UPDATE 06-Jan-2016: I uploaded the source code to GitHub for programmers out there, hope someone take the code and make it better for the community – a mention goes a long way 😉
Howdy and happy new year,
P.S. following paragraph is a serious of Bla bla bla you can skip it and start by the solid and underlined part
a while ago customer with about 10,000 seats pointed out nicely to me that they are finding it annoying explaining to the users how to find, collect and send the SkypeFB /Lync client logs for troubleshooting, to start with as you all may have already seen in your day to day work day, some users find it difficult to enable “hidden” folders, not to mention finding the log file, zip it and send it, so he said why Microsoft doesn’t make it easy to do this task, we went back and forth in this subject but I realized I can help, so with my beginner C# skills I decided to write a very basic simple application that can be integrated into the Skype for business / Lync client action menu which I did and it has been used by the customer without big problems, and I decided to share it with the community, maybe it make your life easy too
this program is tested with 64bit domain joined machines, download from TechNet Gallery
What it does
The downloadable is two parts
- SLL.exe files (LyncSLL.exe & SkypeSLL.exe)
- Installation PowerShell Script (comes in two versions, one specific for Lync and another specific for Skye4b clients)
SLL.exe file
the SLL.exe files (LyncSLL.exe & SkypeSLL.exe) is written in C# using my limited programming knowledge, please in your feedbacks keep in mind I am not a programmer and that I’m just trying to help, so this SLL.exe will check if the uccapilog sip-stack log file located in the “Tracing” folder of Lync or Skype4b Clients exist, if it find the log file it create a temp folder “templync” in the C: partition and copies the file to it and finally zip it, once the zipped file is ready, the program will send an email to the IT Help desk or Lync / Skype4b Admin in the house, how? check the installation part for more information.
in case the folder already exist and been used before, the program will delete the old logs and copy the new ones, zipped them and send them away.
Installation PowerShell Script
the Installation script is simple PowerShell script that check and add the required registry keys and values to HKLM:Software\Microsoft\Office\15.0\Lync location, using the provided parameters and built-in values, this is important so that the command can be accessed by the users from the Lync / Skype4b client menus.
the script requires three mandatory parameters:
- NetworkPath: Is case-sensitive and should point to the location of the SLL.exe file (e.g. \\fileserver.domain\\temp\SLL.exe)
- AdminEmail: is the email address of your organization IT-Help Desk or Lync / Skype4b Administrator
- SmtpServer: is your Exchange server FQDN
How to Install it
here is the fun part and it is very simple, I tried my best to make it so, to install this program, you need to do the following:
- Put the SLL.exe file in a network location where it can be accessed by anyone:
- use the LyncSLL.exe for Office version 15.0
- use the SkypeSLL.exe for Office version 16.0
- using Group Policy or SCOM run (as Administrator) the proper installation script on the machines that have Lync or Skype4b installed (keep in mind the 3 mandatory parameters)
- use Installation-Lync.ps1 script if your organization have Office 15.0 version
- use Installation-Skype.ps1 script if your organization have Office 16.0 version
C: installation-Lync.ps1 –NetworkPath “\\server\\temp\Lync\SLL.exe” –AdminEmail “email@domain” –SmtpServer “Exchange FQDN”
it should create this key under the Local Machine registry
How to use it
once you pushed the scripts to all machines and it ran (once only) all Lync or Skype4b Clients will now have a custom command in the Main Menu and the Main right click menu to send the log file to the email you specified in the installation step.
or Main right click Menu
when in a troubleshoot session, when the logs are needed to provide deeper look in the problem, you ask them to just click on it and they should see one of the following:
Successfully sent:
and the email you will receive should look like this, I tried my best to make it also comes with the username@domain name, again I’m not a programmer so that’s the best I can
Failed to sent:
one last thing is for some reason TR warning from Avira while compiling the program which is considered “False Positive” no worries
have fun and I hope it help you as it did with me and my customers, for feedbacks feel free to leave them here or send them by email to feedback@skype4b.com
Hey Mostafa, cool idea I really like your solution. Thx for that.
It is possible to get the source code? Have a nice day.
Chris
Hi Christoph, I have it on GitHub if you are a developer, please have fun making it better 🙂
If you are a Lync developer, maybe you can make it so that it is integrated with the client and send the file in current active IM session instead of Email, I’m not a programmer and would’ve loved to do it like that 🙂
The email component will not work because workstations are not allowed to relay by default. This is good, else every user would need static IP’s and need to be added to the allow relay receive connector in Exchange. Nobody does this in a production environment for clients, it becomes an open relay.
Hi Sunit,
That’s a good point there, the C# .NET MailMessage Class uses the user network Credentials (domain Username and Password) to authenticate with the SMTP server, in Exchange as you might already know, SMTP Receive connector can be configured to permits authenticated users to send email or to Accept anonymous SMTP/Relay. Depend on your organization it should work, a simple receive connector accepting form the user VLAN subnet will work
Hey,
I had a look into it, right now I am able to send the logs via skype im/ file transfer.
You can pick an contact and send the collected logs to it.
But its totally messed up spaghetti code 😉.
I have to clean it up first and do more testing.
I will send the result to mostafa so he can share it with the community.
Have a nice day guys.
Cheers
Chris
Christoph, you are the man 🙂 thanks a lot for that, i’ll make sure people know who created it 😉