Lync / Skype4B

Over the past month, I have had a few different SfB Server (On-Premises) customers report issues Federating with Skype Online (O365) customers. This includes customers who have SfB Hybrids and users homed online. The On-Premises customers have O365 tenants for other services and I always tell non-hybrid Skype On-Prem customers to ensure they don’t assign any Skype Online licenses to users. If they assign an E3 or E5 they should un-check the “Skype Online” license box and for many years, this has worked fine. ...

A Teams upgrade can’t be approached like a Lync 2013 >Skype for Business 2015 upgrade. These upgrades are Technology driven, 99% of the work is done by IT. Your end users probably received an email saying “From tomorrow morning your Lync client will now look like Skype ” and that’s about as much involvement as they had. Your Teams upgrade needs to be business driven, it’s a new way of way of working. ...

I get asked this quite frequently. What features are available between Teams and Skype for Business? First I must clarify that interop does not work in Islands mode. If you’re in SfB and Teams Islands, then you will experience quirky issues. You must be in one of the following modes: Teams Users = Teams Only Mode SfB Users = SfB Only, Collab Mode or Collab & Meetings Basically, if you’re in Islands today, before you move anyone to Teams Only, you need to move all users to one of the SfB Only modes, or face a broken interop model ...

Can you schedule a Skype for Business meeting if you’re in Teams Only mode? When a user moves to Teams Only, the “New Skype Meeting” button is removed from the Outlook Ribbon. Therefore the user can no longer schedule Skype for Business Meetings. I’ve been testing Teams Only for the past couple of months and out of interest I wondered whether I could still schedule a Skype for Business Meeting. Note, I can’t find any official guidance from Microsoft, so although this works today, I would imagine Microsoft could disable this at any point. When you’re in Teams Only mode, your meetings should be scheduled in Teams. ...

Are you using Citrix or any other 3rd party application that handles media (e.g. Call Recording / Contact Centre) with Skype for Business? You may find you’re not marking this traffic with the correct DSCP markings. You should configure QoS in the usual method using a Windows GPO. Mark Vale documents this process really well: https://blog.valeconsulting.co.uk/2015/09/07/skype-for-business-configuring-quality-of-service-qos/ Pat Richard has a really useful QoS Calculator here: https://www.ucunleashed.com/2821 “Why does it matter if I’m using Citrix or a call recording application like Verba?” Answer - They have their own executables and don’t use the standard SfB exe’s to send/receive media! ...

Note this script is provided as an example only - By default a user can set their own Client Pin via the Dial-In Conferencing page (usually dialin.domain.com). You may have a requirement to bulk set a Client Pin if you’re rolling out a large number of VOIP phones. The script example below sets a 6 digit client PIN consisting of a two digit prefix followed by the last 4 digits of the users LineUri: ...

The biggest news from Microsoft Ignite is the announcement of Microsoft Teams replacing Skype for Business Online. This has sent the Community, Skype for Business service providers and Integrators around the globe into a bit of a rumour mill. So the key point is Teams will replace Skype for Business Online. Microsoft will be announcing a new version of Skype for Business Server 2019 (Formerly LCS, OCS & Lync) that we all know and love next year, however this will be for On-Prem customers (I.E. not in a Microsoft datacentre). You will be able to have a Skype for Business and Teams Hybrid deployment. ...

If you don’t have Office 365 or are not using the Office 2016 Click To Run (CTR) software on your end users computers they may be missing out on some great new features. The first great feature of the CTR version of Office 2016 is Consult and Transfer. Lync 2010, Lync 2013 and Skype for Business has desperately needed a Consult and Transfer button. In the past this was a complicated process for some users and I have had potential customers reject Lync and Skype for Business because the process wasn’t slick. I was always of the opinion you could drop a user an IM before transfering rather than making an actual call but some businesses insist they need this feature. Well, it’s here but you need to be running the Office 2016 CTR Skype for Business installed from the O365 portal. ...

Every Lync/Skype admin has the same nightmare with Response Group Holiday sets, something that has to manually be programmed each year for Public Holidays in your country. What if you could script populating Holiday Sets automatically using PowerShell and an API? I live in England and most of my customers are UK based so I needed a service that would give me Public Holidays for the UK. Our government website lists all Public Holidays here: https://www.gov.uk/bank-holidays. They are also conveniently provided in JSON format here: https://www.gov.uk/bank-holidays.json ...

During a side-by-side Lync 2013 to Skype for Business migration I encountered an error moving Response Groups using Move-CsRgsConfiguration. Move-CsRgsConfiguration -Source lyncfepool.domain.local -Destination skypefepool.domain.local This resulted in the error “Move-CsRgsConfiguration : Object reference not set to an instance of an object.”. To resolve I ran Move-CsRgsConfiguration again with the -verbose switch: Move-CsRgsConfiguration -Source lyncfepool.domain.local -Destination skypefepool.domain.local -verbose Verbose output below: VERBOSE: Performing the operation "Move-CsRgsConfiguration" on target "service:ApplicationServer:skypefepool.domain.local/531286fe-e965-4c1c-9949-26eca4d8d3db". VERBOSE: Handle audio files... VERBOSE: Update associations with holiday sets... VERBOSE: Update associations with managers... Move-CsRgsConfiguration : Object reference not set to an instance of an object. At line:1 char:1 + Move-CsRgsConfiguration -Source lyncfepool.domain.local -Destination skyp ... + ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ + CategoryInfo : WriteError: (Microsoft.Rtc.R...lRgsDataContext:TransactionalRgsDataContext) [Move-CsRgsC onfiguration], NullReferenceException + FullyQualifiedErrorId : Microsoft.Rtc.Rgs.Management.MoveCsRgsConfigurationCmdlet VERBOSE: Rollback transaction. ...