This is a separate application from Lync 2010 and must be launched after the Lync 2010 client is launched. If you close Lync, you'll need to launch it again. See the Tabbed Conversations for Microsoft Lync 2010 Getting Started Guide for more details.
Once you start the application and you start an new IM for the first time, Lync briefly opens a normal IM window and then replaces it with the Tabbed Conversations window (above). It then works exactly as the normal IM conversation window, with a few additions.
You can start a new tabbed conversation by clicking the "+" button at the end of the row. This will pop-up the Send Instant Message window for you to choose a new contact. You can also detach a conversation from the tabbed interface by clicking the up arrow icon in the tab. This will open the conversation in the standard Lync IM window. You can bring it back into the tabbed application by re-adding that contact as a new tab.
As expected, you can only do one screen share per tabbed IM conversation at a time, but you can have multiple contacts in that conversation.
It would be nice if the integration was a little smoother. I don't like having to open the application after I launch Lync, and the way it briefly shows the normal Lync IM window before it kicks in is a little annoying. But overall I like the way that it decreases the surface area of Lync, especially on smaller screens.
Leave it to MS to release such a mess of an add-on.
ReplyDeleteA very poor add-on, the idea is sound but the execution of the idea calls for some executions to be honest
ReplyDeleteThis isn't even technically an add-in, is it? It's a separate program that snatches up lync windows and becomes their parent.
ReplyDeleteIt's a kludge of a solution, but it does work.
Is there any way to add this to the start up items now?
ReplyDeleteThis program is horrendous. Never thought I'd say Lotus Notes' Sametime was a better application. How does Microsoft, which has owned MSN messenger for years, let itself fall so far behind the competition?
ReplyDeleteI just started looking for some tabbed chat functionality for Lync today as our company has begun to leverage it further.....
ReplyDeleteI must say, I am terribly disappointed in this "tool". Does it tab the chat windows? Yes. So with that out of the way this has to be the most kludgey implementation I've seen. How, in 2013 and after literally dozens of IM applications - ironically enough some that MS owns/developed, is this the acceptable solution being promoted by MS? It boggles the mind.
Seriously....spend some of that nest egg you've built up over the decades and either innovate or at least reach feature parity with your "competition." Good grief.