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Lync 2013: Keeping tabs on your conversations!

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I’m happy to blog about one of my favorite features in Lync 2013 – TABBED CONVERSATIONS.  Tab conversations have definitely improved my Lync and Windows experiences, and I want to share with you how tabs can improve yours……

1. Customize the tab view.

Tab conversations offer two different views: tile view which is the default, and one line view.   These 2 tab views are optimized for different usage patterns so depending on how you use the product, one may work better than the other.  If you’re someone like me who typically have 5 or 6 active conversations going on, the tile view works great!  I can glance and see all my active conversations in a single window.  For those who have many conversations opened, the one line view is the way to go.  The one line tab view is compact and can display many conversations within the window before you get a vertical scroll.

Tile tab view:          

 

One line tab view:

Another customization you can make is re-order the tabs in the list. Tabs can be re-arranged via drag and drop, or by right clicking on an individual tab and selecting “move tab up”/”move tab down”.   If your tab list is long and has a scrollbar, moving the most frequently used tabs to the top will make them easy to locate.

After spending the time and effort of organizing the tab list, you might want to save the tab set up so it gets restored next time you sign in.  Lync provides an option to “reopen my conversations when I sign in to Lync” (under the options dialog->general tab).  I love this setting because I chat with 4-5 people on a regular basis and this setting saves my frequently used tabs between sign in sessions.  I never need to go to the main Lync window to start conversations with my favorite contacts anymore.  I go directly to the tab window and the chats are opened.  Definitely try this feature and see how your Lync experience changes…

 

2. Simplified window management experience

The obvious benefit to tab conversations is conversation windows no longer clutter your desktop. But in addition to that, you have more control over your conversation windows.  For example, tab conversations provide you the controls to pop in and out conversations. By clicking on the “pop this conversation out” button in the title bar, the selected conversation (Alex’s conversation in the example below) gets opened in its own window.  This is extremely useful if you want to have two or more simultaneous conversations at one time.  You can reposition to conversations on the screen such that they are all visible at the same time.  When you’re done, simply click on the “pop this conversation in” button and the conversation gets reinserted back into the tab window.

 

 

Another advantage to tab conversations is the ability to perform batch window sizing operations.  You can resize the tab window, and any conversation you pop out adopts the tab window size.  This is nice because your window customizations are persisted.

 
3. Stay on top of new incoming messages

The Windows taskbar has always been the place to look when there are new incoming messages. With tab conversations, there are other alert mechanisms so you can be sure never to miss an IM.

When there is an incoming message from a non-selected tab, you’ll see the following:        

  • The tab with the new message (Joe’s tab in the example below) glows orange to get your attention.

  • An unread message notification appears at the bottom of the tab list. Hovering over the unread message notification opens a “peek” that lists all tabs with new messages.   This notification is convenient for users who have a long tab list with a scrollbar.  Because not all the tabs are visible, the unread peek notification alerts users whenever there are new messages below the fold and lets them triage the notifications in one place.

The goal of tab conversations is to provide you flexibility and control over your Lync conversations experience.  I hope you’ll have a chance to play around with tabs, and love it as much as I do!  I’ve been using tab conversations for a while now, and I can’t imagine Lync without it :)

I look forward to hearing your comments and feedback….Happy tabbing!

Cindy

Senior Program Manager, Lync Client Team

Comments

  • Anonymous
    January 01, 2003
    How can I make the size of the conversation window larger? by default I only see a few lines of a conversation without having to scroll but I can drag the bottom of the window to make it larger.

  • Anonymous
    January 01, 2003
    @Ivan - It's not possible to have separate conversations displayed in multiple windows as in previous versions of Lync. If you disable Tabbed conversations, then you get a single conversation window that must be manually switched between conversations. --

  • Anonymous
    January 01, 2003
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    January 01, 2003
    Horrible system - how can I set it Lync so all conversations are shown in separate windows? I'm already fed up of losing conversations/replying to wrong ones and having to pop-out conversations by hand

  • Anonymous
    January 01, 2003
    Ah-ha! unticking 'Enable tabbed conversations' seems to have solved it (hopefully)

  • Anonymous
    January 01, 2003
    Agree with the other comments to bring back the change subject functionality...all of us in our team use this all the time!

  • Anonymous
    January 01, 2003
    Keyboard shortcut to switch between the tabs : Ctrl+Tab ; Reverse order is : Ctrl+Shift+Tab

  • Anonymous
    January 01, 2003
    Is there a keyboard shortcut to switch between the tabs?  Similar to "Alt-Tab" when they were seperate windows?

  • Anonymous
    January 01, 2003
    Lync 2013: Keeping tabs on your conversations!
    thank you

  • Anonymous
    January 01, 2003
    Changing conversation subject is not supported in this release

  • Anonymous
    January 01, 2003
    Why is it that if I resize a window with multiple tabs, then close one of those tabs, the window changes size back to the default size. I can't think of any other program when closing a tab causes it to decide to resize the window. Why does it do it? Very annoying.

  • Anonymous
    November 01, 2012
    Change conversation subject still available?

  • Anonymous
    November 05, 2012
    The "unread peek notification alert" is a nice touch! I'm curious if there will be an option for desktop notifications (i.e., toast popup).  Some less-active users prefer this style of notification.

  • Anonymous
    December 14, 2012
    Unable to get the option  for Lync 2013 client to ask "Close current Tab or All tabs". Incidentally selected "Always close all tabs" while closing the conversations on x top right of the conversations. Please suggest me how to get it back.

  • Anonymous
    January 09, 2013
    The only question I have is why did it take so long to get this "feature" in Lync?  Every other IM client has had it almost since inception.

  • Anonymous
    March 01, 2013
    Feature request: When I double click on a contact in lync, and a new tab opens to that user, I'd like the text input field to be in focus, as in the standard lync conversation window.

  • Anonymous
    March 13, 2013
    Taskbar notifications seem to be less noticeable than in 2010. If my tab window is minimized, it looks like it stops blinking after 30 seconds or so and turns a solid yellow? When I mouse over the icon, the preview windows also stop blinking as to which one received the update, so if I don't check immediately I have to bring up a random chat tab. If it happens to be the tab that received an update, I don't see the "unread" message and I have to decide if I have seen the chat item or not. Additionally, if I have a different conversation selected in the tab, I don't get an audio notification that I have received a message. So if I have conversation A and B open in tabs, and I select tab B and then minimize, if I get an IM from conversation A, I don't get a sound alert. Then in 30 seconds, I lose the taskbar peek notification as well. Separate issue: the "this conversation has been saved" icon and message take up a massive amount of space, can we have an option to reduce that message to a tiny icon in the margins of the conversation or something? Thanks!

  • Anonymous
    May 03, 2013
    +1 to Ben Anderson: Text input field should be in focus when you select a tab. I cannot seem to figure out a keyboard way to get there either; a keyboard shortcut for bringing focus to that field would helpful if it isn't the default focus.

  • Anonymous
    June 19, 2013
    absolutely hate the unified window for conversations

  • Anonymous
    June 25, 2013
    Hi, is it possible to disable grouping conversations like in the first photo? If I have 5 different chats I would like to have 5 separate windows, not all gathered in one with tiles.

  • Anonymous
    July 19, 2013
    @Maciek You can turn this off under Options -> General -> Enable tabbed conversations @Everyone else This is just about the only setting there is for Lync conversations and notification settings :) This is what I was looking for to configure when I came across this post. Why isn't it possible to configure how pesky Lync is? I keep missing the task bar highlight. How about allowing to bring chat window to focus (front) on new message, sound config, length of blinking, etc.

  • Anonymous
    September 17, 2013
    yeah but how to we set it to always pop out conversations as a default? I have many simultaneous conversations and need to read the simultaneously and often compare comments in each. in tabs you can only read them individually unless you annoyingly manually pop them out. ARRRGGGG the frustration. might go back to 2010.

  • Anonymous
    September 23, 2013
    @jason - To have your conversations in separate windows like 2010 go to Tools> General and uncheck "Enable Tabbed Conversations"

  • Anonymous
    January 15, 2014
    If I resize the chat window, multiple conversations (tabs) or not, close it, next time it opens, it forgets my resizing. Hard to believe your team missed this.

  • Anonymous
    January 21, 2014
    It would be great if I could sort the tabs automatically. (BTW, I use the one liner and have gabs of conversations open)

  • Anonymous
    February 14, 2014
    Not availabe for Mac :(

  • Anonymous
    February 27, 2014
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    March 20, 2014
    Any possibility of getting the ability to change the conversation subject BACK? It was a very useful tool when saving conversations to be able to just look at the Subject to get an idea of what the conversation was about.

  • Anonymous
    April 09, 2014
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    April 09, 2014
    Also one query which i left out. How do i set my status to offline(invisible) while already logged in?
    there was a registry key setting in Lync2010: EnableAppearOffline.
    any such option available in Lync2013?

  • Anonymous
    April 14, 2014
    older versions would have the chat window pop to the front of all windows when you received a message. i find i am not seeing new messages when i have a lot of windows in other applicaitons open or when im away from my desk andone comes in. is there any setting that forces all chat windows to the front when a new message appears?

  • Anonymous
    May 06, 2014
    This is one of the key differentiators that Messages (used to be iChat) has had for a while. When can Mac users expect to get this in Lync for OS X?

  • Anonymous
    May 07, 2014
    I have Lync on my Andriod and two computers (work and home). Pretty much always logged in. My issue is that the conversations are not synced across clients. I can't continue a conversation started on one device when I switch to another device.

  • Anonymous
    May 29, 2014
    any reason or update to why conversations over 1mb cannot be processed? & why it has not been addressed yet? according to this lync it is a known bug in the EWS HTTP stack.

    http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/office/en-US/a0b3adb6-72e0-4e3d-b747-1edf7ffd653f/lync-2013-conversation-history-not-taken-from-history-spooler-by-outlook-2013-when-bigger-than-1-mb?forum=officeitpro#8c1e735d-cf43-449e-91b0-c952af5f463d

  • Anonymous
    May 30, 2014
    I would add a plug to allow changing the conversation subject. With several conversations, they all show the same "Conversation (6 Participants)" or "Conversation (5 participants)". It is really hard to identify them with the same title. Pop-Out out is an option.

  • Anonymous
    June 02, 2014
    Hello. Is there any way to disable popping out of the conversation so that all the conversations are always docked/tabbed. Is it something that MS provides or are there any events in the 2013 Lync Sdk which we can use to do this?

  • Anonymous
    June 12, 2014
    I've noticed that if I start a chat with 'Cindy' and minimize the window, when 'Don' sends me an IM, Cindy's name blinks - this is confusing - I've missed my manager's IMs this way. I have disabled the feature.

  • Anonymous
    August 06, 2014
    On hitting the Close - X butoon for one chat window it closes all the chat windows - what is the option not to do this

  • Anonymous
    August 11, 2014
    I am using lync 2013 and I do not want the message to be displayed in the notification.

  • Anonymous
    September 16, 2014
    I find it rather silly that if tabs are enabled that if there is more than one conversation they still show up as multiple instances in the task bar, and short of possibly some sort of registry edit this cannot be changed. Its something I don't like, and disable in IE, and would like the same courtesy here. I just disabled the tabbed conversations since I would rather a slight more waste of task bar space than the larger amount of wasted spaced within the tab list, and since I am getting zero benefit from the tabs since all the conversations are still separate in the task bar..

  • Anonymous
    September 19, 2014
    I have opted to close all windows automatically on clicking close button. now i want to go back on on- by-one close option.
    Could anyone be able to help me on this

  • Anonymous
    October 07, 2014
    How can I switch the tabs to the left side? I have Lync 2010 and already installed the Tabbed conversations app.. could you please help me on how to do it? Thanks :)

  • Anonymous
    October 16, 2014
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    October 16, 2014
    You are saying that you can "save the tab set up so it gets restored next time you sign in" . I have enabled the option to "reopen my conversations when I signing to Lync" , but still I don't get the tab with my previous conversations .
    How do you save your tab setup ??

    Thanks

  • Anonymous
    October 21, 2014
    how can one switch off the tabs use windows as default?

  • Anonymous
    November 13, 2014
    I came here looking for how to turn it off, because I hate it. It would be nice if that information was included too. It's not better if you're talking to 5 people at once while using both your hands for something else and trying to keep track- - you can't just watch what people are saying if you have to click everytime the speaker changes.

  • Anonymous
    November 13, 2014
    I would love tabs for OS X. When can this happen?

  • Anonymous
    November 20, 2014
    Come on ... if you want to follow different conversations , you can just right click and Pop Out Conversation

    Can someone please comment on this ? Is not working for me
    "you might want to save the tab set up so it gets restored next time you sign in. Lync provides an option to “reopen my conversations when I sign in to Lync” "

  • Anonymous
    December 02, 2014
    Sorely need a single window Lync. I like the tabbed view, but why the whole 2nd window for contact list?
    Also, no jump list actions at all? Start new IM? Search contact?

    Thx!

  • Anonymous
    January 09, 2015
    Would be great if the taskbar could update the name when a new message is received rather than remaining on the last tab viewed

  • Anonymous
    January 23, 2015
    Microsoft, fighting its way into non-relevance, thanks for making Lync on Mac a different experience than on Windows. The multiple chat windows with no tabbed conversation option is useful how? Lync 14.0.10 on Mac OSX 10.9.5.

  • Anonymous
    January 30, 2015
    There is a workaround to create a conversation with custom subject.
    Draft an email with the recipient (dont send) and set the desired subject in the draft. Then you can create IM from that window, and Lync will have the email subject.

    Unfortunately, renaming after the fact is not possible.

  • Anonymous
    February 03, 2015
    My wife manages a team of 35+, and her company forces her to you Lync. She was complaining that she was missing important chats because she had so many different chats going on in separate windows. Me, forgetting that it's Microsoft, stated, "just create a tab window view, or one window view." Her, "you can do that?" Just because every chat tool out there has this ability I foolishly assumed Lync would have this ability. Nope.

    As someone else stated, "Microsoft, fighting its way into non-relevance". +1 to that.

  • Anonymous
    February 04, 2015
    Lync 2013 does not integrate successfully with Outlook. It's full of bugs and clearly hasn't been through any kind of rigorous UAT.
    I CAN'T LABEL MY GROUP CONVERSATIONS!?#@$&!!aaaagh!
    Lync 2013 5uck5!

  • Anonymous
    May 29, 2015
    This does not work for me at all. How to I unstack? When I unstack, it is much easier for me to see that someone is trying to contact me.

  • Anonymous
    August 13, 2015
    Why the heck can't we control the subject of our conversations anymore? Ridiculous

  • Anonymous
    August 13, 2015
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    August 26, 2015
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    August 26, 2015
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    September 29, 2015
    I do not like not having the possibility to configure using tabs or not (i.e. default back to the old one-window-per conversation!) I prefer the old way by far...

  • Anonymous
    September 29, 2015
    When can Mac users expect to get this in Lync for OS X? Currently multiple windows on Lync 14.1.1 is pretty clunky. Will it ever be available for Mac OS X users?

  • Anonymous
    October 05, 2015
    I can't believe you went throught this whole page (& made me read it), without actually showing how to turn this option on ???

  • Anonymous
    October 20, 2015
    Sort the list by name, PLEASE!!! ????

  • Anonymous
    October 30, 2015
    This is by far one of the most anoying things that you guys have done. How do i TURN IT OFF?

  • Anonymous
    November 04, 2015
    When will this feature be available on mac?

  • Anonymous
    November 09, 2015
    How do you get rid of the tabs?

  • Anonymous
    November 09, 2015
    Finally found the option to turn it off, no thanks to Ivan or anyone else spreading misinfo on here, a certainly no thanks to Micro$oft.

    Its Tools -> Options -> IM tab -> uncheck Enable tabbed conversations.

    Ivan said Tools -> General, I assumed he meant Tools->Options->General, but no, Micro$oft was to busy raking in their bribes from the NSA backdoors in Windows 10 to put the option in an obvious spot.

  • Anonymous
    December 04, 2015
    The comment has been removed