Integration with SharePoint

Similar to Exchange, Lync Server 2013 continues to offer integrations with SharePoint that were available with previous versions of the two products, and provides some additional functionality that is available only with the latest versions of both. Whenever a contact is shown in a SharePoint page, Lync presents Presence information along with the associated contact card for the user, and Lync functions can be initiated via a simple click on the Presence icon.

An interesting SharePoint integration feature that was introduced with Lync 2010 and will continue to be supported in Lync 2013 is Skill Search. With Skill Search, the Lync client can be used to search SharePoint My Site pages to find individuals with a specific skill set. With SharePoint integration, users are also able to access their SharePoint My Site profile page from the Options dialog box within the Lync client.

New with Lync 2013 and SharePoint 2013 is the ability to use SharePoint to search Lync archives using an eDiscovery site collection. The Lync archive data must first be integrated with Exchange 2013 to form a common repository for archive data to allow this search functionality within SharePoint.

This type of bidirectional integration presents many options for organizations to allow productive and efficient communication for the user base. For example, it can be challenging for new employees in a large organization to find the right resource to handle a particular question. With Lync and SharePoint integration, that employee can use Skill Search to display a list of employees who have a particular expertise, quickly determine whether they are available to communicate, and then initiate the communication using various methods. All of this can be accomplished using a single interface, compared to searching a company intranet, looking for the appropriate department, digging up contact information for individuals with the right skill set, and then manually contacting each one until someone is available.