Roadmap for Skype for Business capabilities coming to Microsoft Teams now available
Published Oct 24 2017 09:30 AM 195K Views

Last month at Microsoft Ignite we introduced a new vision for intelligent communications, which includes Microsoft Teams becoming the primary client for communication and collaboration in Office 365. Today we are sharing more detail on our planned roadmap for adding Microsoft Skype for Business capabilities to Teams, so you can plan your onboarding.

 

Messaging – Teams offers rich instant messaging capabilities today, with persistent chat, as well as private 1:1 and group chat. We expect to deliver additional messaging capabilities in Teams by the end of Q2-2018. Features will include screen sharing during chat and federation between companies.

 

Meetings – Teams offers collaborative meetings capabilities today, including screen sharing, meeting chats captured in the channel after the meeting, and the preview of audio conferencing. We expect to deliver additional meeting capabilities in Microsoft Teams by the end of Q2-2018. These features include meeting room support with Skype Room Systems, and cloud video interoperability capabilities that allow third party meeting room devices to connect to Teams meetings.

 

Calling – Today, Teams offers many calling capabilities. Later this quarter, we plan to ship voicemail for Teams. By the end of Q2-2018, we will enable you to use your existing telco voice line to activate calling services in Office 365.

 

Beyond bringing existing Skype for Business core capabilities to Teams, we are excited about new intelligent communications coming to Teams. As shown at the Ignite Microsoft Teams and Skype for Business General Session, customers will be able to record a meeting and store it in Teams, have transcription added, and be able to search the meeting for key terms. These features will begin rolling out at the end of Q2-2018.

 

As part of our vision for intelligent communications, we are also taking the opportunity to simplify the naming of our premium communication offerings. PSTN Conferencing will now be known as “Audio Conferencing;” Cloud PBX will now be known as “Phone System;” and PSTN Calling will now be known as “Calling Plan.” We want these names to be more intuitive to both IT and end users as we further integrate communications with collaboration. 

 

We encourage all customers who have not yet done so to start using Teams today, either stand alone or side-by-side with Skype for Business. 

You can find a list of upcoming features on the Office 365 Public Roadmap. A downloadable version of the same roadmap is available on the Intelligent Communications FastTrack portal to further help plan your onboarding to Microsoft Teams. 

 

We also invite you to our Microsoft Teams "Ask Microsoft Anything" on October 25th, at 9 AM PDT and a live broadcast on October 27th, at 9 AM PDT on Teams On Air to hear our team discuss the roadmap in more detail and have your questions answered.

 

61 Comments
Brass Contributor

Christopher...Until it is proven to me otherwise, my concern of a single point of failure remains.  Do you have any indications that your assumption is true?

 

 

 

 

Steel Contributor

I'm personally looking forward to switching to the MS PSTN solution.  We only have one dial-in number (it's just dial-in), and it will force people to use the better native solution.  Too many rely on dial-in when they should be getting headsets / USB speaker phones and using native audio.

Copper Contributor

Thank you for this detailed roadmap.  I am eager to see the end result, as it promises to address some of the current issues faced by current SfB users (i.e. persistent chat).  Is there any indication on how third party hosters will be migrating from SfB licenses to Teams licenses to be able to continue to offer enterprise voice in the new environment?  A full-featured phone system that offers audio, video, and screensharing ALONG with presence, persistent chat and business-class telephony will truly be a one-stop-shop for all collaboration needs.  Exciting times!  Thanks, again, for a peek into the immediate future.

Copper Contributor

This roadmap shows when you are bringing features but I'm more interested in the roadmap for when Skype For Business is going to be discontinued and only Teams is left. The latter seems like it will be much more useful, more personal expression and have less UI issues than the former. I don't want to ever have to deal with both.

 

Just as I became happy using the regular Skype UWP app, dark theme, etc... then I was told nope we're switching to Skype For Business - no dark theme, worse interface, BUT allows you to share screen without having to start a voice call. Give with one hand and take with the other! Then we're looking at switching to Teams, return of the dark theme, yay! return of being allowed to express yourself visually, yay!, removal of ability to share screen without being in a voice call, boo!

 

 

Deleted
Not applicable

@Peter Row They have already said they are working on the Share screen without a call, I think it was on the roadmap, if not I know they said they are working on it. Skype for Business probably will be around at least 2 more years. They won't really mark an end date for Skype for Business until they have full fidelity with Teams, then they will make that call would be my guess. 

Iron Contributor

@Deleted I hope so too. Unfortunately Microsoft has a long history of killing products before proper replacements are ready. You can ask some of my colleagues who I have a meeting with tomorrow about what to do now that Office Mix is about to be closed next year and Stream isn’t fully capable of replacing it yet....

 

There are many examples like this and probably for different reasons, but I feel like they should adjust somewhat on this tradition.

 

I get the inclination to get out early and inform people as well as gather feedback, but my sense is they are too aggressive about closing the old before having the new ready.

 

Again, I hope they will wait until Teams is fully ready, but I am a bit sceptical.

Copper Contributor

I am wondering Call history features in Team. I don't know why receiver symbol does not appear in my Team ID where I can access recorded chat.

 

 

Brass Contributor

Is there an updated version of this roadmap with the latest information/dates?  And is it possible for a Skype for Business Online customer to use the Teams service without having to buy additional stuff?  Seems like if Microsoft wants me to make the transition from S4BO to Teams, they would make the licensing seamless. 

Microsoft

Hi Everyone, I just wanted to point to some new guidance available for upgrading Skype for Business to Teams. It is available here: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoftteams/migration-interop-guidance-for-teams-with-skype

 

Really great discussion in this blog post!

Microsoft
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