IM and Presence Integration

After Lync 2013 and SharePoint 2013 are configured as partner applications, SharePoint is automatically able to take advantage of presence information from Lync. From a user’s perspective, Lync integration with SharePoint becomes the most noticeable when the user is browsing documents in a SharePoint document store. When documents are being viewed, the name of the person who posted the document is displayed in SharePoint. With Lync integration, the presence information for each of those users is also displayed. This integration feature can be quite a convenience; for example, if there is a question about a particular document posted in SharePoint, the viewer is immediately made aware of whether that person is available. The SharePoint user can then quickly determine whether it makes more sense to send an IM, initiate a call, or perhaps create a conference that enables the parties to collaborate on the document.

Presence within SharePoint does not require any additional modifications to either SharePoint or Lync. Presence is displayed via an ActiveX control and Lync APIs. On the client side, the only requirement is that a version of Microsoft Office be installed on the client computer where presence will be displayed.