Feature Overview of Microsoft Lync Server 2010 : Presence

Without presence information, users tend to fall back on other communication methods such as sending e-mail messages that say, “Are you free?” or “Do you have time to talk now?” With presence information at their disposal, users have no need to send these types of messages. With a quick glance, users can see a contact’s presence and make a determination about when it’s appropriate to initiate a conversation. These conversations are not necessarily IM-based; they can be in the form of an IM, a phone call, or a video conference. However, the appropriate time and modality of communication are driven by the presence information. For instance, a user whose presence is currently Busy most likely isn’t going to be receptive to a phone conversation, but might be willing to communicate through IM for a short period of time.

Enhanced Presence

Many presence engines have only a few presence states, such as Available or Away. These provide some insight into availability, but traditionally require manual user management and offer little control over what information is actually published.

The presence engine Microsoft has developed behind Lync Server is referred to as Enhanced Presence, which is a combination of a numerous presence states, access levels, interruption management, automated updates, application integration, location information, and multiple points of presence (MPOP). These features interconnect to provide a prolific amount of presence information that is simply not possible in many other systems.

Presence States

Lync Server presence consists of a presence icon and a status text string. A number of colors are associated with each presence class that operate on a similar scale as a stoplight from green to red. Although each of these colors provide a good indicator of presence, they are paired with a textual representation of the user’s presence when published, providing even more insight to the current status. Some colors can take on separate text strings depending on the user’s availability. For instance, the color red is displayed when a user manually sets her presence to Busy, but red can also be associated with the In a Call, In a Conference, and In a Meeting presence states. These are unique presence states, but indicate a similar level of willingness to communicate at that moment. The core availability classes are listed in Table 1.

Access Levels and Privacy Relationships

Privacy relationships are the component of enhanced presence used to control the amount of information visible to contacts. In prior iterations of Communications Server, these were referred to as access levels, but they are now called privacy relationships in Lync Server. Instead of publishing the same presence to all subscribers, a user can control the flow of information based on differing privacy relationships assigned to contacts.

The enhanced presence model publishes more than just a user’s presence name; it also includes e-mail address, title, company, address, working hours, and a multitude of other attributes.

The privacy relationships available in Lync Server are

• Friends & Family— Shares all contact information except for meeting subject and meeting location. This level is intended for personal contacts.

• Workgroup— Shares all contact information except for nonwork phone numbers. Contacts assigned to this relationship level can interrupt the user when his status is Do Not Disturb.

• Colleagues— Shares all contact information except for nonwork phone numbers, meeting subject, and meeting location. This is the default relationship assigned to contacts in the organization.

• External Contacts— Shares all information except for phone numbers, meeting subject, and meeting location.

• Blocked Contacts— Shows only the user’s name and e-mail address. Contacts assigned to this relationship cannot reach the user through Lync endpoints.

Table 2 details what information is available to end users assigned to each privacy relationship.

Interruption Management

Access levels control interruption management because they determine whether a contact can initiate a conversation with the user at a particular time. For example, a contact assigned to the Company access level cannot interrupt with a phone call or IM message when the user’s presence is set to Do Not Disturb, but someone assigned to the Team access level sees the status as Urgent Interruptions Only. This provides a visual cue to the team members that the user doesn’t want to be disturbed, but can be interrupted for a critical issue. When a conversation is initiated, the receiver sees a pop-up notification called the toast in the lower-right corner of her screen.

Automated Status Updates

Presence is a great indicator of a user’s willingness to communicate, but if left to the users to manually manage, it tends to be inaccurate. A user cannot always remember to change his presence to Busy when walking into a meeting or back to Available when returning to his desk, so Lync Server leverages a user’s calendar and manages these kinds of updates on his behalf. If a user has an appointment on the calendar, his presence automatically changes to Busy during the appointment and then goes back to Available when the appointment concludes.

Endpoints also differentiate between personal calendar entries considered appointments and meetings where multiple attendees exist. In the previous example, if the calendar entry is a meeting instead of appointment, the status changes to In a Meeting instead of Busy, indicating the user is most likely in the company of others and probably engaged in conversation.

This calendar integration can be performed from Microsoft Office Outlook if installed, or if the user’s mailbox is hosted by a Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 or later, endpoints can use Exchange Web Services to log in and pull the calendar data directly from the mailbox using Lync Server credentials.

In addition to the calendar integration, Lync Server keeps track of a user’s activity at an endpoint and can automatically mark an endpoint as Inactive or Away after a period of time. This ensures that if a user has walked away from an endpoint without changing his presence, subscribers can see the last presence state with an Inactive designation as part of the status. Even though the user is still signed in, subscribers can tell they probably won’t get a response when trying to initiate a conversation.

Multiple Points of Presence

Lync Server presence has the added flexibility of being read from multiple endpoints simultaneously. This enables a user to be signed in at multiple locations or endpoints that publish presence independently. The server then aggregates these endpoints and forms a single presence class that is published to subscribers.

For instance, a user can be signed in to Lync on a desktop, again on a roaming laptop, at home on a Mac, and also on a mobile device. Each of these endpoints publishes presence independently, and the server then forms the user’s presence appropriately.

Having multiple clients signed in is generally considered a problem because how does a user know which endpoint to send a message to? Without multiple points of presence (MPOP), there is a problem. However, when a user sends another user a message, the Lync Server determines which endpoint is currently most active for that user. For example, a user might be Away at three of the four endpoints, so the server sends the message only to the endpoint where the user is Available.

If the server is unable to determine which state is most active, it sends the message to the endpoint it determines most likely active and waits to see if the user acknowledges the toast at any location. If the user opens the toast at an endpoint, the server removes the message from the other endpoints. If an endpoint doesn’t acknowledge the message, the server leaves the message at only one location—the most likely endpoint.

MPOP might not be perfect at all times, but it does enable a user to publish presence from multiple locations and still receive conversations at the most likely endpoint.

Extensible Presence

The built-in presence states provide an excellent array of options for users, but the Lync Server platform is extensible, and businesses can build on these choices using custom presence states. These custom presence states enable the user to select one of the standard presence classes and colors, but to customize the text displayed with the status. Although a subscriber might still see a green icon synonymous with availability, the user’s presence can read Catching Up On E-mail, which gives subscribers an additional piece of information to consider before initiating a conversation.

Some applications use the extensibility features to provide more information about an endpoint’s capabilities. Mobile clients generally append a Mobile indicator to the presence status. This gives subscribers information that the user might be slow to respond because he is likely without a full keyboard or computer. Subscribers are aware they won’t likely be able to have a lengthy conversation, but that they can have a quick or short conversation. This designation might also give users an idea that calling the user’s mobile at that time is probably the quickest way to initiate a conversation.

Application Integration

Another component of Enhanced Presence is the automatic availability of presence in other Microsoft products. This means that although a Lync client runs in the background, users are able to see presence for those contacts in Outlook right next to their names. This presence can be seen directly in the context of the mail message, so there is no need to switch between applications to view a user’s presence. Right from the e-mail message or contact card, the user can see the presence and initiate an IM, e-mail, or phone conversation with only one or two clicks of the mouse.

Lync Server can also integrate with Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 Outlook Web App to provide presence and IM capabilities directly within the Outlook Web App interface. This allows users to see presence information within the context of e-mail either from the full Outlook client or while using a web browser.

The same rich presence information is also available in Microsoft Office SharePoint where users can view presence in the context of documents and files. The contact card displayed in other applications is the same card and interface displayed within Lync, ensuring users have a consistent view of contacts and presence across any application.

With Lync any kind of telephone number displayed on a web page in Internet Explorer suddenly becomes a hyperlink and can be clicked to initiate a phone call. All of these integration points are not overwhelming by themselves, but collectively create an improved end-user experience unique from any other product.

Location

Another component of presence is the concept of publishing a user’s physical location, which can be as vague as whether they are in the office or at home, or as exact as being in a particular floor of a building. Administrators can configure a Location Information Service (LIS) to integrate with Lync Server, which allows Lync Server endpoints to automatically identify what physical location they are connecting from and then publish that information with the user’s presence. If the Location Information Service cannot identify the user’s location, they will be prompted to enter one and the endpoint will retain that information if the user returns to that location at any time so a user never has enter a location twice.