Muting in Lync Server 2010 Conferences

It seems like a somewhat odd or perhaps seemingly self-explanatory topic, but for various reasons I had reason to get into the specific capabilities and presenter/attendee usability situations of muting in conferences today and I figured that someday it may be helpful info for others, so here you go.  There are basically 4 muting scenarios in conferences:

 

Scenario 1 – Presenter (Leader) places an individual on mute (right-click > Mute) and attendee unmutes

Lync shows that the user has been muted:

Attendee can unmute by clicking the microphone button   or by pressing the mute toggle button on their headset/speakerphone or Lync Phone Edition device.

 

Scenario 2 – Presenter places attendee on mute and presenter requests an unmute

Like before, Lync shows that the user has been muted:

The presenter requests an unmute:

The user receives the unmute request and can choose to unmute:

Attendee can unmute by clicking the microphone button , unmute button , or by pressing the mute toggle button on their headset/speakerphone or Lync Phone Edition device.

 

Scenario 3 – Presenter mutes audience

Presenter mutes the audience from Lync:

A notification is displayed to the Lync client:

As you can tell from the fact that the mic button is disabled, you cannot unmute in this situation.

 

Scenario 4 – Presenter mutes the audience but requests an attendee to unmute themselves (combination of scenarios 2 and 4)

Presenter mutes the audience from Lync:

A notification is displayed to the Lync client:

A presenter requests an attendee to unmute:

Attendee can unmute by clicking the microphone button , unmute button , or by pressing the mute toggle button on their headset/speakerphone or Lync Phone Edition device.

 

There are other general conference options of course, like playing entry/exit announcements, moving everyone to an attendee, etc.

 

Now, next time you are muting others or being muted in Lync Server conferences you’ll know exactly what to expect.

Comments

[Andre Blumberg]

Thanks Mike for the info. Wow, this is so much better than the old Live Meeting functionality. It was always an issue with either background noise from attendees or attendees talking whilst still on mute. From the screenshots it looks a lot more user friendly and intuituve in Lync. Obviously the fact that there is no more separate Live Meeting client makes it a lot easier as well,

[Takeshi Ishimaru]

Thanks, Mike. Helpful information.