Joining Meetings

Joining meetings with the Lync client is a simple experience for users. Clicking the Join Lync Meeting hyperlink found within any Lync Meeting automatically launches the conference.

The other easy way to join Lync Meetings is to leverage the Outlook meeting reminder that pops up before a meeting. When Outlook detects that the meeting is a Lync Meeting, it displays a Join Online button to the user. The user does not even need to open the calendar invite, but can instead click the Join Online button and immediately enter the meeting.

Users can also dial in to the conference bridge through the Lync client, or have another participant drag them into an existing meeting. This can sometimes be faster than trying to hunt for a calendar invite, especially if Outlook is not already open. There is also no requirement to use both the web conferencing and dial-in bridge. The web conferencing components can be used even if no audio is required in a meeting.

By default, Lync joins the user’s PC audio to a conference, but if a user has selected the option Before I Join Meetings, Ask Me Which Audio Device I Want to Use, they are prompted by Lync for an audio source. This enables the user to not join audio at all, which can be useful on a PC with no audio device. Users can also specify a number, such as a mobile phone, for Lync to call them at when they’re joining the conference.