Relationship View
The third view available in the Lync 2013
client is the relationship view. This view is a bit more interesting
because the relationships actually enforce behaviors on the contacts
that are members of them. The relationships include the following:
• Friends and Family—Contacts in this relationship can view all your contact information except meeting details.
• Workgroup—Contacts
in this relationship can view all your contact information except Home
and Other Phone; they can interrupt the Do Not Disturb status.
• Colleagues—Contacts
in this relationship can view all your contact information except Home,
Other Phone and Mobile Phone, and meeting details.
• External Contacts—Contacts in this relationship can view only your name, title, email address, company, and picture.
• Blocked Contacts—Contacts in this relationship can view only your name, email address, office, and picture; they can’t reach you through Lync.
Beyond these permissions, the
relationship view operates the same way as the other two views in terms
of initiating IMs with contacts.
Recent Conversations
The third tab displayed in the
client shows conversation history. All instant message conversations,
phone calls, and Lync meetings are displayed in this section for
reference. Users can also filter for conversations that include audio
or by missed conversations within the navigation filters at the top of
the screen. Right-click on any conversation and select Continue
Conversation to rejoin.
Telephony
The fourth and final tab visible in
the Lync client is specific to telephony features and is displayed only
when a user is enabled for Enterprise Voice. A dial pad is displayed,
and a button to initiate an audio quality test call is available. The
user’s voice mail is also displayed on this page
and can be played back or managed via the Lync client. This helps
users’ productivity because they don’t have to jump between Lync and
Outlook to manage voice mail messages. The voice mail options on the
right side of the client provide entry hooks to call voice mail, change
personal greetings, or run through the initial voice mail setup.
Useful Lync Client Shortcuts
Microsoft has gone out of its way to improve
functionality and accessibility in the Lync client, and one of the ways
is to create hotkeys for commonly used tasks. This sort of information
makes a great cheat sheet for new users of the Lync client because it
not only simplifies accessing certain functions, but also serves to
highlight what functions are available. Some of those commonly used
tasks are highlighted in Tables 1, 2, and 3.
Table 1. Global Hotkeys
Table 2. Main Window Shortcuts
Table 3. Conversation Window Shortcuts
