In the tough economic times we find ourselves in today, remote working and the ability to have rich online meetings are becoming more and more important. One of my colleagues B. Roop Sankar (Unified Communications PFE) has written the below article, which highlights some of the new additions and improvements to the Lync Web App. Hopefully this information can help you reduce travel costs and increase your productivity!
Conferencing capabilities such as Web Conferencing (sharing PowerPoint etc) and Audio/Video Conferencing have always been available in Lync Server 2010 and its previous versions. However the conferencing experience was different based on who was joining the conference. This was especially noticeable when users from outside the company (anonymous users *) were invited to join a Lync Meeting and didn’t have the Lync client installed.
These anonymous users would join the meeting using a web browser which is called the Lync Web App. The features available to users via Lync Web App are;
· Dial-in and dial-out (“Call me”) audio conferencing.
· Detailed meeting roster.
· Multiparty instant messaging (IM).
· Desktop and program sharing, including giving control to participants (available for Windows only; not available for Macintosh).
· Collaboration features, including whiteboards, polls, file sharing, and navigating PowerPoint presentations uploaded by others.
Though this was feature rich it was still did not encompass a seamless collaboration experience. Some of the limitations are;
· Silverlight had to be installed (which required Administrator privileges).
· No IP Audio and IP Video.
· Cannot upload Microsoft PowerPoint presentations.
· Dial-in and Dial-out was generally disabled to prevent call fraud.
· Desktop and program sharing only available for Windows.
· *All the above could be provided to the end user using the Lync Attendee client. However looking at the size of the install (approx. 61.1MB), I would let you decide if this would be a good user experience.
The *NEW* Lync Web App provides all of the above and much much more!!!
Given below is a table that highlights the new features that are available.
Join | Voice & Video | Collaboration over Content | Meeting Management |
· Join as guest with a single click · Quick plug-in installation – user-level install, not dependent on Silverlight | · Audio over IP · Video over IP · Multi-participant video · Speaker indication · Speaker video over content · Dial out, dial in | · Desktop sharing · Specific application sharing · Give and take control of desktop · Real-time note-taking · Upload PPT, share and annotate in real time · Whiteboard · Poll | · Participant list · Manage participants · Schedule meeting |
All these features are available in all of the major Web Browsers (IE, Safari, Chrome etc) and this link will provide you further information on the supported operating system and browser combinations.
Since they say that a picture can say a thousand words, I’ll stop writing and show you all the new features.
Join Experience:
Multiparty in a Conference – Video:
Multiparty in conference - IM and Roster Open: (Audio, Video & IM, all via the Web browser)
Share Menu:
Presenting a Slide Deck:
Active Speaker in full window mode:
Screen Share Experience – Multi Parties (showing Active Row and Sitting Row):
Managing Meetings – Promote, Demote or Remove users from the meeting
As seen above, Lync Web App in Lync Server 2013 provides an extremely rich collaboration experience, all from your web browser.
Multi-Factor Authentication for Lync Web App
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj205190(v=ocs.15).aspx
*Anonymous Users - Anonymous users are users who do not have a user account in your organization's Active Directory Domain Services (AD DS) or in a supported federated domain, but can be invited to participate remotely in an on-premises conference.
>> All the snap shots were taken from Lync Server 2013 Preview and internal testing at Microsoft.<<