Using Microsoft Teams Team Members as Call Agents for a Skype for Business Call Queue

With Skype for Business Cloud PBX, members of a Microsoft Team can be used as the Call Agents in a Call Queue (Preview at this time). This means if a Microsoft Team contains the members you want as Call Agents in a Call Queue, just assign the Microsoft Team as the "Call Agents" in a Call Queue and you are done! Talk about integration. Talk about setting up groups one time and reusing them! I'm impressed.

How is this configured? Just setup a Microsoft Team as usual  and add the members. (In a hybrid scenario these members can be in the cloud or on premises).

Okay, now we have some members setup in our Team.

(Note that we might need to wait a bit for this Team to show up in Skype for Business Admin portal)

Now let’s navigate to the Skype for Business Admin Center in Office 365. (Skype for Business admin center | call routing | call queues | add new/edit). Let’s go to the “Call Agents” field. Note that you don’t enter individual Skype for Business users here, instead Exchange Distribution Lists are entered. Since a Microsoft Team is an Exchange DL behind the scenes you can search for a Microsoft Team just like an Exchange DL. Let’s search for our “Marketing” Team. Sure enough, there it is and we’ll select it.

Note, you can select more than one Exchange DL/Microsoft Team. Nice!

Now we need to wait a bit till the Microsoft Team contacts are sync’d into the Call Queue. You will get a notification message indicating this. (show below) This notification will go away momentarily, but doesn’t mean its finished quite yet, keep an eye on the Call Queue “status”.

Watch the Call Queue until the “Status” no longer indicates “Synchronizing your agent list…”

When syncing is complete you can make a test call to the Call Queue and all the members of the Microsoft Team (that are Skype for Business enabled, presumably!) will ring. I say: “Very Nice!”

Other Related Items:

Configuring Office 365 Cloud PBX Call Queue's In Receptionist Scenarios
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AX5aCJS6irM

To see more Microsoft Teams User Tips:
http://windowspbx.blogspot.com/search/label/MicrosoftTeamsUserTip

[Video] Learn Microsoft Teams in 5 Minutes:
http://windowspbx.blogspot.com/2016/11/learning-microsoft-teams-in-5-minutes.html

Office 365 Skype for Business Admin Center Appears to be Moving to New Skype for Business Colors

Cloud PBX Auto Attendant Business Hours functionality is now in Preview for those in the Preview program and it seems new functionality coming into the “Skype for Business Admin Center” is getting the new Skype for Business color scheme that has been already delivered in the Skype for Business client. (below)

In November 2016 the Skype for Business client got some significant user interface changes which included new colors. One interesting thing to note with new functionality appearing in the Dec Auto Attendant Preview is that it appears the “Skype for Business Admin Center” may be moving to the new colors as well. The old Skype for Business color is shown on the left & new on the right. (below)

New Skype for Business client user interface:
http://windowspbx.blogspot.com/2016/11/skype-for-business-november-2016-user.html

Auto Attendant Preview New Features:
https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/Skype-Operations-Framework-Skype/New-Call-Queues-Preview-and-updated-Auto-Attendant-Preview/ba-p/35787?attachment-id=904

“Chat-Based” Solutions Seem Fond of Video: Microsoft Teams Included Video at Preview Release & Slack Announces They Are Adding Video

Microsoft released their Microsoft Teams chat-based workspace with several differentiators from Slack, a key one of them being video. On 12/12/2016 Slack announced it was adding video as well.

How is Slack video different that Microsoft Teams video?

• 1 to 1 Video is included in Slack’s free product but not group video. (Parity)
• Group Video (up to 15 people) is only available on one of Slack’s paid plans. ( -1)
• Slack has “Emoji Response” which appears to be analogous to Periscopes “Heart” feature that allows users to give feedback in real-time that floats up alongside the video (+1)
• Slack doesn’t mention scheduled video meetings which is a current feature of Teams. (-1)
• Slack doesn’t include Screen sharing (-1) which is a current feature of Teams.

At the moment neither Microsoft Teams nor Slack store a recorded version of video meetings which could be quite interesting and tie in nicely with “chat-based” collaboration that is searchable, especially if they would include a “speech to text” translation with the recording.

Read More:
https://slackhq.com/slack-calls-now-with-100-more-video-50bf365a0d98#.3vldiw644

Microsoft Teams User Tip #9: How Long Can You Edit a Reply or Conversation?

A nice feature of Microsoft Teams is the ability to Edit a Chat response, but users should be aware that the ability to edit a response (s new chat conversation or reply) seems to expire after a certain amount of time has passed.

It appears from my testing (and I am not 100% sure) that responses dated today can be edited and after they are no older than that they can not be edited.

• It does not seem to be triggered by a reply from my testing

So as long as not too much time has passed you can edit as often as you wish. The chat will show a little pencil (shown below) to indicate that it has been edited by the original contributor. Unlike Facebook you cannot see the edit history.

Enjoy Microsoft Teams!

To see more Microsoft Teams User Tips:
http://windowspbx.blogspot.com/search/label/MicrosoftTeamsUserTip

[Video] Learn Microsoft Teams in 5 Minutes:
http://windowspbx.blogspot.com/2016/11/learning-microsoft-teams-in-5-minutes.html

Enter video caption here

Microsoft Teams User Tip #7: Working on Multiple Conversation Edits Simultaneously

What happens if you are working on multiple replies at the same time in Microsoft Teams?

In the example shown above I have started replies to multiple threads and started a new conversation and haven’t hit enter yet. The question could be, how persistent are these unfinished edits?

From my testing:

• The edits persist between moves between teams
• The edits persist even if you exit the Microsoft Teams app and start it again
• The edits do not persist if you move to another PC and sign in with the same user.

The ability to work on various responses is nice and makes sense if you think about Skype for Business conversation tabs. Nicely it adds functionality on top of the Skype for Business instant message paradigm in that you can have multiple threaded replies to the same contact/team member.

Enjoy Microsoft Teams!

To see more Microsoft Teams User Tips:
http://windowspbx.blogspot.com/search/label/MicrosoftTeamsUserTip

[Video] Learn Microsoft Teams in 5 Minutes:
http://windowspbx.blogspot.com/2016/11/learning-microsoft-teams-in-5-minutes.html

Microsoft Teams User Tip #6: Searching Messages & How Exact Matches Work

There are 3 over arching objects you can search:

• Messages
• People
• Files

In this article we will focus on “Messages”, and specifically how search term matches work.

I have noticed that when you search for partial text, it is a bit hard to know when Microsoft Teams will return results. For example: We know that the term “Distro” is mention in a team. When we search for “distro” 1 result is shown as we would expect.

But now lets search a partial term, for example, “distr”. Will Microsoft Teams show a result? Let’s find out.

But what if we search for the very well known term “New”. Will Teams only return exact match (new) or will it return inexact matches when the term “new” is contained inside another term? (for example: will it return searches where “new” is inside “news”? Sure enough, it does! (see below)

So what is happening here? Perhaps well known terms can be found even when a subset of another string?

This could be confusing for searching. Generally as we teach users we tell them to search for a shorter string to make sure more results are returned, but the way Teams search works following this advice will potentially return no results. At this time the guidance for searching Teams messages seems to be:

• If it is a well known term, use the shortest term (it will find the string inside other strings)
• If it is a less known term beware: it needs to be an exact match

If anyone has any more insight on how search is supposed to work, I would have interest.

Enjoy Microsoft Teams!

To see more Microsoft Teams User Tips:
http://windowspbx.blogspot.com/search/label/MicrosoftTeamsUserTip

[Video] Learn Microsoft Teams in 5 Minutes:
http://windowspbx.blogspot.com/2016/11/learning-microsoft-teams-in-5-minutes.html

Microsoft Teams User Tip #5: When Is the “User is typing” Indicator Shown?

Sometimes it is nice to know if the other user you are in a chat with is replying right now. It appears that with Microsoft Teams you will get a notification of “User is typing” (as shown above) only if you are in a “Chat”, that is, a one to one chat as opposed to a conversation in a “Team”.

If you are following a chat in a “Team” you will not see a “[User] is typing” indicator, you will just see “New Message[s]” as shown above.

Enjoy Microsoft Teams!

To see more Microsoft Teams User Tips:
http://windowspbx.blogspot.com/search/label/MicrosoftTeamsUserTip

[Video Training] Learn Microsoft Teams in 5 Minutes:
http://windowspbx.blogspot.com/2016/11/learning-microsoft-teams-in-5-minutes.html

The Next Gen Skype Meetings: No Sign-Up, No Client Meetings

Microsoft keeps rolling out new features in the Skype product and I just got a moment to play with some of the new Skype meeting features, which are quite impressive. The features I will underscore:

Frictionless Meetings with No Sign-Up/Login Whatsoever Directly from a Browser

Just go to www.skype.com and click on “Start a conversation” (Note: make sure you are not logged into your Microsoft account to see pure guest functionality.) Type in a name for yourself, and the meeting is in progress.

Nice Chat/Audio/Video Meeting Functionality…Without a Login

From playing with it the functionality seems quite nice. The guest user who sets up the meeting is the Admin and can do quite a bit:

• 1-name the meeting
• 2-Just give anyone an URL and they can join without a login as well
• 3-toggle whether you want to hear notification on each IM
• 4-make chat history available for new joiners
• 5-Easily toggle allowing new people join (toggling this off means no one can join while it is off, but as soon as you toggle it on the original join URL works again)
• 6-remove a user from the group/meeting
• 7-change the picture for the meeting

What is the Capacity?

I was in a meeting that Tom Warren started and noticed that at that time there were 499 participants! (I noticed on the webpage I would get some script timeouts, not sure if my pc needs a reboot or not)

Note, the above was a chat (instant message) meeting only.

Edge Browser Seems to Need No Plugin for Audio/Video

IE and Chrome do.

How to Easily Avoid Joining Using the Skype Client?

Just cancel the browser request to use the Skype client

Then click “Join Conversation” on the web page

What Collaboration Methods are supported?

• Video
• Group Chat
• Voice
• Share Photos and Files
• Send Emoticons & Mojis

Note: Desktop sharing is not supported.

Conclusion

I’m impressed. It would be quite cool to have an API where you could do an http post and give your name and it would return the meeting URL. But in any event, this is nice functionality.

Try it yourself in a minute: Just go to www.skype.com and click on “Start a conversation”…

Microsoft Teams User Tip #4: Chat from Microsoft Teams to a Skype for Business Contact

Click on the Chat “AppBar” button to do a 1 to 1 chat. Search for a contact that is not yet a Microsoft Teams user. (Note: This is important, because once the user is a Teams user, Microsoft Teams will no longer even try to communicate using Skype foir Business)

The way you know you have selected a Skype for Business contact is that there will be a Skype for Business icon on that Chat as shown below.

Now just type a message and press [ENTER].

NOTE: On my tenant the message doesn’t seem to successfully send. (Teams fails to send after trying for a bit)  I suspect there is some Preview related bug. (as shown below)

Limitations

• One to One Instant Message conversations only
• No video/audio option
• No Meme’s or Emoticons (just simple IM capability)

To read more on how Teams and Skype for Business can interact, please read:
http://windowspbx.blogspot.com/2016/11/microsoft-teams-user-tip-1-how-does.html

Microsoft Collaboration Solution Selector

NOTE: This is currently BETA, do NOT depend on it at this time. Please provide feedback.

 

Microsoft Teams User Tip #3: Handling Threaded Conversations: “Reply” or “Start a new conversation”?

Since Teams chats has threaded conversations make sure you choose between 

• [1] “Reply” if you want to reply to a particular conversation thread
  • If you reply to a thread it will be moved to the bottom of the conversation as well.
• [2] “Start a new conversation” to start a new conversation.

Also be aware that threaded conversations are only one level deep. You cannot reply to a reply in the middle of the conversation. You will reply at the end of the conversation.

To see more Microsoft Teams User Tips:
http://windowspbx.blogspot.com/search/label/MicrosoftTeamsUserTip

[Video] Learn Microsoft Teams in 5 Minutes:
http://windowspbx.blogspot.com/2016/11/learning-microsoft-teams-in-5-minutes.html

Learning Microsoft Teams in 5 Minutes

 

Want a flying start in understanding Microsoft Teams? In the below video I gives a flying tour to get you started in no time.

If you want to drill into a  specific area more see the below videos:

• More Coming

Microsoft Teams User Tips List: http://windowspbx.blogspot.com/search/label/MicrosoftTeamsUserTip

More Observations about Microsoft Teams: http://windowspbx.blogspot.com/2016/11/first-sighting-microsoft-teams.html

Skype for Business November 2016 User Interface Changes

The November 2016 Skype for Business PC client update brings a “new look and feel” as announced on Technet. This is Interesting because at Microsoft Ignite I was noticing there seemed to be a shift in colors (black conversation windows, etc) and graphics being used in the Mac client and the new Skype Room Systems. It didn’t take Microsoft as look as I expected to roll out a new look that, according to Technet, will do better at accessibility.

We will point out some items we have noticed as part of this new user interface.

Skype for Business is no longer using the “Skype” Blue as a major color

This is a fairly large shift because it departs from the Skype logo color. (Also, the color seems reminiscent of Cisco colors, of all things!)

Button Icon Graphics Have An Outline Design Instead of Solid Design

What the new “switching between panels” buttons look like.

And below are the Contact buttons

Notification Glyphs are now Red

In the picture you’ll notice there are 2 missed calls. This used to be orange.

Conversation Window Background is Now Black

Also, the call control window button graphics have changed.

Button Graphics Are Outlines Until a Mouse Over & then They Become Solid

Using the Options button as an example:

Now a hover

Phone Panel Shows My Phone Number

I just noticed this panel shows “My Number”. Is this new?

Is There a Slight Design Flaw in the “Contacts – Misses Conversations -  Phone – Meetings” Area?

I notice on my system when you click on “Contacts” the icon immediately goes from outline to solid color. When you click on “Missed Conversations” (or “Meetings” the icon does change to solid until you hover off the button.

Below “Contacts” icon turns from outline to solid as soon as you click it.

Clicking on Missed Conversations does not immediately turn solid, until you hover off the “missed Conversations” button.

Now when the mouse is hovered off the “Missed Conversations” it turns solid.

Seems a slight design issue.

Another slight item I’ve noticed is the search border is still Lync 2013 blue, for whatever reason this never changes. In the transition from Lync to Skype for Business it didn’t change either. Apparently this border color is immutable. Its not as noticeable now.

Cisco Spark Compared to New Skype for Business UI

Here is Spark conversation window.

New Skype for Business

Conclusion

This is an interesting change of user interface. The Skype blue was quite garishly bright and some of the previous design was not very accessibility friendly.

Does this mean that the Skype logo color will change in the future as well?

Microsoft Teams User Tip #2: Changing a Team Picture

Teams | Press “…” on a Team | View Team

| Settings | Change Picture

Now “Upload Picture” and Save. Picture should update immediately.

Done!

Microsoft Teams User Tip #1: How Does Microsoft Teams & Skype for Business Integrate & Relate to Each Other?

Microsoft Teams and Skype for Business have 3 basic integration points including:

• Chat: Teams can see Skype for Business contact presence in 1 to 1 Chats.
  • Teams presence and Skype for Business presence are separate systems, so changing your presence in Skype for Business doesn’t affect your presence in Teams.
• Chat: Basic One to One instant messaging to Skype for Business contacts in your Office 365 tenant if that contact isn’t already using Teams
• Meetings: Your Skype for Business Meetings will display in the Meetings tab of Teams and allow you to join, but new meetings created in Teams are Teams meetings.

First of all, let’s look at the prerequisites for this all to work together:

What are the Prerequisites for Integration Between Microsoft Teams & Skype for Business to Work?

User A - a Microsoft Teams user w/Skype for Business services located in Office 365
User B - a Skype for Business user w/Microsoft Teams not enabled for that user.

The only way you can instant message (chat) from Microsoft Teams (user A) to a Skype for Business user (user B) is if the Microsoft Teams user A has its Skype for Business services provided by Office 365 (and NOT on premises)

Be aware that the presence the Skype for Business user (user B) will see is NOT User A’s Microsoft Teams presence, but the Office 365 Skype for Business presence that is attached to User A.  User A can only change their Skype for Business presence from the Skype for Business client or by signing into OWA. (shown below)

Presence: Teams & Skype for Business Presence

Microsoft Teams presence is not Skype for Business presence. If you change your Skype for Business presence it will not change your Microsoft Teams presence and vice versa.

Although manually changing the presence in Microsoft Teams does not change the presence in your Skype for Business client or for Skype for Business contacts you might be chatting with (under Chat in Teams), Microsoft Teams does automatically set the Away and Available based on whether the Teams app is active for Skype for Business contacts you might be chatting with.

When using the “Chat” tab in Team, the presence of other contacts in your Office 365 tenant can be displayed. (Below the presence is shown as unknown for the Skype for Business user)

Chat: One to One Instant Messaging

Conversations inside “Teams” tab (Team Conversations) are not using Skype for Business, but conversations in “Chat” tab (1 to 1 Instant message) might be if the user you want to chat to is not already using Microsoft Teams but is in your Office 365 tenant.

Also note that Skype for Business conversations inside Chat tab are limited in several ways:

• Only 1 to 1 conversation
• Advanced IM features like MEMES & Emoji will not be available
• No audio/video calling

Teams allows users to contact Skype for Business users, but clearly the push is to move them to use Microsoft Teams for team conversations and even 1 to 1 chats.

If you are in a chat with a Skype for Business user and press “Invite to Microsoft Teams” an IM with the below text will be sent to the Skype for Business user:

I'm inviting you to join me on Microsoft Teams! Just follow the link: https://teams.microsoft.com 〈https://teams.microsoft.com〉

If the Microsoft Teams user meets the prerequisites we’ve noted above, Skype for Business users can initiate an instant message conversation with them as they normally do from Skype for Business to Skype for Business users. The Microsoft Teams users will see the below toast:

Meetings: See & Join Exchange Scheduled Meetings (and thus Skype for Business Meetings)

When you create a meeting inside Teams you are NOT creating a Skype for Business meeting, but instead a Microsoft Teams meeting. Microsoft Exchange, and thus, Skype for Business meetings will be displayed in this tab and can be joined from this tab, but only Teams meetings can be created here.

Meetings created in Microsoft Teams will show up in Exchange calendar and you can join the Team Meeting from there as well.

How different meetings appear in Microsoft Teams under Meetings: Standard Outlook Meeting, Teams Meeting and Skype for Business meeting.

In Conclusion

So to recap, there is basic interaction between Teams and Skype for Business which includes at this time

• Presence: Teams can see Skype for Business contact presence in 1 to 1 Chats.
  • Teams presence and Skype for Business presence are separate systems, so changing your presence in Skype for Business doesn’t affect your presence in Teams.
• Chat: Basic One to One instant messaging to Skype for Business contacts in your Office 365 tenant if that contact isn’t already using Teams
• Meetings: Your Skype for Business Meetings will display in the Meetings tab of Teams and allow you to join, but new meetings created in Teams are Teams meetings.