Lync Online Version

[talksr]

Good morning and Happy New year to all of you!

 

I noticed that recently, Lync is offered as an online solution as opposed to the original method of downloading and installing Lync server onto your existing server.

It seems it is offered via the Office 365 platform. Does anyone know any further info on this as I would be very keen on trialling this out for the admin staff in my school. I can see it providing an easy and effective method to quickly communicate between offices and send documents a little faster than creating emails, uploading and sending.

 

Capita, our software supplier are only able to supply us with the original solution which is the software which would need installing onto server. But we would rather look into the online based method. Capita have suggested that I visit this site:

Office 365 Education

This is more of a generic site and doesn't help with pricing or options on where to purchase from.

 

We are currently part of LGFL 2.0 and we use LGFL Mail which does not integrate with Office 365 or Lync.

 

Any help and suggestions would be most appreciated!

[CAWJames]

We have done this for our admin staff, very cost effective at free pounds and free pence We just started a free Office 365 account on our domain, just took some DNS changes. We then sync our AD accounts straight into O365. We only use the Lync portion, so had no need for federation, just the standard password sync.

 

Any questions let me know.

 

James

[talksr]

James, thanks so much for your comment.

How did you start a 365 account on your domain? Did you approach Microsoft direct?

Thanks

[CAWJames]

I just went to the link you have up in the first post for Office 365 education, then followed the instructions. It starts as a trial, then once MS have confirmed you are eligible(you add a DNS entry that MS read to ensure you own the domain) you can 'buy' the number of licences you need(i.e. £0.00 for each licence )

 

You will have 3 options IIRL, use a something.onmicrosoft.com, buy a domain or use your current domain. The first 2 can all b controlled from O365, whereas using an existing will require adding DNS entries. They list all you need to add for whatever scenario. We only wanted Lync, so only added those related to Lync, as we have our own in house Exchange server.

 

Hope that helps

[CAWJames]

Just to clarify. You will need A2 for faculty licences, the pay for ones are A3.

 

So the trial will be A3, but once you are deemed worthy by MS, you can then buy the free A2 ones. Hope that makes sense. You can then assign A2 licences to anyone you initially put on the A3 trial.

[talksr]

Thanks very much, have just requested the DNS changes.