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Connecting People in New Ways, Anytime, AnywherePartner Solution Brief
Geomant Abuse Filter for Microsoft Lync is a unique solution for the prevention of individual misuse of instant messaging. For organizations that wish to provide instant messaging (IM) to their employees but are concerned about its possible misuse, Geomant offers the Abuse Filter for Microsoft Lync. With this solution, organizations can define, monitor, and control acceptable usage policies for their IM users.
Business Needs
Instant messaging is becoming ubiquitous in the business environment. Increasingly, organizations are choosing to implement corporate solutions rather than allow employees to use multiple public systems that are difficult to manage and often insecure.
When providing IM tools, such as are available with Microsoft Lync, organizations also have a responsibility to ensure that such tools are not misused. IM monitoring tools can assist them in preventing misuse and in tracking misuse when it does occur.
SolutionThe Geomant Abuse Filter for Microsoft Lync is designed to help prevent individual misuse of instant messaging. The Abuse Filter is a server-side application that works with all Microsoft Lync clients, desktop, web, and mobile. It supports plain text and rich text messages, and there is no requirement for a separate physical server.
The Abuse Filter is quick and easy to deploy, and it is fully configurable. Organizations can define their own list of words and phrases that are deemed inappropriate. They can also define the action that should be initiated if such a word or phrase is encountered. For example, by taking advantage
Partner: Geomant Website: www.geomant.comPartner Size: 100 employeesCountry or Region: United KingdomIndustry: Professional services—Software engineering
Partner ProfileGeomant is a well-established, innovative software developer, specializing in Microsoft Unified Communications solutions. Geomant software solutions are designed to add functionality and integration capability
to Microsoft Lync.
For more information about Geomant products and services, send an email to: [email protected] visit the website at: www.geomant.com
of the Abuse Filter, they can stop the message or notify an administrator. Intervention actions include: Highlighting to the user an
unacceptable word or phrase.
Removing, in real-time, an inappropriate word or phrase from the message.
Masking a listed word or phrase with a predefined string, such as ****.
Preventing a message that contains one of the listed words or phrases from being sent.
Changing an offending word or phrase with an acceptable alternative, automatically and in real time.
Replacing commonly used abbreviations with the full word or phrase.
Sending automated alarm emails to a nominated administrator when IM abuse is encountered.
In addition, combinations of the above intervention actions can be used, so, for instance, certain words or phrases can be masked and invoke an alarm email.
BenefitsThe Geomant Abuse Filter for Microsoft Lync can help organizations monitor and control employee misuse of instant messaging. Benefits include the following:
Demonstrates organizations’ commitment to a Duty of Care to employees, to help prevent harassment in the workplace.
Is 100 percent configurable by customer organizations through an easy-to-use administration interface.
Supports organizations’ IT usage and acceptable language policies.
Will not affect day-to-day use of Microsoft Lync, because it is an unobtrusive, server-side application.
Provides an audit trail where instant message misuse is encountered.
Offers bulk upload facility for loading predefined word lists.
Coexists with existing email monitoring solutions—sharing lists where appropriate—thus ensuring consistency across media.
This solution brief is for informational purposes only. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IN THIS SUMMARY.
Document published October 2010
