Editor's Note: The following is a guest post by Lync MVP David Lim as part of the MVP Award Program Blog's "MVPs for Office 365" series. David is a Lync MVP from Singapore and received the MVP Award earlier this year. He works as a Senior UC Consultant that focuses on Microsoft Unified Communication & Collaboration. His expertise in Microsoft Unified Communication & Collaboration, based on Microsoft Lync, Exchange and SharePoint Solutions. He is also experienced in Microsoft Virtualization Technology. Additionally he writes about these topics on his UC Space blog http://davidlim66.wordpress.com/
Office 365 includes the Microsoft Office suite of desktop applications and hosted versions of Microsoft's Server products (including Exchange Server, SharePoint Server, and Lync Server), delivered and accessed over the Internet in effect, the next version of Business Productivity Online Services (BPOS).
Microsoft Lync Online provides communications features including presence information, instant messaging, PC-to-PC audio/video calling and online meetings that can include PC audio, video and web conferencing with application sharing, whiteboards, and other collaboration tools. Lync Online is accessed through the Lync client. Lync Online also supports presence information and click-to-communicate features inside Microsoft Office applications. Currently the Lync components of Office 365 exclude Lync's Enterprise Voice feature set.
One cool thing for Lync Online is you can instant message with Windows Live contacts View presence status.
Let get started to setup Lync Online to federate with Windows Live and organizations that have Lync deployed on-premise.
To start, you need to sign to Office 365 Portal.
Open the Microsoft online portal as the domain administrator, and select “Domains” under the “Management” Section (on the left of the screen):
Click on “Edit domain intent” button; enable the Exchange Online, Lync Online. Once you’ve selected the appropriate check-boxes and the domain is Lync-enabled.
Click on “DNS settings”. You need to modify your public DNS.
Updating public DNS can be tricky. It also depending on provider and management interface.
If you are not sure whether your SRV is it correct, you may click “Troubleshoot Domain”. At the same page as the “Domain properties”
If you have update your public DNS more than 72 hours, select the 3rd option, and click “Next”
You will get the correct following screen.
Now, the services are enabled and the DNS settings are correct. In the Management portal, select “Admin Overview”. In the center pane, there’s an option for “Lync Online”. Click on the “Manage” button to enter the Lync Online Control Panel:
What inside the “Lync Online Control Panel”?
- Domain Federation – this is to let the Lync Online domain to communicate with other Lync-enabled domains. These can be on-premise Lync environments with Lync Edge deployed, or other Lync Online enabled environments. This is “OFF” by default
- Public IM – This is to let the Lync Online domain to communicate with public IM networks like MSN. This is “OFF” by default
- User Information – This is to allow you to fine tune on your users’ behavior and permissions. For example, you may want to enable some user able to have permission to file transfer, to federate, to have public IM, or to have audio/video.
So, let’s turn on the federation and public IM and start chatting. How? At the “Lync Online Control Pane” click on “Domain federation”, click on “Edit”
A pop-up appear, select “Allow federation with all domains except those I block” and click “OK”
You should see the following screen
Next, Click on “Public IM”
Click on “Enable” You also will see your domain status is provision for federation pending.
Once you click “Enable” a pop-up show “Are you sure you want to enable public IM connectivity?”
Click “Yes”
Enabling for public IM, it need about one day to provision. While waiting, you may click on “User information” and select the user that allows using Lync features.
Here you can control what the user can do with Lync.
When you have decided the function, click “Next”, and click “Finish” at the summary page
And you are all set! Enjoy your Lync!