FAQ about voice

Sometimes you need to dial a phone number for people who are not on your Contacts list. Other times, such as when using voice mail systems or making conference calls, you might be asked to either enter a PIN or make a selection by entering a number. To enter a PIN or respond to automated voice systems, you can enter numbers from your phone dial pad or from the on-screen dial pad in Lync 2010.

The Lync dial pad is always available in the Lync main window, on the Phone view that opens when you click the Phone icon. It is also available in a conversation window, if you click the dial pad button.

You might not have a Lync dial pad if you are using the standard Lync 2010 installation (or your support team has not enabled your account for enterprise voice), or if you are using Lync 2010 to control a standard (private branch exchange, or PBX) phone. In these cases, the presence of a dial pad depends on your remote call control (RCC) gateway implementation. For more information, check with your organization’s support team. If you do not have a Lync dial pad, you must enter numbers (such as PINs and voice menu selections) directly on your desk phone or other phone that’s connected to Lync.

Yes. In your Contacts list or the Phone view, you can type a phone number in the search field, and then, in the search results, click the Call button to place the phone call. You can also dial the number by using the dial pad on Phone view, and then clicking Call. (To open the Phone view, in the Lync main window, click the Phone icon.)

A Lync call is a call made from your computer (using Voice over Internet Protocol, or VoIP) to a contact who is also running Lync. Lync calls work as follows:

• A Lync call placed to a contact who is enabled for unified communication (UC), rings all that contact’s devices that are enabled for Lync, such as his or her desktop computer, laptop computer, and IP phone. UC-enabled users can place Lync calls to federated contacts to bypass the public switched telephone network (PSTN), which is the standard analog telephone line, and make VoIP-only calls.
• A Lync call placed to a contact who is enabled for RCC, rings all that contact’s devices that are enabled for Lync. However, the phone that is integrated with the PBX system in your company will not ring. A Lync call can be used by an RCC-enabled user to bypass the PBX phone system and to place a call directly to a Lync contact.

Lync calls require the recipient to be able to accept the VoIP call. To call an outside contact—whether a public IM contact or an outside “phone-only” contact such as a friend, family, or co-worker—use the traditional PSTN/PBX or mobile phone number, instead of a Lync call.

Follow these guidelines for dialing:

• No hyphens, parentheses, or spaces are required. If Lync doesn’t accept a phone number, contact your support team.
• For calls within your company, dial the phone number. If asked for an extension, you can use the dial pad in the conversation window.
• For local calls, dial the phone number. You may need to first dial a number such as 9 to go outside your company.
• For long-distance calls, you should use the E.164 standard, that is, country code, such as 1 for the United States, followed by the area code and subscriber number.
• You can also enter 1-800 numbers and numbers with alphabetic characters in the search field. The alphabetic characters are converted to numbers to place the call.