One Click send Skype for Business / Lync 2013 SIP-Stack log to Administrator

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:

1. NetworkPath: Is case-sensitive and should point to the location of the SLL.exe file (e.g. \\fileserver.domain\\temp\SLL.exe)
2. AdminEmail: is the email address of your organization IT-Help Desk or Lync / Skype4b Administrator
3. 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