August 12, 2014

August 28th COUCUG Meeting

The August meeting is just over two weeks away! Come hear about Attendant Pro from Landis Computer and enter to win a Plantronics headset.

We’ll be kicking things off at 4pm and we’ll go til 6pm. Food and drink is being supplied by Matt Landis and Landis Computer.

You can RSVP and get more details at www.coucug.org. We hope to see you there!

July 22, 2014

My thoughts on the Microsoft Unified Technology Event

Yesterday, Microsoft announced that they are not doing the smaller, product centric events like Microsoft Exchange Conference (MEC) or LyncConf. They are switching to a Unified Technology Event which will be next May in Chicago. You can read the announcement here: http://blogs.office.com/2014/07/21/microsofts-unified-technology-event-for-enterprises/.

This news isn’t all that surprising, combining efforts has to be a great way to save money and more efficient from a planning standpoint.

I have to admit, I’m sad to see LyncConf go. I went to both years of it and thought it was fantastic. I hope the new event is as good and not just a re-invention of TechEd. A few reasons that I am disappointed the smaller conferences are going away:

June 10, 2014

Lync and Site specific Simple URL's

We recently had a requirement when deploying a new Lync 2013 pool to give a Site/Region their own Simple URL’s. I knew this could be done and it’s always easier when doing it during the deployment but this was the first time I had ever had to do it when the site had been running for awhile on Lync 2010 and using the Global Simple URL’s.

Our requirement was to go from using the Global Simple URL (meet.company.com) to a Regional based one of meet-emea.company.com.

June 3, 2014

Lync 2013 Trunks and EnableFastFailover

This post was inspired by a troubleshooting session that happened just before the long Memorial Day Weekend here in the states. We had just moved our pilot users over to our Lync 2013 pool a day before when they started reporting issues calling certain numbers. What was interesting was not all calls were failing. Only international calls and a few mobiles were failing. National calls were working fine. Nothing changed call flow-wise so it had me a bit stumped.

May 22, 2014

Jabra Motion UC Battery Life Report

Awhile back I was given a Jabra Motion UC headset to test and work with to review. You can read my initial thoughts here: http://phyler.wordpress.com/2014/02/05/jabra-motion-uc-initial-thoughts/

After using this now for a few months, I thought I would report on the battery life. Jabra released an update in mid-April that extends the battery life to 8 hours but I wasn’t seeing anywhere close to that so I contacted their support and we worked through it and found a few things.

May 15, 2014

May COUCUG Meeting

The May meeting for the Colorado UC User Group is just around the corner on the 29th from 4-6pm. Come listen to Exchange MVP Jason Sherry (@jasonsherry) speak about Exchange Cross-forest migrations.

You can get more details and RSVP at www.coucug.org.

April 30, 2014

Support your local Lync User Group

The last full week of April we saw many people from around the US gather to participate in local user group events. As a leader of the Colorado Unified Communications User Group (COUCUG), I am ecstatic to see the success and engagement growing for all of the local communities.

If you are not involved in a local user group, I believe you should be. The local user groups are not a place where people should be bored listening to a sales pitch. Each group, whether it is an independent group like ours or one of the national Lync Users Groups, has experts who want to share what they have learned over time. These experts consist of MVP’s and Microsoft Certified Masters (MCM’s) who give of their time to come and speak.

April 25, 2014

Reflections on Best of #Lync Conf Denver #COUCUG

Yesterday, (April 24th), was the Best of Lync Conference Denver. As a leader of the Colorado Unified Communications User Group, I was involved in the planning, setup and execution of putting this event on. I wanted to take a moment to reflect on what we accomplished.

First, we had a goal of 40 attendees. We ended up with 48 or 49 plus the sponsors and leaders of the user group for a grand total of 58. We did this with about a months worth of planning and invitations. Based on the amount of effort that was put into just this, I have to say my admiration and and respect (which was already pretty big) for Jamie Start (@nomorephones) and his team has been exponentially magnified. I have no idea how they have pulled off the real LyncConf the past two years without going absolutely crazy. Seriously, that team must be amazing.

February 25, 2014

COUCUG Feb Meeting - Identity Management and #Office365

For folks in the Denver area, the February meeting of the Colorado UC User Group is this Thursday (2/27) from 4-6pm at the Microsoft offices in the DTC.

We are going to be discussing Identity Management with Office365. This is an important topic if you are wanting to utilize Office365 with Single Sign-on or if you are running (or going to run) a Hybrid setup.

You can find out more and RSVP at www.coucug.org.

February 5, 2014

Jabra Motion UC [Initial Thoughts]

The good folks at Jabra sent me a stack of devices that I will be working my way through. This is my first impressions with the Jabra Motion UC device.

My day job requires me to be on the phone a lot. I work from home most days and use a headset or speaker phone for an average of 4-5 hours per day. A good headset and a speaker phone are a must. There are a few requirements that I have to have: