Conferencing Policy Settings: EnableP2PRecording

Parameter/Property Name	Allowed Values
EnableP2PRecording This is a per-user setting.	· TRUE: Users can record a peer-to-peer session. · FALSE: Users cannot record a peer-to-peer session. This is the default value.

So did you know that you can record a peer-to-peer call made with Microsoft Lync, a recording that will include audio, video, instant messages, and pretty much anything else that takes place in that session? Well, if you didn't know that don't feel bad; after all, that option is disabled by default, which means that – within Microsoft Lync, anyway – there's no obvious way of knowing that this capability even exists.

Like we said, by default users are not given the opportunity to record peer-to-peer sessions in Microsoft Lync; for example, if you click the More Options link (>>) you won't see any options that have to do with recording:

As it turns out, however, you can give users the ability to record peer-to-peer sessions simply by modifying the appropriate conferencing policy and setting the EnableP2PRecording property to True:

Set-CsConferencingPolicy –Identity global –EnableP2PRecording $True

Do that one little thing and, like magic, the recording options will appear the next time the user fires up Lync and takes part in a peer-to-peer communication session:

And if you later change your mind and you don't want users to record peer-to-peer sessions? That's fine; just set EnableP2PRecording back to False:

Set-CsConferencingPolicy –Identity global –EnableP2PRecording $False

There are two things to keep in mind when working with the EnableP2PRecording setting. First, this is a per-user setting: that means it applies to individual users regardless of who they might be communicating with. What does that mean? Well, consider the following two users and their respective conferencing policies:

User	Conferencing Policy	EnableP2PRecording
Pilar Ackerman	global	False
Ken Myer	RedmondConferencingPolicy	True

Pilar Ackerman's conferencing policy prohibits peer-to-peer recording; Ken Myer's does not. So what happens if Pilar and Ken are conducting a peer-to-peer session between themselves? That's easy: Pilar will not be able to record the session, but Ken will. Why? Because Pilar's policy prohibits peer-to-peer recording while Ken's policy allows peer-to-peer recording.

See? We told you it was easy.

The second thing to keep in mind is that this setting applies only to a peer-to-peer session: a session involving two users. This setting has no effect whatsoever in a conference: a session involving three or more users. If you want to allow (or disallow) recording in a conference, use the AllowConferenceRecording setting instead.