If, like Pro Drive, you use Autotask to manage your IT services business, and you also use Microsoft Lync to make phone calls, you may appreciate this ‘productivity hack’ to make Lync phone calls directly from within Autotask using the LiveLink tool.

To create a LiveLink to dial a contact’s phone number you need to do the following:

 

  • Go to the LiveLink designer (admin > tools > LiveLinks Designer)
  • Create a New LiveLink
  • Give it a name and label such as “dial contact via Lync”
  • Under entity, select ‘contact’
  • Scroll down the list to ‘contact phone’, click in the ‘QueryString Value’ box and select ‘Insert’
  • Under ‘Base URL’ enter ‘tel:’
  • Give it a ‘Category’ – communication makes sense
  • Tick the ‘Active box’
  • On the configuration tab select all the CRM items
  • Click on ‘Save and Publish’ ensuring you select the right security groups or staff to publish it to

Now when you open or right click a contact and select ‘LiveLinks’ you should see your new link. On selecting it this will automatically open a new Lync window asking if you want to dial that number. It is also possible to create a LiveLink to dial account phone numbers using the same principle (just use the Account entity).