IM an Expert - Lync 2010 Logon Issue

Think configuring IM an Expert is next-next-next? Think again. I thought IM an Expert had some value and I'd like to see it work. Ok, a challenge. Better yet, one taken without support options because this is a free tool download. The config file is interesting. Better understand your Lync environment and what they are asking for, and take note of how to mask your username/passwords in clear text from the deploy guide if that is a concern. I had two issues. The first was getting the bot to talk to the three databases you create, which I located on my Lync backend database server. Permissions were not an issue as I could manually connect, even though the IM an Expert logs were showing an access denied. Came across this helpful advice.

To get around the logon issue use the setting below:

A couple of things go with this change through. This sets the authentication method for access to the SQL database to ‘integrated authentication’. The other alternative is to create a user and grant that user permissions within SQL which we already have had a issue with.

Besides the config change to the xml file You’ll also have to add the Network Service with permissions to the SQL databases, and then change the identity of the AppPool in IIS to Network Service to get it working.

This immediately solved the SQL connection/"Logon" issue for me.

However, I had another self-induced issue.

I was able to get the bot running successfully, but whenever I launched an IMExpert chat, my link to set up my profile failed. This was me and IIS7 misbehaving. Once I had the default website setup with an internal cert for 443 - all was well.

We've got a few profiles set up and tested successfully. Not sure it is what the people want, but since it provided a challenge, I had to prove it could work.

Hope this helps someone else that is curious out there.