Is Skype for Business rebranded into Microsoft Teams?

During the past weeks I had numerous conversations with different partners and customers around Microsoft Teams. In most cases, the general opinion is that Microsoft Teams is perceived as a Skype for Business rebranding.For this reason, I decided to write the present post to clarify what Microsoft Teams really is and what are the main …

Training and Adoption Resources

With the transition to the Cloud, the adoption of a solution became a crucial phase to guarantee the success of an IT project. If in the past the key products in Microsoft's portfolio such as Exchange, Skype, SharePoint, etc. had a life cycle of 3 years, now, in the cloud era, this time has drastically …

Auto Attendant and Call Queue new features

Yesterday the Skype Product Group teams release in General Availability three new capabilities of Auto Attendant and Call Queue: Auto Attendant and Call Queue with hybrid topologies and/or hybrid voice. With this new feature, is now possible to have Auto Attendant and Call Queue in hybrid (split domain) topologies and in hybrid voice topologies (using …

Transport Relay aka TRAP on Skype for Business and Teams

One of the most frequent problems you probably faced when implementing a Skype for Business architecture was related to the media relay capabilities for users travelling around the world. In Skype for Business an Edge media Relay is associated to a specific Front End pool. This means that a user homed on that specific pool …

Microsoft Conferencing Service consumption plan

As part of the Microsoft commitment to the Cloud Voice service, a new PSTN Conferencing consumption plan has been presented in the last episode of the SfB Broadcast meeting. Until now, an organization interested in Microsoft Conferencing service features needed a specific user license as part of an E5 plan or as an add-on to …

How to restrict access to Skype for business online using Azure AD Conditional Access

Every time an Office 365 license which includes a Skype For Business Plan is assigned to a user on O365, this user can access Skype for Business from any device. In some scenarios, customers might want to block the access from specific devices for specific group of users. By default, Skype for Business Online doesn't …

Media Bypass in Cloud Connector 2.0

Last July the latest version of cloud connector has been released. One of the substantial changes of this version is the support for media bypass. In this post I will highlight some aspects about this new feature that might be helpful when planning a Voice Cloud Connector solution. As usual, let's start with some theory. …

Azure Voicemail for Skype for Business online

Skype for business online doesn't use the Exchange UM Voicemail service anymore.Cloud PBX voice mail is a Service that runs in Azure that provides Voice Mail capabilities to users who are using Cloud PBX service. When you enable a user to Cloud PBX you also enable the Hosted Voice mail service (more information on how …

Cloud PBX and PSTN Calling renamed to Microsoft’s Phone System and Calling Plan

As announced at ignite (https://myignite.microsoft.com/sessions/54671) Microsoft Cloud PBX and PSTN Calling will change its name. Microsoft's Phone System (formerly Cloud PBX), and Calling Plan (formerly PSTN Calling) are now the new names for the Microsoft online voice services. The Microsoft's Phone System is one of the products of the Office 356 Cloud Productivity suite with …

Compliance and data governance in Skype for Business

Some organizations such as banks, insurance or financial institutions, have strict regulations in terms of data governance and compliance. The definition of compliance data, accordingly with Wikipedia, is the following: Compliance data is defined as all data belonging or pertaining to enterprise or included in the law, which can be used for the purpose of implementing …

Skype For Business Cloud Connector Edition Version 2.0.1 Released

The latest version 2.0.1 of Cloud Connector has been released. The main changes introduced by this update are: Media Bypass (manual configuration required to implement it) SIP Manipulation for billing and interoperability purpose Increased number of CCE per site (up to 16 now) Reduce the permission level require for installation and configuration: Skype Administrator rights …

Extract consumption information for Cloud PBX using powershell

As I wrote in my Previous Post, if you want to extract PSTN consumption information for Cloud PBX user without a PSTN Calling plan, you need to use either the Call Analytics (which was designed for troubleshooting call quality) tool or PowerShell. For this reason, I decided to create a simple script that can be …

Office 365 – Cloud PBX available reports

In the past months Microsoft Cloud PBX started offering more features and more customer decided to start migrating some user or the entire organization to the Microsoft cloud Voice System. I collaborated with some of the Microsoft partners on Cloud PBX implementations and one of the most requested information from the Operation team and Management, …

Tenant Dial Plan in Skype for Business Online

Recently Microsoft released the Skype for Business Online tenant dial plans. This feature is now available in general availability. This was one of the most requested feature from our customer and partners and it's now available. With this new feature, Microsoft continued reducing the gap between online and on-premise user experience giving the possibility to …

The Importance of SOF

At the beginning of February 2017, I decided to accept a new challenge and re-joined Microsoft as a Cloud Solution Architect, focused on Voice solutions. One of the first things I had to do was to keep up with all the changes that happened in the last 9 months and I was surprised to see how …