Social Connector,

[Mr Mayor]

So... tell me more about this Social Connector...... We run Outlook 2013, and noted this week in particular that it (SC) has moved over to the "Disable this add-in"/Taking too long?

We are not using this to my knowledge (unless LYNC uses it, which by the way, is strictly internal LYNC right now), nor syncing with any other tools out there. No LinkedIn, or Google or whatever else is available. Can we/should we 1) Disable it? 2) Can Group Policy do this? or am I addressing these on a 1 on 1 basis (~100 users)

Thanks,
Mark

 

[Diane Poremsky]

Lync doesn't use it. It's most obvious part is people pane panel under messages, contacts etc that shows recent activity for the members when you select their name/icon. This people pane replaces the Activity page for contacts.

If you are signed into the social connector using linkedin or facebook (or sharepoint, if using), the What's New tab includes status information when you select a contact. In email, each recipient (identified by their picture if available) is separate - you need to click their icon/picture to see mail from them, their status etc. It also syncs contacts with GAL - if a user adds someone from the GAL to Outlook contacts, the social connector keeps them in sync - it makes changes in the contact if the gal is updated and adds a note to the notes field containing the changed information.

It can be disabled using group policy - whether is should be disabled is up to you, I wouldn't disable it completely. The search feature is nice and you can use group policy to prevent people from logging into FB or linkedin. It's in GPO under the office adm templates in Outlook 2013 > Outlook Social Connector.