Automate Lync contact creation with Lync Groupinator

It seems that Microsoft thought of everything when it came to Lync: ease of use, multiple modalities for communication from a single interface, did I say ease of use? Unless you're used to chat servers that allowed you to predefine groups for different business units in your organization - that's not baked in. But you do have some options - you could make a script with manual groupings using AddCSContact.ps1, or you could use the Lync Groupinator.

The Lync Groupinator's sole purpose in life is to run as an off-hours job to take specified Active Directory OUs and turn them into automated contact groups for Lync. Then it applies the appropriate OU group to everyone in that OU.

At the Lync groupinator page, it shows that you need the following to run: Lync Powershell module, Quest Active Roles and  Add-CSContact.ps1.

Configuring the Active Directory OUs (that contains the membership for your Lync contact lists) is a matter of modifying an array starting on line 70 of the Lync Groupinator script with this format:

Field 0: departmental/buisness unit OU of Lync users
Field 1: name of the users file
Field 2: (not used currently)
Field 3: how the members OU title will appear in lync 
Field 4: how the OU description appears in lync
Field 5: the contact file name
Field 6: (not used currently)
Field 7: (not used currently)

Typically, you'd want to make changes to fields 0, 1, 3, 4 and 5. Taking the example, you'd use it like this:
  ,('domain.local/domain users/Administration','ADM INUsers.cs v',,'≡ADMI N≡',' Administration','AdminCont acts.csv', ,)
 
NOTE 
This script will cause clients to not update status until they so a hard exit and restart, hence the reason why it is an off-hours script. 

I hope this helps you deliver a more polished Lync experience to your users. Happy 2015 everyone!