Lync calls not routing properly

One of the biggest issues we’ve had in our new Lync 2013 installation is that calls will not route to a user when their presence shows them as in a meeting – this was an obvious frustration, because it means that the more often than not, the person whom you are in a meeting with can’t get through to you at all!

As a workaround, you had to set your presence to “Available” if you were expecting a phone call for a meeting – by no means a true, or long term solution.

It turns out that this is not a bug, but a configuration issue – According to this TechNet article the Parallel call routing method adheres to a user’s status, and will not send calls to them if they are in a meeting. Switching the call routing method to Attendant changes that behavior and allows calls to route through regardless of their presence. In fact, the only status that Attendant will not route calls through on is “Do Not Disturb”.

Here’s how you change this in the Lync Control Panel:

Click on Response Groups, then Group:

Select the Group that you want to modify and change the routing method to Attendant:

Click Commit to save your changes.

Just to make sure your changes take effect immediately, restart your Response Group Service on your Front End server.

Problem Solved!