The quarterly publication of the International Legal Technology Association
Issue link: https://epubs.iltanet.org/i/163881
We saw this scenario repeated multiple times: Meeting with one of our consultants, we had a question he couldn't answer. He'd take a quick look at his contact list and see a colleague who was available to chat. After a few IMs and one quick mouse click, we were on a call with great sound quality, even on our public Wi-Fi. A minute later, our question was answered. Sometimes the scenario involved sharing screens, with the consultant on the other end showing us exactly what we were looking for. We collaborated with PLA to deploy Lync. "Collaborate" is an appropriate word here, and we used Lync to do it. A PLA technical architect designed the system and installed both the Lync servers and Audiocodes media gateway. We managed the pilot, rollout and training. Pilot We did our initial install of Lync in late November 2012 and started our user pilot in January 2013. During the early phases of the pilot, a small group tested just the Lync client without the enterprise voice features (i.e., phones). After confirming the stability of the software on our system, we deployed the client (again without voice) to more than 80 percent of the firm by March. IT started testing the enterprise voice features in January, but we did not deploy phones to end users until mid-March. A major pain point with the pilot was trying to get the old Avaya system to route to Lync. In other words, Communication Manager would not talk to Lync. We also had trouble finding a knowledgeable Avaya consultant who was willing to help fix the routing issue. In the end, we decided to maintain the two systems in parallel with pilot members tolerating two phones on their desks. This inconvenience helped speed along our deployment. Attorneys encouraged us to "rip the band aid" and get the new phones out to everyone rather than living with two systems. For the most part, I think they were right, and the firm benefited from the truncated pilot. We identified some technical issues during the pilot (here's a tip … put your voice traffic on a separate VLAN), but user adoption issues couldn't really be tackled until people had no choice but to use the new system. User Adoption I love a project where people stop me in the hall and effuse about the software. People sent me spontaneous IMs saying "I <3 Lync." This positive feedback gave us (or at least me) a false sense of security. While our users were generally happy with the new system, pain points began to emerge. Some we expected, while others surprised us. • Your Computer Is Your Phone. We stressed this point throughout the multiple Lync training sessions. Still, some people have had trouble with the idea. We have "real" phones on almost every desk. That is, the Polycom phones we chose don't rely on the computer to make a call — you just pick up the handset and dial. That said, most of the call features people need, such as transferring a call, are done more efficiently with the Lync software on their computer. This has frustrated people with the mindset that the phone and computer are two disconnected systems. • The Death of Speed Dial: It's not completely dead, but it needs major life support. With Lync, you can search Outlook contacts and call one of those contacts directly from the computer. You can also add external contacts to your contact list and call them with one click of the mouse. So who needs speed dial? People who don't want to use their computer to make a phone call. The phones we've deployed include the embedded Lync client that displays a user's contact list. The problem is the phone does not display external contacts correctly when the contact isn't in the Global Address Book. If you want a private contact to appear on your phone, that's not going to happen. (Note: This is an issue with any phone running the embedded client and not just the Polycom phones we deployed.) • Unified Messaging: People have been clamoring for "voicemail in their email" for years, so we were surprised to hear some complaints. People now have four different ways to access voicemail. Five if you've installed the mobile Lync client. For some, less is more. • Sound Quality: The Polycom phones' digital sound allows you to hear everything on the other side (sometimes you don't want to hear breathing). Some also find the digital sound to be "fake" when compared to analog phones. Peer to Peer 33