I completely agree....but unfortunately our IT department seems to have been completely removed from any strategic decisions whatsoever. At a management team meeting recently, the head of Finance remarked that we didn't need to be there because "all you do is fix computers". Changing perceptions, and from there the things that we are being asked to do, is going to be a long hard battle.
2009/10/20 Steven Peck <[email protected]> > That's crazy. > > When we deployed LCS here, the question came up about having me do it. > At the initial 'pilot' of 100 users I refused. Then proceeded to > write all the documentation on how this was empowering users and > allowing them to customize their workflow and communications > relationships themselves and somehow managed to keep it that way. > > I have reduced the default down to 100 contacts. We have a potential > of 5000 users on the system. But seriously, you cannot 'know' that > many people. There is no legitimate reason to have that many contacts > when you have the address book available to scroll through for people > you do not regularly know. > > Forcing contacts is a load on your system. Contacts are essentially a > big subscription to everyone's presence information. It also doesn't > give you anything that an address book doesn't give you except make it > harder and more annoying to find people you actually want to send IM's > to. > > As to 'forcing' people to stay logged on, that's a management policy > issue and not really a technology issue. > > Best of luck on your education issues with management. > > Steven Peck > http://www.blkmtn.org > > On Tue, Oct 20, 2009 at 2:03 AM, James Rankin <[email protected]> > wrote: > > Most of our users are too lazy, or too technically-inept, to populate > their > > own contacts list. The CEO has been driving OCS as a big > presence-awareness > > tool so he wanted everyone to have all contacts pre-populated. We upped > the > > contacts limit to 500 (default max is 150). We only have 350 users though > so > > not a problem at the moment. > > > > It is getting ridiculous though, because now the chief wants to bar > everyone > > from exiting OCS unless they log out of the system. For my Citrix users I > > have managed to achieve this quite easily, because I use AppSense to > > auto-launch the thing and log them straight in, and then I use a > > self-healing process to restart OCS if it ever exits (plus I have > disabled > > the exit and sign-out functions in the OCS interface). However, my VDI > users > > are giving me a royal pain, because they are on XP desktops and they can > > exit it any way they desire. Does anyone have any idea how to prevent a > user > > ending a process under XP without installing AppSense (rhetorical > question - > > short of using OpsManager to monitor it and respond to a process exit, > I'm > > pretty sure it's a non-starter without doing some programming). > > > > 2009/10/20 Brian Desmond <[email protected]> > >> > >> Dumb question, but, why can’t your users add someone to the contacts > >> themself? What happens the minute you get more than ~300 contacts? IIRC > >> that’s the max per contact list. > >> > >> > >> > >> Outside of my teams when I had this, I never had any contacts on my list > – > >> I just started typing the name of who I wanted to talk to in and clicked > >> them. Just my personal work style … > >> > >> > >> > >> Thanks, > >> > >> Brian Desmond > >> > >> [email protected] > >> > >> > >> > >> c - 312.731.3132 > >> > >> > >> > >> From: James Rankin [mailto:[email protected]] > >> Sent: Monday, October 19, 2009 2:35 PM > >> To: NT System Admin Issues > >> Subject: Re: Live Communications Server - account creations > >> > >> > >> > >> OCS 2007 ain't much better. We have convoluted scripts for reading OU > >> memberships, exporting the OCS-enabled users to text files, and then > running > >> the LCSAddContacts script to repopulate everyone's contacts list. A > pain, > >> but at least it can be automated. > >> > >> 2009/10/19 Steven Peck <[email protected]> > >> > >> It doesn't. Although we don't create user contacts. We provide > >> > >> documentation for them to do it for themselves. You can load the > >> admin tools and do it all from the desktop. I've not had to go to the > >> LCS server to 'enable' users. Just do it from the ADUC interface. We > >> also have the LCS2005 Address Book service setup which allows the > >> users to more easily find each other. > >> > >> I am in the midst of setting up OCS2007r2 now. Not sure that will > >> actually get any better in the Integration. OCS still has it's own > >> address book service. It does 'promise' the ability to do 'contact > >> groups' from AD. I have not gotten to that point in testing/setup. > >> Maybe later this week. > >> > >> While on the same 'tier' marketing wise within Microsoft and offering > >> some integration, it's still it's own product. > >> > >> Steven Peck > >> http://www.blkmtn.org > >> > >> On Mon, Oct 19, 2009 at 11:30 AM, David Lum <[email protected]> wrote: > >> > Anyone here use LCS 2005? Our service desk has to go through a manual > >> > routine to create users and update user lists on each client > >> > > >> > > >> > > >> > Launch ADUC and right click on user, enable Live Communication > Settings > >> > > >> > Change to C:\Program Files\Microsoft LC 2005\ResKit\WMI Samples > >> > > >> > Edit contacts.txt to add new user > >> > > >> > Edit users.txt to reflect just the user you want to update > >> > > >> > Run addcmd.txt contents in command prompt > >> > > >> > ON THE LCS server, goto ADUC and enable user (rt click) for LCS > >> > communications, > >> > > >> > > >> > > >> > It seems like it should integrate nicer like Exchange. Anyone? > >> > > >> > David Lum // SYSTEMS ENGINEER > >> > NORTHWEST EVALUATION ASSOCIATION > >> > (Desk) 971.222.1025 // (Cell) 503.267.9764 > >> > > >> > > >> > > >> > > >> > > >> > > >> > >> ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ > >> ~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~ > >> > >> > >> -- > >> "On two occasions...I have been asked, 'Pray, Mr Babbage, if you put > into > >> the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not > able > >> rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke > such > >> a question." > >> > >> http://raythestray.blogspot.com > >> > >> > >> > >> > >> > >> > >> > >> > > > > > > -- > > "On two occasions...I have been asked, 'Pray, Mr Babbage, if you put into > > the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not > able > > rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke > such > > a question." > > > > http://raythestray.blogspot.com > > > > > > > > > > ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ > ~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~ > > -- "On two occasions...I have been asked, 'Pray, Mr Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question." http://raythestray.blogspot.com ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~
