In my last post, I described how to integrate Avaya Session Manager with Asterisk. I originally hacked away at that because I figured it would be a great way to eventually integrate with Microsoft Lync. Sure enough, my Exchange guy asked me if we could integrate Avaya and Lync so I simply followed my own instructions replacing “Asterisk” with “Lync Mediation Server” it came up first try. On the Lync side, just call the Avaya a VoIP carrier. And use media bypass whenever possible. Works great for us! Right-click a contact and select ‘dial’. It’ll dial out the PSTN. This is basic integration. What is interesting is it brings up a whole new level of questions. What do people mean by “Lync Integration”?
- Do you want to use your PC as the phone, or control your desk phone?
- Do you want to support inbound calls to your PC, desk phone, or both?
- Do you expect to be able to transfer calls between your PC and desk phon?
- Do you expect common lamping? I.e. Incoming call rings on my deskphone (lamp slow flashes), I pick it up (lamp solid), put it on hold (lamp fast flash), take it on my PC (lamp should go solid again)
- Do you expect your call log to keep up with both PC and deskphone?
- If you have separate calls up on both PC and desk, do you want to conference them together?
Obviously there’s a lot more to “integration” than simply making calls between Lync and Avaya. I’ll be working on some tricks with EC500 to make some of these work. What type of Lync integration are your managers and users want?
Hey Roger,
I am in the process of integrating Avaya CM 6.2 and Lync 2013 EV. I have set up a SIP trunk thru SM to the Lync servers. We are using a steering code to make sim-ring work via EC500. We also have UM working on the Lync side if we take out the coverage path on the Avaya station. One issue we have run into, if we set the Lync client to DND or Send Calls to Voicemail the call just rings. We can see on the SM trace that Lync sends a message to SM (Call is being forwarded). After SM sees this message it sends a BYE and the call just rings. Any thoughts on what might be tearing this call down?
Thanks for all of the post, very informational.
Wow that is excellent and exciting. I’m thrilled to hear about your integration – it’s a very creative process and there are tons of ways to do it. You said you have UM working on the Lync side, so would you expect Lync to take the call if DND or Send-Calls is active? Or do you want it to go back to some sort of Avaya voicemail box? It sounds like you’d like Lync to take it so I’m not sure why Lync would tell SM the call is forwarded. Also, is this a REFER message? When I worked with our Lync guy here, he said his docs say to disable REFER. When I do an SM trace, I don’t see any REFERs. I have Lync 2010 and SM 6.3. I am currently having a problem with the mobility client – on the second leg of the call, the call drops if the party doesn’t answer within a couple seconds (and there’s a mysterious PRACK message). I’m trying to isolate it, but wonder if it’s related to yours. Although you have 2013 and I have 2010. Could it be when the media is trying to set up? What is the message SM sees that causes the BYE?
Yes, in this scenario this test user only has UM. There is no coverage path on the Avaya station, reason why it rings forever. I have confirmed we have the REFER disabled as well.
The messages before the BYE is the ACK to the Call Forwarding Message before it.
One odd item noticed today while testing, it worked once and the trace looks exactly the same in SM. Waiting to see the Lync trace to see what it shows.
I’m not using Lync’s UM. But wouldn’t the mediation server handle the voicemail? So why is there any message to Avaya of the call forwarding message? I would think Avaya rings the mediation server, and the mediation server takes it from there whether a user or voicemail answers. Do you have a conference bridge set up? Do you get the same kind of call forwarding message when the conference bridge answers?
Hi Roger,
I was just wondering, is it even possible to share status information between Avaya and Lync/Skype for Business? If so, how?
Oh that’s a good question, but I’m afraid I don’t know. I’ve never looked into status and presence. There must be an easy API to do it. You just want some kind of “on the phone” indicator to show in Lync? You’d probably need an AES server to get the status of the monitored extension, and then just hit a web service to update Lync. The AES part is a mystery to me. Since you’d have to monitor all extensions, would it be prohibitive to license it?