How do I control the Personal Information Manager (PIM) setting in the Lync client
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Frank -
3:23 PM

I am working at the moment on a large IBM Notes/Sametime migration which will implement Microsoft Lync and Exchange whereby Lync is being delivered to users before they get their Exchange mailboxes due to the quantity of data being migrated.

There are a few challenges with this whereby some functionality (to name a few) can’t be delivered:

  • IM Conversation
  • Call History
  • Calendar Integration
  • Voicemail

By default the Lync client will look for the autodiscover.sipdomain DNS record in order create a connection to Exchange Web Services (EWS).  If Outlook is installed then some functionality will come directly from Outlook via MAPI, which itself will by default use the service connection point (SCP) from Active Directory when using on-premise Exchange otherwise will use autodiscover DNS records or SRV record.

In my case, if a mailbox can’t be found then the Lync client will ask for authentication, (per below) it bit like Lync Phone Edition.  With the Mobility Policy you can disabled Exchange integraiton

LyncNoMailbox

If you go into Tools -> Options, in the Personal tab, there is the Personal Information Manager (PIM) settings whereby you can set it to None.

If you interested this setting when set in the client is actually written to the backend database and if you logon to another Lync client with the same user, the setting follows the user.

With download -level clients (i.e. Lync 2010) you could control this on a machine via the registry.

Configuring the personal contacts store on client computers for Lync Server 2013
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj721922.aspx

However this does not work for Lync 2013, however it is possible to control this via a Client Policy Entry using either of the below:

$ClientPolicy = Get-CsClientPolicy "Global"
$ClientPolicyEntry = New-CsClientPolicyEntry -Name "PersonalContactStoreOverride" -Value "1"
$ClientPolicy.PolicyEntry.Add($ClientPolicyEntry)
Set-CsClientPolicy -Instance $ClientPolicy

Or

$ClientPolicyEntry = New-CsClientPolicyEntry -Name "PersonalContactStoreOverride" -Value "1"
Set-CsClientPolicy -Identity "Global" -PolicyEntry $ClientPolicyEntry

The great thing about this is (for me) that it can be revered back at a later date once the user’s have Exchange mailboxes or it is possible assign an specific client policy which grants PIM, IM and Call History for groups of users.

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