This article takes a look at the different options in the Lync client policy that can be tweaked by an administrator. Go through the Lync 2010 Client Policy explained here first, if you haven’t already read it.
As explained in my previous article, there are three levels at which a client policy can be applied – Global, Site and User level. We will be creating a new client policy and assign it to a set of users. If you are a small firm, you can either customized the global policy or create a new client policy and assign it to all your users.
Running New-CsClientPolicy “policyname” creates a new client policy. I have created one named “MyClientPolicy”. I will be using this policy name through out. Do replace it with your policy name if you are following along.
Unlike Exchange cmdlets, running Get-CsClientPolicy outputs all the info, rather than a subset. Since we have global and the newly created policy, the list will be lengthy. Try it!
First option that interested me is to provide a custom help url rather than the default Microsoft one. You can configure it by running Set-CsClientPolicy “MyClientPolicy” -CustomizedHelpURL “http://domain.com/lynchelp.html” –EnableEnterpriseCustomizedHelp
Another interesting option is to configure custom presence states which suits your organization. Check my article to configure it.
There are quite a few options to disable features – like disable emotions, feeds tab, phone presence, saving IM etc. Set the parameter to true if you want any of the options to be disabled. For example, to disable saving IM, run Set-CsClientpolicy MyClientPolicy –DisableSavingIM $true. By default, it is enabled and the screenshot below shows the feature in action.
An option users like is to “appear offline” in the Lync client, so that they can be invisible and still send/receive IMs. In order to enable it, run Set-CsClientpolicy MyClientPolicy –EnableAppearOffline $true. Check my article for more info.
Another option at admin’s disposal is to control displaying staff photo in the Lync client. You can disable photos, have the picture in AD displayed or let user put a picture from a web address. The parameter values are NoPhoto, PhotosFromADOnly and AllPhotos. Depending on what you configure, the Lync options in “My picture” (in Lync client) will differ.
Run Set-CsClientPolicy “MyClientPolicy” –DisplayPhoto PhotosFromADOnly to display only the photos stored in AD.
An option to put a banner for the IM conversations is the “IMWarning” parameter. This can be used to put company policy like “All IMs will be archived” etc. Run Set-CsClientPolicy “MyClientPolicy” –IMWarning “IMs will be archived”.
There are lot more options in the policy, but the above are the main ones which interested me. It is really a case of playing with the different options and tweaking the options to suit your requirements 
