Update! Presence now respects a user's coexistence mode

[Rahul Kayala]

Based on customer feedback, we are updating how presence works when organizations are using both Microsoft Teams and Skype for Business.  With this update, routing and presence are fully aligned. To ensure that routing follows presence, presence publishing is now based on a user’s coexistence mode

If a user is in TeamsOnly mode, then any other user, whether in Teams or Skype for Business, will see presence based on the user’s activity in Teams.

If a user is in any of these modes: SfbOnly, SfbWithTeamsCollab, SfbWithTeamsCollabAndMeetings – then any other user, whether in Teams or Skype for Business, will see presence based on the user’s activity in Skype for Business.

If a user is in Islands or Legacy mode, presence is independent and the values need not match.

• From Teams, any other user within the same tenant will see presence based on that Island user’s activity in Teams. Chat and calls from Teams users in same tenant to that Islands user will land in Teams.
• From Teams, any other user in a federated tenant will see presence based on the user’s activity in Skype for Business. Chats and calls from Teams users in a federated tenant to that Islands user will land in Skype for Business. 
• From Skype for Business, any other user will see presence based on the user’s activity in Skype for Business.

Please note that If a recipient you previously had a conversation thread with is subsequently upgraded to Teams, that thread will no longer reflect accurate presence and will no longer be routable. You should start a new thread.

You can find more information about co-existence modes here

 

[Matt Manley]

@Chris Webb : Update..  Mr. Patience here...  The change was successfully applied and displays now "Teams Only" for the user.  End-user behavior when they try to run SfB is as expected.   Thanks man!  You are a rock star.

Are you aware of any threads related to "Identity Status"/presence within MS Teams for Guest Users?  (issue: always "Status Unknown")

[Nippertje74]

So, our issue with Teams disconnecting and restarting simply went away the next day when we all logged in

[Chris Webb]

Yeah that error you posted was an infrastructure issue that happened with I want to say Europe region, just so happen to coincide with your change :P. 

[Andres Lopez]

We are having issues with Interop when a TeamsOnly users sends an IM to a SfBonly user, the message never arrives in Skype client but instead and invitation email to Teams so If we have users in Teams Only mode and they send an IM to a user who is S4B, they  receive an email that someone tried to message them in teams and click here to join teams. This is not the functionality we want to see happen and is killing out piloting of Teams. Users who are Skype only and haven't launch teams need to receive messages in Skype only, not teams. Teams only users need to know that message sent to users on skype will only go to users on skype and not try to have them launch Teams. This causes confusion and has caused pilot users to no longer want to use Teams in fear that the users they are trying to IM will not receive the IM in skype properly. 

[Linus Cansby]

@Andres Lopez That SfBOnly mode is kind of confusing since if you have a user in that mode but of some reason they have a Teams license (maybe included in E3 or other package) they will get the message to their Teams account when a Teams users send a message to them. Even if you remove the Teams license from that user they will be Teams marked and messages with be sent to Teams, but then they can sign in and read that message in Teams.

If the SfbOnly user starts the chat from SfB will work ok between Teams and SfB.

So the solution for you is to set SfBOnly to your users and not give them the Teams license.

[Andres Lopez]

@Linus Cansby  Hi Linus, thank you so much for your response. In fact many of the users having this issue never had the Teams workload enable at all so i have opened a case with MS.

[Carol DeMuth]

Have the presence issues been resolved?  I have our tenant set up to islands.  Most users are using SfB, but we are slowly rolling out Teams.  I set myself as Teams only in the Teams admin center and the chat functionality works great.  I can see and respond to SfB chats and Teams chats.  My presence shows to other users, but when I try to see other's presence in any apps (Outlook, SharePoint, etc) other than Teams, I don't see anything for presence.  The chat link is also disabled. 

[Nippertje74]

Yes, all working fine now. 

[Carol DeMuth]

Thanks @Nippertje74 My presence indicators are working this morning.  I guess it just had to cycle through to pick up my changes.

[Johan van der Stelt]

We are having a issue with Presence between TEAMS only company en Skype for Business Hybrid. We notice that presence status within Teams is being updated with a delay to Skype For business )hybrid) or even a wrong status is being send to Skype for Business. We noticed that, and not al the time, a TEAMS user is switching status from Available to away and back to Available, and that Busy is being send to Skype for Business Hybrid.

note: this presence updates are being send between federated partners. Somebody else having these issues?

Regards,

Johan van der Stelt

Vodafone Netherlands.

[Arie Versluis]

@Linus Cansby Could you elaborate on this one? Have tried and tested quite some scenario's around Teams Only communicating with SfBOnly (or SfBwithTeamsCollab) and each time so far the SfBOnly user is receiving an email from Teams saying that the Teams Only user is reaching out. So the messages are not received on Skype for Business unfortunately. 

For the scenario in which I disabled the Teams license the test user still gets the Teams email, and when opening Teams the user gets the error that no license is assigned.

In our organization we really have to do a phased migration from Skype for Business to Teams, so we need to get the scenario's working that initiating a chat or call from Teams Only ends up in Skype for Business for SfB users.

[Linus Cansby]

 @Arie Versluis When going from Islands or TeamsOnly to SfBOnly mode I've seen that problem. Even if you remove the Teams license messages and calls are not routed to Skype. The only solutions I've seen is to wait (up to a week) or contact Microsoft Support.

That is why it is important to have a plan before activating Teams for all users and be aware of these problems.

[Chris Webb]

@Arie Versluis , @Linus Cansby is correct here, you can't change the setting then go test it. It can take number of days before the routing will properly update, it's something Microsoft is working on improving but until then it makes it hard to do any kind of Migration. The best you can really do is set your org Skype only or skype with collab, wait till everyone is good in that mode, then migrate your stages in batches across keeping in mind that those users will have some lead time on the change over and it's something you can't plan or know turns on and is just something that will kick in when it does unfortunately. 

If you were setup Islands then try switching and testing, you won't get any good results. Have to pick one path other than islands, wait for it to converge, then start moving folks. Or use and stay in Islands and make sure everyone knows what they are and install / use Teams and Skype during the transition, then move people to Teams only from there knowing all Chat from Teams will end up in Teams etc. in this mode. 

[Arie Versluis]

@Linus Cansby @Chris Webb Thanks for the responses. Putting other users on SfBOnly or SfBWithTeamsCollab and waiting a few days indeed resulted in successful testing to reach those users from a TeamsOnly user.