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If you see the Chat Rooms icon on the Lync main window, persistent chat is set up in your organization. So, what is persistent chat and would it be helpful in your daily work life?

Screenshot of Lync main window view icons section with chat room selected

Persistent chat lets you create topic-based discussion rooms that persist over time. Persistent chat rooms are where you can communicate and collaborate with a group of people who have a common area of interest. You can share ideas and information by posting messages in real time and find ideas and information by browsing or searching the chat history. Messages are saved over time, so new and old chat room participants can see all the chat history at any time.

With persistent chat, you can search for content within and across rooms, and create alerts (notifications) and filters (topic feeds) to track conversations in particular rooms and about specific topics. And, you can create and manage your own chat rooms, if you’ve been authorized by your Lync administrator.

Important:  Conversational style in a chat room is typically casual, but remember whatever you write in a chat room is permanent. Anyone with access to the room can see what you’ve written for as long as the chat room is enabled.

Why chat?

Persistent chat is a great way to add efficiencies to your organization’s online activity. Persistent chat rooms are:

  • Easy to access. Find and open chat rooms and monitor chat room activity directly from the Lync main window.

  • Easy to monitor. Find out about chat room activity by selecting the Chat rooms view on the Lync main window. In this view, you’ll see the number of new messages next to the chat room name. You can also set up topic feeds and notifications that alert you to the kinds of new messages you want to see.

  • A way to contain communications. Chat rooms can reduce randomization by replacing some distribution lists, which helps cut down on email inbox clutter. And, chat rooms provide a place to post questions for experts, which helps reduce the amount of instant messaging (IM).

  • Ideal for evolving topics. Chat rooms provide a place to post and review news and new thinking.

Consider using chat rooms to:

  • Coordinate events

  • Create ask-the-expert/Q&A forums

  • Brainstorm

  • Create a bulletin-board environment for evolving topics

  • Collect feedback from colleagues/test new features

  • Share information between employees across shifts

Next steps

Now that you understand what Lync chat rooms are and why you’d use them, you’re ready to get started. To help get started, take a look at the following topics:

Understanding Lync chat room membership

Follow a chat room

Use notifications to monitor Lync chat room activity

Use topic feeds to monitor Lync chat room activity

Create and manage a Lync chat room

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