Skip to content

Posts tagged ‘microsoft lync’

Dec 15

Microsoft Office 365 from the Web and I
1 Comment

University of California, Merced Selects Office 365

Merced, California

The University of California, Merced selected Microsoft Office 365 for their business productivity and E-Mail needs. The full complement of 8500 faculty, students and staff will be migrated in 2013.  According to implementor CloudBearing, “After evaluating Office 365 for education versus Google Apps, the UC Merced team indicated in a report that it preferred Office 365 for email, calendaring and collaboration. The campus will be rolling out 25 GB mailboxes for everyone; a modern calendaring system that directly integrates with mobiles devices, Outlook and the Web; SharePoint for document management and file sharing; and Lync which provide enterprise-grade instant messaging, audio/video conferencing and whiteboard capabilities.”

The fact is that businesses and educational institutions are familiar with and trained in Outlook and the Microsoft Office suite, and any perceived gains from embracing alternative platforms is lost when you have no user acceptance of the new platform you have worked so hard for and paid so much to implement. People like the familiar, and managing change is already going to have to involve both technical guidance of how to work collaboratively as well as business process analysis and re-engineering.

Many companies, educational institutions, NGO’s, foundations, businesses and government agencies are worried about compliance.The fact is that legal compliance for businesses including SEC regulations, Sarbanes Oxley are covered. Government agencies in the United States will be pleased to know that the GSA has specified that Office 365 and related Microsoft Cloud products are legally compliant for government agencies. Healthcare organizations and medical research foundations enjoy the benefits of built-in HIPAA compliance. ISO 9000 compliance for up-time rounds off the list with 99.97% up-time guaranteed by a financially backed Service Level Agreement (SLA) which refunds customers in the event of an outage. Microsoft Office 365 is continually backed-up, but the Web and I can assist you with additional backup methods on-site including hybrid on-site off-site co-existence.

When you tell your Information Technology people that you are ready to go to the Cloud, their reaction is one of terror. They are interested in working by waiting around for malfunctions, not providing new usability and change management. The fact is that the maintenance of servers, the licensing of the software, and the technical assistance provided by Microsoft to solve any and all problems can make most of an organization’s IT staffing costs disappear. The cloud solutions typically cost less than the ancillary services. Any IT staff that is needed are functional problem solvers, teachers, advocates, and business engineers. The Functional Engineers must have large project completed with a management-level role before taking on your project. Your project is not the place for your engineer to learn, you need seasoned veterans.

Today, responsible implementation involves Total Quality Management (TQM) practices, which specify the best proven ways to make your implementation work as it should. Accepted project management techniques, metrics, software testing, usability testing, and employee training all serve to make sure the best use is made of your new system. We at the Web and I take care of keeping up with the latest not only in technology but also in the best practices for our industry. We know how to make Microsoft Office 365, Dynamics CRM and related technologies work for your institution. Call us at (646) 853-0573 for a complementary consultation with a knowledgeable professional.

Sep 15

Lync
2 Comments

Setting up Lync for the Windows 7 Phone

Lync on a Windows 7 Phone gives organizations the ability to have continued employee presence including secure instant messaging. Eventually Lync for Windows 7 Mobile will have video messaging available. Still, the ability to send official and secure messages on your own network to contact staff from different locations who are supposed to be on-call is a reassuring ability. Eventually, the full Web Meeting technology will be available on the Windows 7 Mobile Platform, but until that time there is still a technological advantage. Note that the forward facing video cameras may be usable with Skype, and we will see if there is a Skype application for the Windows 7 Phone, test it, and write back on this site.  It is important to mention at this point that support for Lync is not limited to Windows 7 phone, but is also available on iPhone, iPad, Android, and Symbian, and the Web and  I is ready to support your Office 365 needs as well.

Lync Mobile Applications

The first time I tried to set up the Windows 7 Phone with Lync was a little confusing, because the seemingly simple login procedure was not sufficient to successfully login. Lync sometimes has difficulty signing in. Entering the Microsoft Office 365 E-Mail and Password resulted in an error. The error is caused by the Lync servers being hard to find for the phone. If they were not hard to find, the phone would be able to automatically discover the servers. Fortunately, the solution is easy. I have included the steps below so that you can easily walk through them to set up your mobile phone for Lync below:

  1. After entering the E-Mail and Password, tap the screen at “Sign in as”, and select the status you should see when you log in.
  2. Tap “User name” and enter in your Office 365 E-Mail address again.
  3. Tap the indicator to the right of “Auto-detect server”, and slide the switch to off.
  4. Tap “Internal discovery address” and enter https://webdir.online.lync.com/autodiscover/autodiscoverservice.svc/root .
  5. Tap “External discovery address and enter https://webdir.online.lync.com/autodiscover/autodiscoverservice.svc/root .
  6. Tap the check mark at the bottom. As long as your Office 365 E-mail and Password are correct, the login should work.

These instructions might be too complicated for some to have the time or the inclination to follow, and if that is the case, we at the Web and I would be very happy to help. Simply call us today to discuss your issues at (646) -853-0573.

Jun 4

Microsoft Lync

Microsoft Lync on Office 365: Instant Messenging, Enterprise Collaboration, and More

Microsoft Lync is a new product, but it is not Microsoft’s first foray into the world of Instant Messaging. But Lync is more than instant messaging. It has a variety of amazing features that make it indispensable for today’s enterprise:

  • Audio Teleconferencing.
  • Video Teleconferencing.
  • Unified Messaging.
  • Simultaneous Microsoft Office document editing.
  • Employee Presence Verification.
  • Windows 7 Mango Phone.

Between all of these features and the integration of these services to Microsoft Enterprise PBX services and Unified Messaging, we can tender to you a simple and secure solution to give you the new industry standard in services, reliability, and sophistication.

This solution is great whether you have two employees or two thousand.

An Overview of the Capabilities of Microsoft Lync

An Overview of the Capabilities of Microsoft Lync

To find out more about Microsoft Office 365 and how it can help your business, click here or call 646-853-0573.

Here is a more comprehensive view of Lync and the capabilities from an engineering perspective:

Microsoft Lync on Office 365

Microsoft Lync on Office 365 Full Capabilities. Click twice to view full-sized poster.

Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 904 other followers