Jeff Brown – Senior Technical Consultant

I have ran into a particular issue a few times when activating phone numbers in Skype for Business Online Phone System. If you don’t look in the right place, you might be left scratching your head as to what the problem is. The Problem The user will be assigned a phone number using the Set-CsOnlineVoiceUser command […]

By default in Skype for Business, any two users (internal or external) who can communicate with each other can also see each other’s presence information. Some organizations may want to give their end users control on who they want to see their presence information. This can be configured through a feature called Privacy Mode, and […]

Yesterday Microsoft announced the availability of new calling capabilities in Teams, including PSTN dialing, call history, hold/resume, speed dialing, call transfer, voicemail, and many more features. This follows Microsoft’s announcement at Ignite 2017 that Teams will replace Skype for Business as the primary communications tool in Office 365, and adding these calling capabilities moves us […]

During Ignite 2017, several Microsoft representatives made comments that a features and capabilities roadmap for Microsoft Teams would be released in October. Holding true to this promise, Microsoft released the roadmap last week in this blog post in the Microsoft Tech Community. The roadmap lists what is available today and what is coming for three […]

In the Episode 54 of the renamed Teams on Air broadcast (https://aka.ms/TeamsOnAirReplay), Sr. Product Marketing Manager and host Delanda Coleman along with General Manager of Skype for Business and Microsoft Teams Lori Wright recapped the news from Ignite 2017 along with a Q&A. If you’ve read my previous recap of the keynote from Ignite 2017, […]

Back in April 2017, Microsoft announced the release of support for Modern Authentication for the Skype for Business Online PowerShell Module. Adding Modern Authentication introduces new scenarios where multi-factor authentication (MFA) can be used for authenticating remote PowerShell sessions out to Skype for Business Online. Using MFA for authentication for PowerShell sessions provides another layer […]

Today at Microsoft Ignite 2017, Microsoft officially announced what was accidentally released a couple weeks ago. Microsoft Teams will become the primary unified communications (or rather, intelligent communications) platform in Office 365. Skype for Business Online will still be available for an unknown amount of time to allow organizations to make the transition to Microsoft Teams. […]

More and more Skype for Business functionality is making its way into Microsoft Teams. I opened my Outlook client today to create a new Microsoft Teams meeting, and, to my surprise, there is a “Join by Phone” option with a dial-in number and conference ID: It looks like Teams is using the dial-in conferencing information that […]

With one week to go until Microsoft Ignite 2017 in Orlando, FL, I decided to take a look at the Skype for Business sessions to see which ones gave clues about new and upcoming features to the product. Here are the top four that I found. First, there is Real Time Communications with Network Planner. It […]

It has been speculated that some type of change or re-brand of Skype for Business might be happening due to the overlapping feature set of Teams along with the upcoming Ignite session names. Today’s “glitch” only seemed to add speculation to this. In a blog post by Mary Jo Foley over at zdnet.com, she shows […]

Recently I had to perform a familiar function: integrating Skype for Business with Exchange in order to allow IM and presence functionality inside of OWA (or “Outlook on the Web” as it is now known). While the process on the Skype for Business side has stayed the same, Microsoft has introduced a new way to […]

On June 20 of this year, Microsoft announced support for Skype for Business Server 2015 with Window Server 2016. This comes on the heels of the May 2017 update for Skype for Business Server 2015, and it has been anticipated that this update would provide the support. While Microsoft does provide a basic guide on […]