Exchange 2016 IM Integration

Since Exchange Server 2010, we’ve been able to integrate Outlook Web App with Lync Server or Skype for Business for basic IM and presence when using Exchange Server’s web client. The server side configuration requirements have seemingly changed with every release.

The release of Exchange Server 2016 is no different. Exchange Server 2013 required editing OWA’s web.config file to specify the certificate and IM server to use. Unfortunately, every time a major update was applied, the alterations needed to be made again.

With Exchange Server 2016, Microsoft has pulled the setting off individual servers, and will now store the necessary info in Active Directory, which means using PowerShell to apply the settings:

New-SettingOverride -Name ‘<Description>’ -Server <Server/Wildcard> -Component OwaServer -Section IMSettings -Parameters @(“IMServerName=<Server/Pool FQDN>”,”IMCertificateThumbprint=<Certificate Thumbprint>”) -Reason “<Reason>” -MinVersion “<Minimum Version To Apply To>” -MaxVersion “Maximum Version to Apply To”

For example, if we wanted to apply the setting use a Lync pool name Lyncpool.domain.com to all Exchange 2016 servers whose names start with EX, we would use:

New-SettingOverride -Name ‘IM Integration’ -Server EX* -Component OwaServer -Section IMSettings -Parameters @(“IMServerName=lyncpool.domain.com”,”IMCertificateThumbprint=12345678123412341234567812345678123126789″) -Reason “Configure IM” -MinVersion “”15.01.0225.42”

You can then confirm the settings:

Get-ExchangeDiagnosticInfo -Process Microsoft.Exchange.Directory.TopologyService -Component VariantConfiguration -Argument Refresh

And restart the OWA App Pool:

Restart-WebAppPool MSExchangeOWAApppool

<h/t> https://eightwone.com/2015/10/06/exchange-2016-and-im-integration/

Shane Skriletz, PEI