Legacy Phone for Conferencing

Another scenario that can be attractive to organizations not looking to fully implement Enterprise Voice features or replace existing handsets is to leverage the conferencing features of Lync Server with their existing investments. This allows an organization to migrate away from a legacy or hosted conferencing system without changing the fundamental way users function. Organizations can save a significant amount of monthly fees for hosted conferencing services just by switching to Lync Server 2013 as the dial-in conferencing solution with existing handsets.

Users in this scenario have full access to the rich conference-scheduling controls within Outlook and Lync, but instead of using a Lync endpoint to participate in audio conferences, they can use their legacy desk phone. This is accomplished through the use of the Join Audio Conferences From setting within Lync. Users can elect to be called at a number published within Active Directory or can enter a number manually. Figure 17.13 shows an example of this configuration so that when a user is joining a conference with audio through Lync, the user’s desk phone will ring automatically, so all the user needs to do is answer the phone to join the audio conference. Since the user has already authenticated to the Lync client, there is no need to enter any participant codes or conference IDs.

Figure 17.13. Legacy phone for conferencing.