Wednesday, June 29, 2011

Configuring Ringback in Lync Response Groups

When setting up Response Groups in Lync, you might want your callers to hear ringing rather than some sort of hold music (either the default provided by MS or custom).  I've seen people looking for a solution in the forums without much success.

What I did in this situation was to download a .WAV file of a ringtone (known as "ringback" in telephony lingo) and set that as the hold music for the hunt group.  Lync will play back the file continuously, so an audio sample of a single ring will suffice.  The ringtone I downloaded had no pause in it, which meant the caller would hear a constant ring without a pause. That was fixed by inserting a silent stretch into the .WAV file.  Remember to save it as an 8 or 16 kHz, mono 16-bit WAV file.  Here's a sample for North America (right-click and Save-As for best results).

File this under "So-simple-and-why-didn't-I-think-of-that".

21 comments:

  1. Ken

    DO you have a few minutes to answer some basic Exchange 2010 UM Dial issues?

    We are trying to change from a 4 digit dial plan to an 8 digits. Can we pull a report that lists all of the extensions of all users?

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  2. Hey Matt,
    This post didn't have anything to do with Exchange, but hey, whatever. I don't have an Exchange environment to test with right now, but try this for starters:

    Get-UMMailbox -ResultSize Unlimited | Name, Extensions

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  3. Ken,

    Great job on this simple fix. The only thing I notice is that when I call in, the ringing in your file is louder than the initial ring (and, if I forward it to another number, any subsequent rings). Maybe a simple questions, but can I edit the file to lower the volume, or is there another way to set the volume in Lync?

    Thanks,
    Shawn

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  4. Actually I was able to use Audacity to edit the file's volume, but I would be interested to know if there's a quick way to do it using Lync powershell. Thanks again!

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  5. I was going to suggest Audacity. Glad you got it to work. And there's no way to adjust volume using Powershell at this time.

    Ken

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  6. Wow, about time someone posted this. Having participated in the ringback craze for a while (I admit it! :) ), I have been wondering if it was possible to set it up the way you did. I am going to keep that specific ballad ringback tone just for when my girl is calling, though.

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  7. Ken,

    Where on Gods green earth do i change this ringback tone on the lync server?

    Thanks,

    Mad Lync Admin

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  8. Hey Mad Lync Admin,
    In the Lync Control Panel, go to Response Groups - Workflow - Create or edit a workflow. You assign the ringback tone WAV file where you configure Music on Hold.

    Ken

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  9. Ken you're a legend! thanks that sorted me right out.

    Another question if ok... The Workflow is now poerfect as i want it with our custom recordings and now ringback! but i am having a problem with the response groups or should i say understaning it, at the moment from the workflow there is a group which i have set in the lync control panel to ring all people that group at the same time but it doesn't seem to ring everybody at the same time but instead it will randomly select 1 person in that group and ring only them, is this due to me not having setup a hunt group correctly for that reponse group?

    Thanks again!

    Mad Lync Admin

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  10. Hey MLA,
    Are you mad as in angry or mad as in crazy? :) What is the routing method you've got the group set for?

    Ken

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  11. Ken

    i'm the crazy type not the angry type ;) I don't get angry i get even.

    It's currently setup to Longest Idle... to ring all extentions in that group i suspect you going to tell me it should be set to parallel?

    MLA (i like that!)

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  12. Hey MLA,
    Yep, you suspect correctly! Longest idle will ring the one person who's been sitting around without talking to someone the longest. Parallel will ring everyone at once.

    Ken

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  13. Thanks Ken,

    That did the trick, well to a degree, it would've help if the distribution list in exchange had all the users added to it :S

    If you haven't guessed already i did not build the system, it was done by a previouse employee who decided to leave and i got told on monday i need to make it work by friday. Anyhoo, tomorrow is friday and the system is fully working and ready to go, phew! I think i should go get certified now, looks like there is good money being paid for lync admins.

    All thanks your forum and some a couple others here and there!

    Thanks Ken! you saved me with those few snags!

    Keep well,

    MLA

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  14. Thank you so much, This was exactly what I needed.

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  15. Thanks for this Ken. Was trying to figure out how to solve this for a customer, ran across this post and it worked perfectly. Really nice to include the .wav file for download as well, much appreciated.

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  16. great article! I tried using a wav file that was not in the proper format with a ringback. While it sounded fine when called from Lync, it was extremely poor quality from a traditional phone. Thanks for providing the wav file.

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  17. Ken,
    Thanks for this post! Do you have a Europe ringback tone?

    Thanks a lot.

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  18. Excellent, thanks alot for this post. The file worked great.

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  19. Do you have an updated link?

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  20. That solution is very poor. In this case the call is already connected and the caller gets charged for hearing a ringtone sound... I hate skype for business for this papercuts. It will never be a real telephone system like Avaya & co.

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