync will surely help keep them planted firmly in the leader position!