Skype for Business conference bridge

I’ve been doing a lot of webinars lately and one of the features of many dedicated conferencing packages like GotoWebinar is the ability for attendees to dial in using a normal phone line. many don’t realise that this option is also available in Skype for Business.

If you login to your Office 365 admin portal and then select the Skype for Business service you should see taken to the Skype for Business admin center. From the menu on the left you should see the option for dial-in conferencing, select this to see the above screen.

If you then select dial-in users from across the top you will see a list of users who have been enabled for Skype for Business.

Here you can see I already have one user who is configured for dial in conferencing. To modify a user just select them and then the pen (edit) link that appears to the right.

You should then see a screen like that shown above where you can edit the dial in details for that user.

When you pull down the options for Provider name you will see the above list who are supported with Office 365.

Now here’s where I started to get lost. What do I need to do? How to sign up for the right service? Can I get this to even work here in Australia? Luckily, I knew just the man to call – Greg Plum from PlumUC.com whom I met last year at Office 365 Nation.

Although Greg is based in the US he was able to set me up with Intercall who have local (Australian) dial in numbers. If you want all your users to have dial in facilities for their Skype for Business you’ll need to get separate details for each user. Overall the cost is pretty cheap to provide this facility and Greg got me hooked up quick and easy.

So once you have the dial in details entered for that user when they create a new Skype for Business meeting those call details will appear in the invite as shown above. This then allows people to attend either using their desktop or their phone.

Once again, I will call out Greg Plum from plumuc.com no matter where in world you are located to get the dial in bridge set up for you. As I said, even here in Australia Greg could get the feature up and running and I doubt few other Office 365 resellers here in little ol’ Australia have that ability. That gives me a huge point of differentiation when it comes to my local market and gives me a real competitive advantage when speaking to customers.

So if you want to set up dial in conferencing with Skype for Business in Office 365 it is pretty straight forward and I strongly recommend you contact Greg Plum from plumuc.com to help. Tell him I sent you!

Office 365 web scheduler gets a makeover

One of the often overlooked utilities available in Office 365 for those with a Skype for Business account, is the web scheduler. For much of its life it was branded as Lync. However, now it has had a makeover to Skype for Business branding as you can see above.

Everything is basically the same as it was before and the way you schedule meetings is identical. Any scheduled or previous Lync meeting will also still appear. It is basically a look and feel makeover.

The only think that hasn’t changed as far as I can find is the URL you use to access it, which is:

https://sched.lync.com

but I’m sure that will be changed as well soon.

For more information about this see:

Skype for Business Web Scheduler

Revised bootcamp notes publication now available

As I detailed a while back I have now updated my Bootcamp products offering to include:

1. Latest version of my Office 365 bootcamp notes. This OneNote notebook is something I use everyday to capture information about Office 365. It is my reference ‘bible’ covering everything from Exchange to Sharepoint, Delve to Single Sign on as well as troubleshooting, best practices and a range of PowerShell scripts and third party solutions that work with Office 365.

2. Latest version of my Azure bootcamp notes. This OneNote notebook contains my daily brain dump about Azure. It contains links, information, tutorials and more. Again, this is something I use everyday and update constantly.

3. Exam cram notes for the Office 365 70-347 and 70-346 exam. It contains information and links to help you pass the exam. It also has a number of practice exam questions to give you an idea of what might be covered in an exam.

4. Five (5) supporting Office 365 checklists and templates that you can use for your Office 365 implementation. These documents are in various Office formats (Word, Excel, etc).

There are two ways to get access to this material:

1. You can join my Cloud Business Blueprint community via:

http://www.cloudbusinessblueprint.com/members-sign-up/

where you’ll get immediate access to the latest versions plus heaps of other unique on demand training, cheat sheets, re-brandable content, articles AND access to the members forums to converse with other cloud resellers.

2. You can purchase the existing Office 365 bootcamp notes via;

http://www.e-junkie.com/ciaops/product/488325.php

for AU $148. This purchase will also entitle you to a 12 monthly subscription for updates to these products (generally updated monthly).

Also, given that the 74-325 Office for SMB exam has been superseded I have made the OneNote exam cram notes I created for this available for free download with all my other free material at:

http://www.ciaops.com/downloads

If nothing else, those bootcamp notes are going to provide a centralised and searchable way to locate just about anything to do with Office 365 and Azure. This will save you inordinate amounts of time and easily pay for your outlay. You’ll also get free updates for to all of these for 12 months once you purchase. Like I said, I use these notebooks EVERY DAY.

If you want some testimonials about these bootcamps and information provided visit:

http://www.ciaops.com/bootcamp/

Please support this material so I can continue creating more.

Forcing an update of Office 365 desktop applications

Let’s say that you want to ensure that you have the latest desktop software via Office 365 click to run. In this case I wanted to ensure that I had the Skype for Business update on my desktop.

Of course, you need to have installed your Office desktop application from an Office 365 plan that includes Office desktop software. To update simply open one of these applications.

Select the File tab of the application to view the backstage area as shown above.

From the menu on the left select Account.

On the right hand side you should see a section Office Updates.

Select Update Now from the menu that appears when you select the Update Options button.

If there are new updates to be installed they will now be downloaded. The time taken will depend on how many updates need to be installed.

Any Office applications that are running may need to be shut down to apply updates.

The updates will be applied.

When complete and you run the applications again they should be updated as you can now see I have Skype for Business on the desktop.

So, if you want to manually force your Office Click to Run updates, simply go into an Office application and do so.

Skype for Business client goes live in April

If you have an Office 365 license that includes Office Pro Plus you should know that you get the full Lync 2013 client for your desktop. Hopefully, you are also aware that Lync is being renamed Skype for Business. There is a preview of the client that you can download and look at right now.

What you may not be aware of is that on April 14 2015 (i.e. the next patch Tuesday) the updated Skype for Business client will automatically be downloaded and update any existing Lync 2013 client application you have running if you used the ‘click to run’ install method from Office 365.

Yes, that is correct. If you do nothing, then on April 14th (US Time) your Lync 2013 client will automatically be replaced by the new Skype for Business as shown above. If you look after a lot of Office 365 users with Office 365 Pro Plus who use Lync now, expect quite a few phone calls (hopefully some Skype for Business calls!) in regards to this change.

The new Skype for Business actually contains both the old Lync interface as well as the newer Skype for Business look and feel. This means that you can actually switch the interface back to Lync 2013 look and feel if you want.

How do you make this change? PowerShell of course!

Firstly, connect to your tenant using PowerShell. Make sure you load the Lync Online PowerShell commandlets. I’ve detailed both of these steps previously here:

Configuring PowerShell Access in Office 365

Connecting to Lync Online via PowerShell

Once you are connected run the following PowerShell command:

Grant-CsClientPolicy -PolicyName ClientPolicyDisableSkypeUI

If you then restart Skype for Business you should see the familiar Lync 2013 interface return.

There is a lot more information about controlling this interface update as well as Skype for Business in general at:

What’s new in Skype for Business and how you can take control of updates

The main point to remember is that if you current have Lync 2013 installed from Office 365 and you do nothing, then come April 2014 you’ll have Skype for Business on your desktop.