Changing DTMF Control Mappings for Audio Conferencing in Lync

Many companies are learning the extreme value of Lync these days.  One of the easiest ways to gain immediate ROI is to replace your hosted audio conferencing service with Lync dial-in conferencing.  If you have been a user of any hosted service, you are most likely familiar with managing the roster meeting participants through DTMF key mappings.  Most likely the Lync DTMF mappings are not going to match exactly what you are used to and you may need to adjust some of the key mappings.

From the Outlook invite, users can view the dial-in conferencing information by clicking the “Find local number” link or by browsing to the Simple URL that was assigned in the Lync topology.

Outlook Invite:

Topology Builder:

By clicking the references above, the Dial-in Conferencing web Page will show the default DTMF mappings:

Administrators can view and configure the current mappings from the Lync Management Shell.  To view the current configuration, run Get-CsDialInConferencingDtmfConfiguration

Note, you can have different DTMF configuration mappings defined on a Global or Site scope level.  To create a site scope for DTMF mappings, use the New-CsDialInConferencingDtmfConfiguration cmdlet.

An administrator can change the mappings by using the Set-CsDialinConferencingDtmfConfiguration cmdlet.  The following are valid configurations:

• Command Character: # or *
• Commands: single digit 0-9

In my example, I am going to change the Mute/Unmute command to “2” and the Admit All command to “0”.  I will also change the Command Character to #.  The following command will make my configuration settings:

Set-DialInConferencingDtmfConfiguration –CommandCharacter “#” –MuteUnmuteCommand 2 –AdmitAll 0

Now the new configuration can be seen in the powershell or Dial-in conferencing web page:

This post shows how to change the default DTMF mappings used for managing audio conferences.

Exchange 2010 SP2 Update Rollup 2 Available

An update for Exchange 2010 SP2 has just released and can be downloaded at: Exchange 2010 SP2 Update Rollup 2 Download.

This will take you Exchange version up to 14.2.298.4

For a description of all the included fixes, see KB 2661854

For those of you running DAGs, please see the following article: Applying Updates to Exchange 2010 SP1 and SP2

If you are running third party products (like anti-virus, etc), it is important that you disable them before updating.

Exchange 2007 SP3 Update Rollup 7 Available

An update for Exchange 2007 SP3 has just released and can be downloaded at: Exchange 2007 SP3 Update Rollup 7 Download

This brings the build number to: 8.3.264.0

• For a description of all the included fixes, see KB 2655203

If you have a clustered environment, please see this article: Applying Exchange 2007 Update Rollups to Clustered Mailbox Servers

Remember to disable or remove all third party software during the upgrade (like antivirus, backup agents, disclaimers, etc.)

Two Great FREE Lync Training Opportunities

Microsoft is sponsoring two different Lync virtual training sessions.  This is a great opportunity to become more familiar with Lync and to get certified.  Here are the details…go register.

Deploying, Configuring, and Administering Microsoft Lync Server 2010

When: April 17-19, 9:00A – 4:00P PST

More Info and Registration

Planning and Designing a Microsoft Lync Server 2010 Solution

When: April 24-26, 9:00A – 4:00P PST

More Info and Registration

Three Ways to Determine What Version of Lync Server Components are Installed

Microsoft releases updates to Lync components periodically and only updates the version level of the components that actually get the update.  Because of this, various components of your Lync infrastructure will be running at different versions.  To help with keeping the components at the latest versions, Microsoft has released a single tool to perform updates to your Lync environment.  If you download and run the LyncServerUpdateInstaller.exe, this will check your Lync server and install the updated components that are needed.  Note, that you will need to periodically download the latest version of the installer as the download doesn’t actively check for updates.

So how do we determine the exact versions of the Lync components that we are running?  There are basically three different ways:

1. Powershell
2. Run the LyncServerUpdateInstaller.exe tool
3. Check Windows “Programs and Features”

Powershell

There isn’t a great native one-liner within Lync to gather this information.  You would think running Get-CsServerVersion would return this, but it only returns the base version level:

Premal Gandhi blogged a while back about a powershell command that can be used to find this information by using WMI to query the different Lync components.  A commenter to the post modified the original command that I am using below.  The versions can be found by running:

Get-WmiObject –query ‘select * from win32_product’ | where {$_.name –like “Microsoft Lync Server*”} | ft Name, Version –AutoSize

This will list all components associated with Lync Server, even the tools installed like the Resource Kit and Best Practices Analyzer.

Run the LyncServerUpdateInstaller.exe

Why not use the tool itself to see what components and versions are installed on a server?  When running the LyncServerUpdateInstaller.exe, it will list what versions are installed and what versions need to be updated.  Sure, this tool can be used to actually update the components, but can also be used just to see what versions are installed.

Check Windows “Programs and Features”

You can also see what versions of Lync components are installed by opening “Programs and Features” within Windows.  By scrolling down to the “Microsoft Lync Server 2010” section you can view the version installed.

Hopefully this helps you get some clarification on what exact versions of Lync components are installed in your environment.

Lync March 2012 Server and Client Updates Released

This round of updates came quicker than normal.  The Lync team has released server and client updates for March 2012. Here are all the details of what was updated this round:

Server Updates (7577.197) – Download – KB 2493736

• Core Components (KB 2695369)
• Web Components Server (KB 2689848)
• Standard/Enterprise Edition Server (KB 2689846)
• Mobility Service (KB 2689850)

Note: Use the cumulative LyncServerUpdateInstaller.exe to install the updates to make sure all needed updates are applied.

Clients (7577.4087)

• Lync 2010 (32-bit) – Download – KB 2684739
• Lync 2010 (64-bit) – Download – KB 2684739

The Lync “To-Do” Checklist

Have you ever asked yourself:

1. I have published the Lync Topology, now what?
2. When is it required to re-run Step 2 (Install role components from the Deployment Wizard) on my servers?
3. Have any of the changes I made in the Topology affected anything else?

A much over-looked feature in the Lync Topology Builder is the To-Do list.  This list only appears after you have published your topology and action needs to be taken directly on the server components to reflect the updated topology.  This means that more is needed than just Lync replication.

View if action is needed:

View if no action is needed (Lync replication will take care of all changes):

After clicking on the “Click here to open to-do list”, a text file is opened and will explain the changes needed to your environment.

Looking at this closer, I have changed the Simple URLs for one of my SIP domains.  The to-do list shows that I will need to update DNS, possibly modify my certificates and also run local setup on two of my servers: lablyncfe01.homelab.local and lablyncfe02.homelab.local.

This means running Step 2 from the Deployment Wizard on these two servers:

After re-running Step 2, my Front-End servers will pick-up the changes to the Simple URLs and be able to answer traffic for them.

The Lync To-Do list from the Topology Builder is a great check to make sure nothing needs to change locally on your Lync servers to support configuration changes made in the Topology Builder.