This is my brand new series on how to use Lync and Exchange better together and get the riches experience with these great products together.

I will in this series show you how Lync and Exchange can integrate with each other, so you can get the full potential with the products.

Chat and Presence in OWA

Let us start by the basic and setup chat and presence in Outlook Web Access.

When I look in my OWA, I don’t have any presence status on my contacts:

And also I’m not able to sign to Lync from OWA

That’s expected as we haven’t set anything up yes

Configure Lync

First we will start my configuring Lync Server 2013, so that it will allow our exchange server to get Lync presence information.

This is done by creating an applicationpool and a trustedapplication.

New-CsTrustedApplicationPool -Identity mail.exchpro.dk -Registrar fe01.exchangepro.local -Site Exchangepro.dk -RequiresReplication $False

Mail.exchpro.dk is the common name for the certificate I have assigned to my web service on Exchange. (the actual server name is exch15.exchangepro.local). It will not working if you don’t use the common name.

Fe01.exchangepro.local is the frontend pool name

Next we will create an trustedapplication

New-CsTrustedApplication -ApplicationId ExchangeOWA -TrustedApplicationPoolFqdn mail.exchpro.dk -Port 5199

Finally run

Enable-CsTopology

We are now done with the configuration of Lync

Configure Exchange

Next lets configure Exchange Server 2013.

First you enable the Lync presence by this command:

Get-OwaVirtualDirectory | Set-OwaVirtualDirectory -InstantMessagingEnabled $True -InstantMessagingType OCS

Next we need to find the thumbprint for the certificate that we are using in Exchange:

Get-ExchangeCertificate

Copy the Thumbprint number and open the below web.config file in nodepad.

Search for <appSettings>

Insert these lines below <appSettings>

<add key=”IMCertificateThumbprint” value=”277E382EF04FFB6036F475A4C9FC08411930F41A”/>

<add key=”IMServerName” value=”fe01.exchangepro.local”/>

Adjust the lines so that it fits your deployment

Save the file and run a IISreset

That is it…

The Test

We have now configured Lync and Exchange, so lets see if it works. Open OWA and login.

You might notice this:

But you should end up with this:

Lets navigate to the People pane, and here you should see that you got presence status on you contacts. (it might take a sort while before it shows)

You also have a Chat icon on the contacts

And you should also be able to chat with your contacts

In the next posts we will be looking at the other great features which makes Lync and Exchange better together.

Until then… See you

Use Lync and Exchange Better together

Other posts in the series:

OWA Integration: http://exchangepro.dk/2014/01/19/use-lync-and-exchange-better-together-part-1/

Voicemail: http://exchangepro.dk/2014/01/24/use-lync-and-exchange-better-together-part-2/

Voicemail in Office 365: http://exchangepro.dk/2014/01/28/use-lync-and-exchange-better-together-part-3/

Unified Contact Store: http://exchangepro.dk/2014/02/11/use-lync-and-exchange-better-together-part-4/