Introducing: Lync Call Recorder Agent Simple on-demand call recording for Microsoft Lync The Lync Call Recorder Agent, currently in development by The Via Group, is a simple to use, on-demand, voice conversation recording solution for Microsoft Lync users. The Lync Call Recorder Agent exists as a SIP application endpoint in a Lync SIP domain, and appears to end-users simply as a contact in their contact list. The use of this recording solution does not require the installation of any new software for end-users. This means that any enduser can use the call recorder from any client that allows them to invite a Lync client participant from their contact list to a voice conversation. Why do we need another recording method for Lync users? Currently, Microsoft Lync allows end users to locally record voice conversations under 2 circumstances: 1. If the voice conversation is taking place in a Lync conference (as opposed to peer-to-peer), then the end-user participant can record locally to their workstation using the Microsoft Lync desktop client if they are a participant with the proper policy settings enabled by their administrator and if the host of the conference allows recording. 2. If the Lync client end-user has established a peer-to-peer call with another Lync client end-user and has the proper policy settings to record peer-to-peer calls between Lync users only. Peer-to-peer recording is not available when one party is a non-lync client end-user. The Lync Call Recorder Agent is not bound by these restrictions. Any Lync voice call can be recorded simply by adding the Lync Call Recorder Agent as a participant to an existing voice conversation. Recordings are created server side and are delivered to your email inbox as either a file attachment or as a download link. Recordings can also be distributed to multiple participants so that anyone can receive a copy. This means that Lync calls with telephone users can be recorded. This also means that only a single person must initiate recording in a conference in order for every participant, or only a subset of participants, to receive the recording. Creating recordings server side also enables the customer system administrator to implement reporting and archiving systems for historical record. How does it Work? Quite simply, all a person needs to do is invite the Lync Call Recorder Agent, found in their Lync contact list, to an existing conference or peer-to-peer conversation. The Call Recorder Agent will accept the invitation, join the voice channel, and begin recording. If no voice channel exists (if the conversation were chat only), then the voice channel will be created and the participants will be prompted to join the call. That s all that it takes! Once the conversation ends or the recording agent is removed from the conversation, the inviter and any participants that were added as recipients will receive an email message in their inbox containing either a link to download or a file attachment of the call recording. In the next section of this document, we will explore the feature of
adding additional recipients to the Call Recorder Agent distribution list so that more participants other than the inviter may also receive an email containing the recorded output. Figure 1. Lync Call Recorder Agent participating in a voice call. This conversation is being recorded as a result of inviting the Lync Call Recorder Agent as a participant to the conversation. Figure 2. Email received from the Lync Call Recorder Agent containing a download link to the recording file.
Controlling the Call Recorder Agent during a Conversation Chat Command Controls While the Lync Call Recorder Agent is recording a conversation, commands can be issued via the chat window to add or remove participants to the recording distribution list. Commands issued from the chat window must be prefixed with the! symbol. Available commands include:!help Lists all available chat commands!list Lists all email addresses currently in the recording distribution list!add Adds a participant to the recording distribution list. o!add someone@somedomain.com Adds the specified email address (someone@somedomain.com) to the distribution list. o!add All Adds all participants in the current conversation who s contact cards can be queried. Currently, only Lync users from the Call Recorder Agent host domain can be added using this method. o!add Adds the participants who typed the command if their contact card can be queried. Currently, only Lync users from the Call Recorder Agent host domain can be added using this method.!remove Removes a participant from the recording distribution list o!remove someone@somedomain.com Removes the specified email address (someone@somedomain.com) from the distribution list. o!remove All Removes all recipients from the call recording distribution list except for the inviter of the Lync Call Recorder Agent. o!remove Removes the participant who typed the command if their contact card can be queried. Currently, only Lync users from the Call Recorder Agent host domain can be removed using this method.!lock Allows the Lync Recording Agent to only accept commands from the inviter of the agent!unlock Allows the Lync Call Recording Agent to accept commands from any participant in the conference or conversation.!promote Promotes a participant to Inviter status, even if they were not the inviter. This is only for purposes of issuing commands to the Lync Call Recorder Agent. This does not affect the actual status of the conference or conversation.!private Using this command will only allow the inviter of the Lync Call Recorder Agent to be on the recording distribution list. Once the inviter of the call recorder receives their recording file, the file will then be deleted from the host server so that no other copy of the recording will exist after being distributed/downloaded.
User Interface Controls In addition to sending chat commands to the Call Recorder Agent bot, commands can also be sent by using an optional user interface that can be installed for any Windows desktop Lync client. This optional user interface can only be used by the person inviting the Recorder Agent to a conversation. Upon inviting the Recorder Agent from a Windows desktop Lync client, the inviter will then see the following user interface appear in the Lync client: From this user interface, the inviter can easily create the recording distribution list and has the additional ability to pause and resume recording.
Recording History Recording history viewed through the Lync Call Recorder Agent web interface A web-based interface is provided for users to browse their recording history. Any recorded conversation that a person was an original recipient of will be viewable here. Users have the option to have their recording resent to their email address or have multiple recordings exported to a zip file and downloaded through the web browser. The web interface implements basic Windows authentication, requiring a valid domain account to access. Installation Architecture The Lync Call Recorder Agent has a relatively small footprint and can easily run on a non-dedicated server or in a virtual environment. The Lync Call Recorder Agent must be installed on a 64-bit Windows operating system. Minimum system hardware requirements for any compatible host operating system are sufficient to run the Lync Call Recorder Agent. Consideration should be paid to disk size, as all saved recordings are stored on the application host server. Installed Components UCMA 3.0 Windows Service The Lync application endpoint and recording functionality exist within the Windows service installed with the Lync Call Recorder Agent. This component controls any and all negotiation with Lync servers as well as the recording control of Lync conversations. This Windows service application endpoint will have a SIP address associated with it so that end-users may see the Lync Call Recorder Agent in their contact list and invite the Lync Call Recorder Agent to conferences and conversations just as they would any other Lync end-user. IIS Website The IIS Website is where download links for recorded conversations are served from. The IIS website also hosts an administrative web portal where recorded conversations can be managed. SQL Server 2008 Express Edition SQL Server Express Edition is the database backend solution for storage of recorded conversations. SQL Server 2008 Express Edition is a license free version of the popular Microsoft SQL Server 2008 database server. The license-free Express Edition does implement a 4GB database size limit. By using a popular database platform
such as SQL Express, this allows system administrators to easily implement reporting and backup solutions if needed. Customers can leverage a fully licensed version of SQL Server or existing SQL Server technology if SQL Express is not desired. Call Recorder UCMA 3.0 Windows Service IIS Website for hosting download links and database visual web-interface SQL Server 2008 Express Edition Windows Server 2008 R2 x64 Host Computer Fig. 3. Software components installed with Lync Call Recorder Agent. Other Installation Considerations SMTP Relay server The hosting domain must contain an SMTP relay server for the Lync Call Recorder Agent to send email alerts. The Lync Call Recorder requires a dedicated Lync enabled and mail enabled user account to perform these operations. External access for serving files to internet users For internet users to have download access to recording files, the IIS Website that serves these files must be made available to external users. Availability The Lync Call Recorder Agent is currently in beta with a pre-release freeware version soon to be made available. For more information about The Via Group, visit us on the web at www.theviagroup.com.