Polycom and Microsoft Lync are changing the way we make phone calls

[Peter Huboi (poly_peterh)]

Would you call your boss if you knew your boss was in the middle of presenting an important webinar presentation? What if you need to talk to someone right away and but they aren’t at their desk? Is it easy to find other ways to reach them from your phone? New features like “Enhanced Presence” and “Contact Cards” on the Polycom VVX Business Media phones are making call scenarios like this very easy to handle correctly.

Polycom is pleased to announce that the latest UCS 5.1.1 firmware on Polycom VVX phones is now Qualified for Lync 2013 as part of Microsoft's Third Party Interoperability Program (3PIP). New Lync features are supported on VVX phones making users even more productive. Not only are we delivering additional PBX-like features, we are delivering enhanced features specific to Lync deployments that you don’t find on your phone if you are still using phones on a PBX. So let’s take a tour of some of the latest Lync features introduced on Polycom VVX phones.

Enhanced presence support on VVX phones: Enhanced presence extends the available list of presence states on your VVX phone in a Lync environment to include additional presence states. The newly added enhanced presence states include:

• In a Meeting
• In a Conference
• Urgent Interruptions only
• Presenting

These functions work on both the VVX phone and the VVX Expansion Modules that are attached to the phone and improves the visibility of your Lync favorites’ status.

        Benefit: Prevents interruptions by showing presence status detail before a call is placed or transferred

Contact Cards on VVX Phones: The following numbers are available and can be selected for dialing with a ‘long press” of your contact in your contact list on your phone or expansion module:

• Lync URL
• Work
• Mobile
• Home
• Voicemail

The contact card feature is very useful when used in combination with your contact’s presence status. For example, if you see that your contact’s status is “away” and you really need to contact them immediately, you might dial their mobile number instead of their work number. Or, if your contact’s presence status is “urgent interruptions only”, you might choose to dial their voicemail instead of dialing them directly. A Lync contact can be also be searched if available in the enterprise active directory.

        Benefit: Easily reach your contact without having to hunt for other contact numbers

Shared Line Appearance (Boss/Admin) – The Shared Line Appearance (Boss/Admin) feature is designed to add greater flexibility to the administrative assistant’s ability to handle the boss/manager’s calls when using Polycom VVX phones with Microsoft Lync.

• Control the manager's (boss) phone calls remotely from the administrative assistant's phone
• Easily redirect/transfer a call to manager's voicemail via a contextual soft key

        Benefit: Improves administrative assistant’s user experience and productivity

Lync Data Center Resiliency (also known as Front End Pool Pairing): During an outage of a Lync Server Data Center or any disconnection of the Front End Server, all the users registered to that registrar pool move to their secondary registrar. After the primary Front End server recovers the users move back to the original data center.

        Benefit: “5 nines” reliability is now possible in Lync environments

PIN Authentication through Web UI: PIN authentication via the web configuration utility allows an easy way to update the pin on SoundStructure which is often rack mounted and has no easily accessed “dial pad”.

        Benefit: Installed audio environments are easier to support when routine password changes need to be made.

 

UCS 5.1.1B is a Microsoft Qualified Release – UCS 5.1.1 is qualified by Microsoft as a formally supported 3PIP software release for Polycom VVX and SoundStructure platforms.

       Benefit: New features are validated and supported by Polycom and Microsoft

More features: Security enhancements, simplified Caller ID, and Lync Root Certificate Retrieval Using LDAP and other features introduced in UCS 5.0 like Call Park and Address Book Search are now Microsoft Qualified make the VVX phones more secure, easier to use, and easier to deploy.

Key resources and links:

Polycom® UC Software 5.1.1 Rev B associated utilities and documents are now available on the Polycom Product Support web pages (http://support.polycom.com) for download. Support page navigation will vary by region so navigate to Voice->Polycom UC Software and you should see a page that looks like this:

Jeff Schertz, a Polycom UC Architect and Microsoft MVP, has many useful blog posts and in one of his most recent posts titled “Polycom UCS 5.1 for VVX Phones”, he walks you through the steps of upgrading the VVX phone firmware and attaching a color expansion module as well as other tips.

Visit the Polycom UC Software page on Polycom.com for more detailed information on features.

Visit the Phones and Conference Phones for Microsoft Lync page on Polycom.com if you need more information on Polycom’s voice portfolio for Microsoft Lync

Next Steps: If you are a large Enterprise still running on older TDM PBXs or if your phones from your initial VoIP deployment are fully depreciated or EOL and no longer supported, a short proof-of-concept trial of Polycom VVX phones can be your next step. If you already use Lync clients for instant messaging (IM), you may already have the necessary Plus CAL Lync licensing that supports enterprise voice features. If you are looking for best practices and decision making tools, download the Total Economic Impact of Polycom Voice Solutions for Microsoft Lync study. Better yet, contact Polycom to find a partner or set up a visit to our Executive Experience Center and we can have experts to help walk you through the next steps in your decision making process. We are here to help.