ScottBlog https://docs.microsoft.com/archive/blogs/scottblog/feed.xml Providing helpful information in easy an easy to read format. Thu, 26 Apr 2018 17:19:33 GMT en-US hourly 1 30 invaluable integrations that you should be using with Microsoft Teams (RE-BLOG) https://docs.microsoft.com/archive/blogs/scottblog/30-invaluable-integrations-that-you-should-be-using-with-microsoft-teams-re-blog Fri, 13 Apr 2018 07:00:01 GMT https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/scottblog/?p=1635 Back to the top level page

  Hello my faithful followers. I have again stumbled upon a great blog post that I wanted to share with you. If this is the first of my blogs that you are reading, I do sometimes reblog posts that I find. The reason for this is that none of us can follow everyone, so by reposting, I can share what I have found with you as it may not be "on your radar" so to speak. The post itself comes from Penthara (https://www.penthara.com). They are a Microsoft Silver Partner based in India. I have been given permission to repost their blog. I will both do that and give you the link. It should be know that we do have more than the 30 addin APPs listed here. Here are some helpful links and information on Teams: The Complete list of Apps for Teams Microsoft Teams Official Microsoft Teams Blog The Microsoft Teams developer platform Happy Reading Scott   https://www.penthara.com/blog/30-invaluable-integrations-that-you-should-be-using-with-microsoft-teams/

30 invaluable integrations that you should be using with Microsoft Team

Microsoft Teams is the modern day chat service offering within the Office 365 collaboration portfolio. It is customizable in many different ways your teams work today. It also includes publicly available APIs and bot frameworks for further extensibility.We just wanted a very simple of list third party integrations available in Microsoft Teams. Turns out this does not exist on the web right now. This post was last updated on June 28th 2017. We will keep this updated as new integration options become available.
Watch the Microsoft Teams Video
Here is the list:
Add-In Description URL
    Excel Add any Excel spreadsheet to a tab so your team can get to it quickly and easily. https://products.office.com/excel
    PowerPoint Add any PowerPoint presentation to a tab so your team can get to it quickly and easily. https://products.office.com/powerpoint
    Planner Planner makes it easy for your team to stay organized, assign tasks, and keep track of your progress. Create a new plan so you can start getting things done. https://tasks.office.com
    Word Add any Word doc to a tab so your team can get to it quickly and easily. https://products.office.com/word
    OneNote Capture and share ideas, to-do lists and other thoughts with your team. You can also co-author anytime. https://www.onenote.com
    SharePoint Connect to a SharePoint document library. https://products.office.com/sharepoint
    Trello Trello lets your team work more collaboratively and get more done. Trello’s boards, lists, and cards enable you to organize and prioritize your projects in a fun, flexible and rewarding way. https://trello.com
    YouTube Share a YouTube video with other members of the channel. Simply search for the video you want or paste its URL. https://www.youtube.com
    Wrike Wrike enables every type of team to accomplish more, at scale. Create, access, and update all your projects and collaborate more effectively by quickly connecting chats in Teams with tasks. https://www.wrike.com/apps/chat-messaging/microsoft-teams
    Hootsuite Save time by managing all of your social media marketing efforts from a single dashboard. With Hootsuite’s platform, you get the tools to manage all your social profiles and automatically find and schedule effective social content. https://hootsuite.com
    Smartsheet Add a Sheet, Sight, or Report from Smartsheet to turn conversations into action. https://www.smartsheet.com/microsoft-teams
    Power BI Add a Power BI report to your channel. You can even add multiple reports to the same tab. https://powerbi.microsoft.com
    PDF Add any PDF within your team to a tab so everyone can get to it easily. https://office.microsoft.com
    Stream Share a video from Microsoft Stream or Office 365 Video, or a channel from Microsoft Stream by pasting a link into the text box. https://web.microsoftstream.com/
    Website The website tab lets you pin a secure website at the top of a channel or conversation so everyone has easy access to important sites. Your website URL
    Visual Studio Add a Visual Studio Team Services board to a tab so your team can track and monitor work together. https://www.visualstudio.com/team-services
    Polyscribe Run more productive meetings. Polyscribe makes it easy to share, structure and collaborate on meeting notes with your team. https://www.polyscribe.io
    Intercom See your Intercom data in Microsoft Teams. https://docs.intercom.com/integrations/microsoft-teams-integration
    Polly Poll your team with Polly! Mention @polly to get started. Analyze results by adding the Polly tab to your channels. https://www.polly.ai
    Zendesk Display a Zendesk Support ticket view and collaborate on tickets inside Microsoft Teams. https://www.zendesk.com/microsoft-teams
    Asana Asana helps you clarify who’s doing what by when. Assign tasks and due dates to stay accountable to each other. https://asana.com/apps/microsoft
    Zenefits View your Zenefits org chart within Microsoft Teams. https://www.zenefits.com
  Sapho Sapho makes it easy for employees to use Microsoft Teams to work with internal applications and databases, as well as cloud applications. Employees will be able to receive relevant cards with data and perform actions like approvals right from MS Teams. https://www.sapho.com/microsoft-teams/
    Wiki Open a Wiki tab so you can collaborate quickly and easily. Draft documents, track notes, share ideas, edit, and chat all in one place. https://aka.ms/TeamsWikiOneNoteHelp
    Empsense Empsense your team right here https://empsense.ramco.com
    PowerApps Help your team work smarter by creating apps that connect to the services and data they use most. Add those apps to your channel so your team can quickly find them. https://powerapps.microsoft.com
    Dropbox Dropbox is a simple way to store and share your files. https://www.dropbox.com
    Box Box is a secure content management and collaboration platform helping teams and organizations easily share, manage, and collaborate on their most important information. https://www.box.com
    ShareFile Citrix ShareFile helps people exchange files easily, securely, and professionally. https://www.sharefile.com
    Google Drive Get access to files anywhere through secure cloud storage and file backup for your photos, videos, files and more with Google Drive. https://drive.google.com
  That’s all folks. Let us know if you have any questions regarding Microsoft Teams for us. To learn more about what Microsoft Teams has to offer please click on the link here: https://www.successwithteams.com

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]]> Successful Skype for Business Meetings (Series – Module #6 Video Conferencing and Screensharing ) https://docs.microsoft.com/archive/blogs/scottblog/successful-skype-for-business-meetings-series-module-7-video-conferencing-and-screensharing Thu, 12 Apr 2018 08:21:02 GMT https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/scottblog/?p=1455 Back to the top level page

Video Only Conference.

As I have previously stated, all SFBO (Skype for Business Online)  conferences have all modalities/features/workloads (pick one) already baked into the meeting – no matter what the creation method. The type of conference you wish to have is simply a choice of using the features along with the meeting options selected. In the audio conferencing sections above, you saw a screen shot where video for attendees was disabled. You will need to make sure that is unchecked should you wish to allow video for attendee – presenters automatically can use video.     The join experience can vary a bit depending on the method in which you created the meeting. If you are being pulled into a meeting that already has video enabled, the invite might look like this: In which case you can answer with video by clicking the  icon, or by audio without video, by clicking the   icon. Should you have joined via an email invite, it is up to you to start your video if you choose. As an added bonus, when you click the  icon, you will see a preview of your video – you are not yet broadcasting video. This is just a preview so that you can check your surroundings, your hair, make sure nothing is in your teeth etc., prior to broadcasting your video. Once you click the “start my video” area, video broadcast starts. Once video has started (assuming others have video on as well) you will see your video plus 5 others video stream in what is called the “standing row”.   Other presenter/attendees will have smaller, non-active video, icons below the standing row This is called the “sitting row”. If no content is being resented then this is the default display. You will notice that your video is to the right of the standing row. There are a few options that presenters have at this point.
  • The ability to pin participants to the standing row rather than having it switch based on who is talking. This happens at the client level. Each client can customize their standing row. Simply right click a participant’s video/icon and then click the pin option.
  • The ability to “lock the video spotlight” by right clicking a single participant and selecting that option thus enlarging that video stream for the entire meeting. This happens at the meeting level and changes all participants client to “lock” onto the single video stream. You must be a Presenter in order to lock users video.
One final Skype for Business Video layout is when someone on the call is using video from a Polycom “round table” device or CX-5500. This is a 360 degree camera system meant for small conference rooms. It has the ability to display a panoramic view within the Skype for Business client. With 5 cameras, it will switch to the camera closest to the active speaker as well as show the panoramic display as the graphic below shows.   Many people I work with have now begun to use video in their meetings, I personally will turn on video for most of my meetings, especially peer to peer. I find that it requires me to be more focused on the meeting as others can see if I am engaged in the meeting or doing other things. This truly helps keep the meetings focused. Enjoy your video only conference.

Web (Video) Conference Screen Sharing.

When using the SFBO client to join a meeting, you technically are joining a “Web Conference” since SFBO is cloud based and you are going over the “web” to join it. Again, all SFBO meetings have all modalities/features/workloads (pick one) already baked into the meeting – no matter what the creation method. In this scenario, our meeting has IM and screen sharing. We could easily add audio or video by clicking the corresponding icon. To begin a screen sharing session, click the  icon and choose the screen that you wish to share. Screen sharing is useful if you want to show others what you are seeing on screen. Some examples might be remote troubleshooting, showing content you cannot give out, or demoing an application. Some notable items on the screen include the IM window and participant window. These are sometimes enabled by default, but can be turned on and off by clicking the corresponding icon. In the upper left hand corner enables/disables the participant list. In the figure above the list is enabled. By disabling it, you remove the list as shown here. You can also remove the IM window to give yourself a larger view of the presented material. removes the IM window, but does NOT disable IM, it simply removes your ability to see it live. You will still get notifications as IMs come in. You will need to re-enable the IM window in order to respond.   As with any IM, or conference, once you are finished, you can simply click the "x" in the upper right hand corner to leave the meeting. Enjoy your Web Conference with Screen sharing.  

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]]> Skype for Business and Teams feature Comparison - UPDATED https://docs.microsoft.com/archive/blogs/scottblog/skype-for-business-and-teams-feature-comparison-updated Mon, 02 Apr 2018 09:25:24 GMT https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/scottblog/?p=1615 Back to the top level page.

  Here is an update to a previous post with the same name. Link to the original post. https://gallery.technet.microsoft.com/lync/Skype-for-Business-and-aa1c8daa Many thanks to Luca Vitali for his update. (https://lucavitali.wordpress.com) Listed below are some great Microsoft Teams resources. I know this one is short, but I wanted to get this information out to you - my ever faithful blogees…. https://aka.ms/skypeandteams https://products.office.com/en-US/business/office-365-roadmap https://aka.ms/successwithteams Have a great day! Scott  

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   ]]> Successful Skype for Business Meetings (Series – Module #5 Broadcast Meetings - part #3 ) https://docs.microsoft.com/archive/blogs/scottblog/successful-skype-for-business-meetings-series-module-5-broadcast-meetings-part-3 Fri, 09 Mar 2018 10:09:09 GMT https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/scottblog/?p=1365 Back to the top level page.

  This is the final Module for  the Skype for Business Broadcast Series - but we are still not finished with the Skype for Business Online Meeting Series so stay tuned for more. Up until now we have focused on Video only within a Skype for Business Broadcast Meeting, to finish up this series we will show you how to add content to a broadcast. When mixing video and PPT content, the presenters are given new presentation options. While it is not all that difficult to figure out, sometimes its just easier to see first hand. So, with that in mind, we will jump right into a Broadcast already in progress.  So here we are in a meeting as a Presenter, Our Video is already active and we are broadcasting.   And from the attendee side, we see that Video is active. So now the Presenter can add a PPT. By clicking the content icon (seen below), you have the option to "Share PowerPoint files". Select this option and then select a PowerPoint presentation to upload. Once the Powerpoint is loaded, we have new options from a display point of view. “Video Only”, “Video and Content”, and “Content Only”. We have already covered “Video Only”, no need to show it again. Though the PowerPoint is displaying on the Presenter's window, it has not yet been broadcast to the meeting. WE will need to select a layout that allows the PowerPoint to be seen by attendees.   Selecting "Content only" gives us the view below.   Selecting “Video and Content”, will add a smaller Video window to the right of the content. This way not only can the attendee see the content, but the Presenter as well to allow for a more personalized experience as well as taking non-verbal queues from the Presenter now that you can see him/her.   There are no other views to discuss, so the meeting may continue until its normal end. Like before though, if for any reason the Broadcast is stopped, the it is over and cannot be restarted. Once you are finished with the Broadcast, you would then click the “Stop Broadcast” button and then exist the meetings. Thanks you for taking the time to go thru the Skype for Business Broadcast meeting blog. I hope that you have learned at least one thing from this Skype for Business Broadcast Series. Please feel free to ask questions, or post comments. Enjoy your Broadcast meetings.  

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]]> Simple custom Dial Plan (number normalization) for Skype for Business Online. https://docs.microsoft.com/archive/blogs/scottblog/simple-custom-dial-plan-number-normalization-for-skype-for-business-online Wed, 07 Mar 2018 12:06:41 GMT https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/scottblog/?p=1375 Back to the top level page.

  Below is a quick “one off” and break from my Skype for Business Meetings series. I created a unique dial plan for a customer the other day and learned so much during the process that once I got it, I had to document it to make it easier for everyone. I know there are other blogs out there that cover this as well, but if you are like me, I just want to get to the meat of it and go from there. For those of you that would like more context, please do check out my friend Kevin’s blog. What follows is the most basic set of commands to create a normalization rule in Skype for Business Online (SFBO) and assign it to a new Dial Plan. In this case, we are taking a 7-digit number with a 349 prefix (so 349-xxxx) and normalizing it to an E.164 formatted number (+1-613-222-xxxx). Of course, this could be modified for 3, 4, 5 digit easily enough. NOTE: THESE ARE NOT THE CUSTOMER'S NUMBERS - SIMPLY EXAMPLES - PLEASE DO NOT CALL THEM. The follow are the commands, in the order you should issue them, to create your new Dial Plan for SFBO. This will allow both IP Phone users (on SFBO) and the SFBO clients to dial 349-XXXX and have it resolve to +1613222XXXX. You will need to do all of this in the Skype for Business Online (SFBO) PowerShell. If you have not accessed this area before, this link has a great set of instructions: https://www.oxfordsbsguy.com/2015/11/14/how-to-connect-to-and-manage-connect-to-office365-using-powershell/ Once you get logged in with admin credentials for O365, you can then copy and paste these cmdlets into PowerShell. NOTE: It took a good 15 minutes before the verification command and client picked up the changes. So be patient. Below are the commands. I will explain what each command does. The command below creates a Dial Plan within your tenant called 349dial New-CsTenantDialPlan -Identity 349dial -Description "349-7 Digit Dialing"  -SimpleName "349Dial" Link to this cmdlet The command below creates a variable ($nr2) with the actual number normalizations within it. It will convert any 7-digit number that starts with 349 and convert it to +1613222XXXX $nr2 = New-CsVoiceNormalizationRule -Identity Global/NR2 -Description "349dial" -Pattern '^349(\d{4})$' -Translation '+1613222$1' -InMemory Link to this cmdlet Let look closer at the normalization rule: Note: Below is the link to the common “regular expressions” language. https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/standard/base-types/regular-expression-language-quick-reference PATTERN: ^349(\d{4})$ ^ - start accepting the digit string 349 – place outside the () it will match anything that starts with 349 (but is only part of the equation) (\d{4})$  - accept the next 4 digits and stored those digits as the variable $. This completes our 7-digit number. If say we wanted to accept a 10-digit number where the area code was 349, the we could change the {4} to {7} and so on. The entire pattern match only 7-digit numbers starting with 349 and only stores the last 4 digits in the variable - $ The command below adds the number normalization rule that is stored in the variable “$nr2” to the new Dial Plan. set-CsTenantDialPlan -Identity 349dial -NormalizationRules @{add=$nr2} Link to this cmdlet The command below lists all Dial Plans in your tenant – verify that you see the “349Dial” Dial Plan and that is has the normalization in it. Get-csTenantDialPlan Link to this cmdlet It will look something like this: PS C:\WINDOWS\system32> Get-CsTenantDialPlan Identity              : Global Description           : NormalizationRules    : {} ExternalAccessPrefix  : SimpleName            : DefaultTenantDialPlan OptimizeDeviceDialing : False Identity              : Tag:349dial Description           : 349-7 Digit Dialing NormalizationRules    : {Description=Testcallnorm4;Pattern=^349(\d{4})$;Translation=+1613222$1;Name=NR2;IsInternalExten                         sion=False} ExternalAccessPrefix  : SimpleName            : 349dial OptimizeDeviceDialing : False Notice the difference between the Global Dial Plan and the 349dial Dial Plan – the latter has a normalization rule in it. Yours should look like that.   Now you can add that Dial Plan to a test user. Grant-CsTenantDialPlan -Identity adelev@ucdemo2017.onmicrosoft.com -PolicyName 349dial Link to this cmdlet You will need to use one of your own user’s SIP URIs at this point. Next, we need to verify that the user has the Dial Plan applied. get-csonlineuser -Identity adelev@ucdemo2017.onmicrosoft.com Link to this cmdlet again, change the user. You will see this in their profile: TenantDialPlan                       : 349dial After 15 minutes or so run this command to see if it has propagated. get-cseffectivetenantdialplan -identity adelev@ucdemo2017.onmicrosoft.com | test-cseffectivetenantdialplan -dialednumber 3499815 Link to this cmdlet change the user - you should get back something very close to this. RunspaceId       : e0598ac1-2d50-43f7-828c-fe59314f194c TranslatedNumber : +16132229815 MatchingRule     : Description=349dial;Pattern=^349(\d{4})$;Translation=+1613222$1;Name=NR2;IsInternalExtension=False If you get this: RunspaceId       : e0598ac1-2d50-43f7-828c-fe59314f194c TranslatedNumber : MatchingRule     : Then it has not yet made it thru the system. Finally, the “real” test – is to type 3499815 into the SFB client window and see +16132229815 below as a normalized number in the SFB client. NOTE: Because of the propagation delay, the verification cmdlet and the client update may not occur at the same time. If you dial it on the IP Phone, you may not see the normalization until you make the call. This as the behavior on the AudoCodes phone I was using in my testing. I hope this will help you out and there is no reason it shouldn’t work, but if it doesn’t please reach out to me. Good luck Scott

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]]> Successful Skype for Business Meetings (Series – Module #4 Broadcast Meetings - part #2) https://docs.microsoft.com/archive/blogs/scottblog/successful-skype-for-business-meetings-series-module-3-broadcast-meetings-part-2 Sat, 03 Mar 2018 16:05:39 GMT https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/scottblog/?p=1325 Back to the top level page.

  In Broadcast Meetings Part #1 we showed you all that it takes to create a Broadcast Meeting. We are now ready to start our meeting. As I stated before, certain steps are assumed known by the reader. From an attendee standpoint there is not much more to do than join the meeting so we will begin there. After clicking the link to the meeting (or the join button in the outlook invite) You will be taken to this page. As an attendee you will click the Green “Join the event” button. Here you can see that we are now waiting for the event to start. It also seems that this event will allow Q&A since we see the Q&A panel at the bottom. More on this later. A Presenter will also access the web-join page however they will follow the Team Member login which will then launch the Skype for Business app. As you can see, both Alex and Adele are in the meeting as Presenters – as we specified previously in the creation example. A couple of things to note. Presenters can be demoted to attendees, but will remain in the “live” portion of the meeting. Meaning they are still considered active participants in the Skype for Business window, but can no longer present content. There is really no benefit in making a Presenter an Attendee while in a Broadcast meeting, but you will have the ability to do so. You will notice that even though we have Presenters in the meeting, our meeting Broadcast has not yet started. In order to start the meeting, one of the Presenters has to offer content (video or PPT). In this example, Alex has started his video. We will then right click his video and click “Make Video active for Broadcasting". All Presenters can have active audio/video during the meeting, but only one can be active for the broadcast. This makes it easier to switch between video stream as the meeting goes on. Once you have marked a video window active for broadcast, you will notice that the “Start Broadcast” button is no longer subdued. To begin Broadcasting click the "Start Broadcast" button. Once you do this, you will receive a msg stating “Ready to start? . The “warning message” is very important as it reminds you that if you, by accident or otherwise, stop broadcasting, the meeting is over. You cannot broadcast any longer in that meeting and the meeting is basically over for the attendees. Should that occur, you will have to create  new meeting and send out a new invite. After accepting the "Ready to Start" msg, You will see you are “live” in the Presenter window. From an attendee standpoint, you can see that the broadcast has started. Notice that there is the Q&A panel. Lets ask a question. Once we have clicked the ask button our question appears below. You may remember that I mentioned that someone has to monitor the Q&A when we setup the Q&A. Once in a meeting a Prensenter will need to go back to the meeting summary page and click the “open Q&A” link to access it. This can be done by the creator or the link can be copied and sent to another Presenter. As the Q&A moderator, you can now respond individually, or broadcast the question out for all to see. The Moderator will see the graphic below. In this case the Moderator choose to broadcast the question.   And the attendees will see… thus verifying that the message was broadcast to all. (notice that you can “like” the comment or question) If the question was to remain private, it would look like this. Finally, from the moderators standpoint, he/she can broadcast a message to the group if needed by once again using the broadcast box. NOTE: Q&A and Broadcasts messages are live and not delayed. Please keep that in mind during the broadcast. You might actually ask a question that prompts the Presenter to reply verbally which will be delayed up to 60 seconds. It does get a bit confusing if you are not aware of the broadcast delay. Another feature I mentioned briefly in the meeting setup was that the attendees have the ability to view a live transcript in one of 6 languages chosen by the meeting organizer. As an attendee you will notice in the bottom right hand corner a little box, by clicking this box you can choose the captioning language allowed for this meeting. You can also change the caption language as it appears. Here is the same message in a different language. To re-iterate, only 6 languages can be pre-selected (in addition to the default – English) for captioning (translation) for any meeting. One last point about video, we have all heard that in order to show a video, it must be embedded into Power Point. While this is ONE way, it is not the only way. Using the Newtek TriCaster Mini, you can create virtual sets, share a pc’s desktop or any other feed from either a video camera or PC and broadcast it to the meeting thru a Presenter's Skype for Business client. The TriCaster’s output along with a client app on a Skype for Business enabled laptop or desktop becomes the Audio and Video feed for the Skype for Business client, therefore if this particular client is a presenter in a Broadcast meeting, whatever output you have from the TriCaster becomes the feed for the Presenter role in the Broadcast. You can read more about the Tricaster series of products from Newtek’s web page. In my next blog, we will add Power Point to a Broadcast Meeting. Stay tuned.  

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]]> Successful Skype for Business Meetings (Series – Module #3 Broadcast Meetings - part #1) https://docs.microsoft.com/archive/blogs/scottblog/successful-skype-for-business-meetings-series-module-3-broadcast-meetings-part-1 Sat, 24 Feb 2018 09:41:39 GMT https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/scottblog/?p=955 Back to the top level page.

  Taking a short detour from the Skype for Business meetings to do a quick 2 part series on Broadcast Meetings. Because this module is quite large I am breaking it up in to 2 parts. The setup, and the Broadcast itself.

Skype for Business Broadcast Meetings

When discussing Skype for Business Meetings, you cannot ignore that fact that sometimes 250 participants just isn’t enough. That or the need to have a massive Town Hall style meeting. This is where Skype for Business Broadcast meetings comes in. Unlike Skype for Business meetings that we have been discussing during this series, Skype for Business Broadcast meetings allow for some unique features not found in your typical Skype for Business Meetings. Some of the key features of Skype for Business Broadcast Meetings:
  • Up to 10K attendees ( I say attendee for a reason)
  • Live transcription
  • FF, REW, Replay during a Broadcast
  • Live Q&A
  • Downloadable and redistributable
  • Live Polling and Yammer feeds
  • Generate Meeting reports.
https://support.office.com/en-us/article/What-is-a-Skype-Meeting-Broadcast-c472c76b-21f1-4e4b-ab58-329a6c33757d The setup experience for Skype for Business Broadcast meeting is much different from the of a Skype for Business Online Meeting and so I will take you through this process start to finish as well as calling out some of the uniqueness of the features. For starters, Skype for Business Broadcast is an online only service. This means at the very least, the creator of the meeting must be homed in Skype for Business Online. This of course means that you have a O365 tenant and that Skype for Business is in Hybrid mode – OR – you have a 100% online only tenant. If either of those conditions exist,  you must then also enable your tenant for Skype for Business Broadcast. Next, it is important to note that while a Skype for Business Broadcast Meeting is live, there can be anywhere from a 30-60 sec delay from what is going on live until the attendees see it. This is important to note when setting feedback options such as Yammer, Q&A and Pulse. While the Presenter(s) are communicating in realtime, the attendees are seeing it up to 60 seconds after it happened. Therefore, the responses from attendees might appear to be non-existent to an impatient Presenter. The key here is to know this and to create a sort of time filler if you are expecting responses. Once enabled, your users that are licensed and homed in Skype for Business Online can create Skype for Business Broadcast Meetings. Here are links to the licensing requirements for Skype for Business Broadcast https://support.office.com/en-us/article/what-is-a-skype-meeting-broadcast-c472c76b-21f1-4e4b-ab58-329a6c33757d?ui=en-US&rs=en-US&ad=US and https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/SkypeForBusiness/set-up-your-network-for-skype-meeting-broadcast/blocked-user-licenses-for-skype-meeting-broadcast?ui=en-US&rs=en-US&ad=US

Creating a meeting

Creating meeting consist of a few steps:
  • Creating the meeting.
  • Setting attendee qualification.
  • Adding Options to the meeting.
  • Sending out the meeting invite.
To create a Skype for Business Broadcast meeting start by going and logging into this page. https://broadcast.skype.com From this page you will be able to see older meeting that have already past. (For the sake of screen shots, I created meetings that never were “run” which is why they show as “not started”. Should you have set certain feature which we will discuss in the future, you could click back into these meetings and get the meeting report, go thru the recorded video and see the security features that were set for that meeting. As you can see the calendar highlights dates where meetings exist. Our next step would be to create a meeting. Click the   plus sign.   There are a number of options here so lets break them down. This section allows you to name the meeting, specify the date/time and rough duration of the call. This might lead you to believe that the meeting will expire after the duration expires. This is NOT the case. The meeting will continue as long as there is an active Presenter in the meeting. Next we will set the attendee qualification level. You can see that the Organizer is already populated, you are then given the opportunity to add other presenters from within your organization only. We will have the ability to add federated outsiders at a later time. This is a “hidden feature” so I will call it out later in this article. Now then, the attendees. I say attendees because these will be the viewers of this meeting. Their interaction with the presenters will be limited to the features that have been added to the meeting. (Yammer, Q&A, and Pulse). All attendees join via a web browser – not matter what. Listed Presenters (Team Members) will join via their Skype for Business Client and will have an entirely different set of features which I will list out later in this article. Attendees fall into 3 categories:
  • Anonymous – This can be anyone with an internet connection and the link to the meeting.
  • All Company – Anyone who shares the same domain name as the Organizer and has a link to the meeting.
  • Invitation Only – Those specific set of attendees within your organization that you have specifically invited via this form.
Note: The latter 2 type require a login from the attendees Azure Active directory (cloud) account. So as long as the attendee is listed in the tenant (native or hybrid) they can login with their user credentials. Anonymous attendees do not need to login. OK, now that we have set the attendees, we can move on with the rest of the meeting options. By checking “Create a video recording for download” You get just that. The meeting will automatically be recorded and be downloadable once the meeting ends. Enabling “Make video on demand available after the meeting” allows attendees to join after the meeting ends and watch it in its entirety. (subject to retention times) Should you wish to have a live transcript be displayed during the meeting, you will check the Transcription and Translation box. This allow you to pick up to 6 languages that attendees can choose from during the broadcast. The transcription will then be displayed as the meeting occurs. Attendees can switch between the allowed languages as the meeting is in progress or afterwards during the playback. Let be clear about this point. This is a speech to text translation, not a speech to speech translation. That ability exists only in Skype Consumer. Now that we have configured the basics for our meeting, click Create at the top right hand side. Your meeting review page will now be shown.   If a basic town hall style meeting is all you needed, then you are set. You can now expose the link and email it , or create an Outlook invite and email that. If you selected others to be presenters, I recommend using the Outlook invite as they will already be added to the invite. Clicking “show” will expose the meeting link. Note, if you selected the “Invitation only” Attendee option, each attendee will already be populated in the Outlook invite as well as the Presenters. Click send and you now have a meetings scheduled in Outlook. Should you choose to add attendee feedback options, you would then click Customize in the upper right hand corner. This takes you to the meeting customization page where you can add attendee feedback options. You can add 1 or 2 attendee options. One in the right hand panel and one in the lower panel which will show up below the presentation. Your options are Yammer, Q&A and Pulse. For Pulse you will have had to previously setup a Pulse account. We will not be covering that in this segment. For Yammer, similarly, you will need the Yammer feed information as shown below. Q&A is a different animal altogether. Once added to a meeting some forethought must be put into the Presenter roles. A Predetermined Presenter must be allocated to login to the Q&A panel and act as the moderator. To finish off this page, you have the ability to add customized hyper-links for troubleshooting support and other items that may be of use to attendees in your meeting. This could be a link to an embedded video or a website that contains pertinent information to your meeting or organization. Once you have added your content, click “DONE” in the upper right hand corner. This will take you back to the meeting summary page that you will notice has now changed to include the added content. At this point you would want to then create the Outlook email invite – or copy the link and send it out – which ever way you choose. In part #2, we will take you thru logging in and both attending as well as presenting in Broadcast meetings. Stay tuned  

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]]> Successful Skype for Business Meetings (Series - Module #2 Audio Conferencing) https://docs.microsoft.com/archive/blogs/scottblog/successful-skype-for-business-meetings-series-module-2-audio-conferencing Tue, 20 Feb 2018 11:15:15 GMT https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/scottblog/?p=925 Back to the top level page.

  The next module in this series will focus on Skype for Business Audio Conferencing. Audio Conferencing in Skype for Business Online comes in 3 forms:
  • Audio only meeting - Voice Over IP only (VoIP)
  • Audio only meeting - Dial in Only (No VoIP)
  • Audio only meeting - VoIP and Dial in.
As a reminder, it is assumed that the reader is familiar with Skype for Business, therefore certain steps are assumed when reading thru this blog.

Audio only meeting. VoIP.

Up until now, the meetings I have been demonstrating were “online” meetings. It is possible to have audio only meetings should you prefer. These are commonly called audio conference or tele-conferences some people even still call them Conference Calls. If you already have Skype for Business Online (without the Audio Conferencing add-0n), then you can schedule VoIP only meetings. (some might call them online or web conferences). There is no dial in phone number and all attendees/presenters must join using a Skype for Business client. This constitutes a VoIP meeting.  To add the dial in component, you will need to add the Audio Conferencing License (formerly PSTN Conferencing). All meetings in Skype for Business Online have all of the features already built into them, it is simply a decision on your part to allow/restrict which features will be used during the call. For example, for an Audio only call to be turned into a video conference, someone  must enable their web camera. Unless specifically denied in the meeting options, anyone can add video to what started out as an Audio only meeting. To create a true audio only meetings and restrict it so that no one can enable video or begin to IM, you will need to lock down the meeting options to disable video and IM as well as make everyone an attendee so that they cannot override the meeting options restricted for attendees. If you left others in your organization as presenters, they would have options that would override the attendee restrictions. To accomplish this, create a meeting in Outlook and then go into the meeting options.   Notice that it says “Mute all attendees” and “Block Attendees Video”, doing so still allows Presenters the option to speak at will and use video. Should you wish to block everyone but yourself, you would need to make sure that the “Who is a Presenter” options is set to “Only me”. As it shown above. This makes everyone but you an attendee, and in this case, they cannot IM, talk, or start their webcam. In the example above, "Mute All Attendees" is set. Since this is a VoIP only meeting - meaning that all attendees are joining via the Skype for Business app - you , as the meeting organizer have full control over who can come off of mute. Enjoy your Audio only meeting.

Audio only meeting Dial in only.

This type of meeting is similar to the “Audio only meeting VoIP” accept all users will join via the PSTN. Some would consider this a true Conference Call. Licensing for this now requires the Audio Conferencing license (formerly PSTN Conferencing) for users that create meetings. Attendees do not have to have the Audio Conferencing license to join. The email invite for an Audio Conference call with dial in is similar to a non-dial in invite except it has the additional Phone number options for you to choose from that you would not see in a VoIP only Conference call. If the numbers listed aren’t local to you, you can click the hyper-link “Find a local number” which will bring up a website for you to choose a more suitable-local number for you to dial in to for the conference call. To restrict the conference call to audio only, you will need to follow the suggestions from the “Audio only meeting VoIP” section above. In the example above, "Mute All Attendees" is set. This would not be a good thing for an Audio Conference only as you and all attendees would be connected via Dial In. This gives you very little control over the meeting. In this case, you may want to allow attendees to speak freely, and simply allow them to mute themselves, using *6, or by muting their device at will. Enjoy your audio conference call meeting.

Audio Only Conference Call - VoIP and Dial In

Finally, as  I have previously stated, once you create a meeting within Skype for Business, you already have all modalities available to you. This includes Dial In capabilities as well as VoIP (provided you have the Audio Conferencing License for the creator). The ability for you to join via VoIP or Dial In automatically exists (again given proper licensing). You can still restrict the meeting using meeting options, and each user will have to option to join via a client, or via the PSTN. For the purpose of control of the meeting, it is suggested that the creator of the meeting join via VoIP (client) so that they may more easily manage the meeting. For example, if you see a contact in the meeting that you cannot verify or get to respond, you may wish to remove the user from the meeting. This can be accomplished only via the client app. The other added benefit is that as the creator joined via the client, you will have the option to record the meeting. Enjoy you Audio only conference calls. Next up - Video Conference Calls.  

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]]> Successful Skype for Business Meetings (Series - Module #1 Meeting Basics) https://docs.microsoft.com/archive/blogs/scottblog/successful-skype-for-business-meetings-series-module-1-meeting-basics Sun, 18 Feb 2018 10:09:52 GMT https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/scottblog/?p=675 Back to the top level page.

  For my next series of blogs, I will be focusing on the Intelligent Communications Meetings. You can expect to see Skype for Business meetings, Skype for Business Broadcast meeting, and Microsoft Teams Meetings. Hopefully by the time I get to Teams Meetings, Broadcast meetings will be enabled for Teams. This blog will focus on Skype for Business meetings.  While there are many resources for this. It is my plan, via screen shots, to step you thru the different type of meetings within Skype for Business (SFB) and offer some helpful suggestions to optimize these meetings. ( Note: This blog assumes the user has basic knowledge for Skype for Business there fore certain steps may not be called out ) I will primarily focus on Skype for Business Online (SFBO). Many of the features are the same as compared toSkype for Business On-Premises, and I will attempt call out where there are variances.
  • What constitutes a Skype for Business meeting?
  • Presenters and Attendees.
  • Recording options.
  • Promoting a Peer to Peer session to a meeting.
  • 4 ways to start a meeting.

What constitutes a Skype for Business meeting?

While it is technically possible to be in a Skype for Business meeting with just 2 people, we generally consider a Skype for Business meeting as having 3 or more users with a maximum of 250 users in any given meeting. ( Skype for Business On-Premise can be enabled for more depending on infrastructure). Broadcast meetings can serve up to 10,000 attendees.

Presenters and Attendees

There are 2 status’ available in Skype for Business Online meetings. Presenters and Attendees. These status’ determine what functions you will have available to you within the meeting. The Presenter has 2 forms, the Meeting Organizer, or simply Presenter status. The main difference here is that the Presenters cannot remove the Meeting organizer nor make him/her an Attendee. In the example shown, Alex is the meeting organizer, while Scott and Adele have presenter status. The screen shot are from Scott’s login. As you see here, Scott can remove or demote Adele. He cannot make any changes to Alex – the meeting organizer. Scott has now been demoted to Attendee status and can do nothing to either Adele nor Alex. Attendees have limited control, however, if allowed in the meeting, can IM, and start Video or Audio. They cannot present anything as their status does not allow it. They also have no control over others users whereas Presenter can mute others and remove them from the meeting as well.  

Recording Options.

Once conferencing resources have been assigned (by promoting or converting to a meeting), the recording option will be available if enabled in the policy. Recordings are kept locally on the PC recording it and multiple participants can record the same meeting at the same time.   The Skype for Business client has built into it a Recording Manager that can be accessed from any IM window or the Skype for Business main menu.   When a session is recorded, the entire raw session is captured as an .MP4 formatted file. The recording manager gives you the option to publish the recording as well as the ability to remove certain aspects should you choose to remove them. For example, you may wish to remove user video or IM so as not to distract from the presentation when replayed. The new “published” .mp4 will reside in the directory of your choosing while the original raw .mp4 file stays in the default folder. References: Skype for Business Online Limits Meetings with Skype for Business  Start using Skype for Business for IM and online meetings https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cYnN7E1ZFYo (Get to know Skype for Business Meetings: your complete meeting solution)    

Promoting a Peer to Peer session to a meeting.

A Peer to Peer (P2P) session is any session in which you and one other person are collaborating, whether it be IM, Audio only, Audio and Video (A/V), screen sharing and the like. To promote this P2P session to a meeting, you can do one of 2 things:
  • Add a 3rd person. This is done by clicking the icon in the top right corner of the IM window. Simply select another user from the list or enter the persons SIP address, then click ok. You will notice that the session appears to change. You will notice, if you happen to check, the recording option is now available. (If it is enabled within the conferencing policy)
   
  • Uploading a PowerPoint to an existing P2P session.
This will convert it to a meeting as well since meetings services are now used to load and share the PowerPoint. We see this because we can now record the session. (showing a Power Point via a desktop share will NOT convert the P2P session to a meeting).      

4 ways to start a meeting.

While not widely known, there are 4 ways in which you can start a meeting in Skype for Business.
  • Promote a Peer to Peer session (previous section)
  • Outlook – Schedule a meeting.
    • From scratch
    • Reply with meeting in an email.
  • Meet Now – start pulling people into a meeting one at a time.
  • Right-clicking a group of contacts and starting the meeting.

Promote a Peer to Peer session (previous section)

This was covered in the previous section.

Outlook – Schedule a meeting.

From Scratch

Probably the most familiar method of creating and joining a meeting. This entails creating a meeting in Outlook, sending the meeting invite, and then joining the meeting once it begins. There are 2 ways to do this. Creating a meeting from scratch in your calendar, or by replying to an email with the “Reply with Meeting” option explained below. To schedule a meeting, go to your calendar and select the  button in the tool bar. Next, set the meeting options. by clicking the button. Rather than go thru each of the options, I have linked the article that explains them. Here. When you are finished setting your meeting options, click “Remember Settings” so that each time you create a meeting, these options will be applied. Finally, select a date and time for the meeting, add your recipients and send the invite. Enjoy your scheduled meeting.

Reply with meeting in an email.

Should you want to preserve information from an email and have it included in a meeting invite, you can create a meeting by responding to an email. With the email in question open, click the reply with meeting icon. Then click Skype Meeting.   Notice that the original email is now in the invite and the Skype for Business info has been added. All that is left to do, like above, is set the date/time and send the invite. Enjoy your meeting.

Meet Now

The “Meet Now” feature tells Skype for Business Online   that you wish to engage a conference service immediately. This way any and all people you bring into the meeting will instantly be joining a meeting rather than a P2P session With this option, you can only bring people into your meeting one at a time. This option is most useful if you know that you are going to be adding people later in the meeting, but want to start with a single individual. In a case like this, you could have an impromptu meeting, or send out a meeting invite with no Skype for Business options and let the users know that you will be bringing them in when they are needed. It should be noted that you can “call” someone to bring them into a Meet Now by putting their phone number in the search field. For this to occur, you will need the Phone System License on your user account. Without it, the outbound call will fail. A “Meet Now” functionally is no different then joining a meeting via email invite. Just the join experience is different. Once in the meeting, all meeting options are available.   To start a “Meet Now” , select Meet Now from the pull down menu.   You can then click the people icon  to add members. One notable difference to a Meet Now vs. an emailed invite is that the meeting options may not be the same. You can click the  button to bring up the menu to then select meeting options. These options are ad-hoc and changes will not be saved and may have to be reset during the next meeting. These options do not affect the values you set in the Outlook client. Enjoy your Meet Now meeting.

Right-clicking a group of contacts and starting the meeting.

This 4th and final method of starting a meeting allows you the option to pre-select those contacts you wish to join you in an Ad-hoc meeting. By highlighting those contacts in your contact list, you will then right-click those contact and choose the type of meeting you wish to start. Once the meeting is established, all other features are identical to that with a Meet Now. Enjoy your meeting. Next up  Audio Meetings. Stay tuned.  

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]]> Skype for Business and Teams feature Comparison https://docs.microsoft.com/archive/blogs/scottblog/skype-for-business-and-teams-feature-comparison Thu, 11 Jan 2018 12:55:01 GMT https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/scottblog/?p=655 Back to the top level page.

  The topic of this blog will deviate a bit from my past device focused blogs. I do appreciate all of the support and page hits from you my blog fans. I was speaking with a vendor of mine and he told me of a feature comparison chart that he found. It was so good that I reached out to the owner to re-blog it. Many thanks to Ted Estwan from Novus LLC for turning me on to this. This is not a practice I would normally do, but I had such an issue finding it that I figured re-blogging it would be one of the better ways to spread the word on this. However, in my own true form., I will also add additional information on Microsoft Teams. So, that said, I would like for you all to meet Luca Vitali, he is a Microsoft MVP and UC blogger. The blog in particular that I am referencing today is https://lucavitali.wordpress.com/2017/10/01/sfb-teams-features-comparison-table/ . From his blog, you will find the link to this page for the Skype/Teams Feature comparison he built. Here is a picture of it, but I recommend that you download it instead.   Listed below are some great Microsoft Teams resources. I know this one is short, but I wanted to get this information out to you - my ever faithful blogees…. https://aka.ms/skypeandteams https://products.office.com/en-US/business/office-365-roadmap https://aka.ms/successwithteams Have a great day! Scott  

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