Problems with IM from Teams to SfB

Copper Contributor

There is something fishy going on here.

 

We have a SfB solution in office 365.

1:Currently the Coexistence setting is Islands (decription reads: users can use both skype for business and teams app)

2: I have 2 external contacts in each their SfB organization

3: My Testuser can IM both these external users from SfB, however cannot IM the external users in teams.

4: When trying to search in teams for each of the external contacts, I get an error saying "we cannot setup the conversations, because the 2 organizations are not setup to talk to each other"

5: If I change my Coexistence to Only Teams, the problem remains the same, but now I cant even communicate with the external contacts because my SfB client is disabled.

 

All of this is pretty straight forward I guess however this is the strange part!!!!!

 

I have a friend who is an administrator of another Office 365 Solution. Their Coexistence setting is set to Teams only, and has been for months.

1: If one of his users tries to IM my 2 external contacts from above, they dont experience the same.

2: If they try to search for external contact nr 1. in teams, they get a message saying "user@externaldomain.com was not found

3: if they try to search for external contact nr 2. in teams, they are able to IM the contact with out any issues.

4: In the admin.teams.microsoft.com we have compared each to 365 subscriptions, every single setting is identical

 

I have no idea whats going on

 

Could someone please help with this issue, or try to help me understand what is happening?

 

? Why are my office 365 solution and my friends office 365 solution are behaviouring different?

 

? Why are we being told to move to Teams, if this makes it impossible to communicate with organizations who is still using SfB

 

All help, advise or troubleshooting would be greatly appreciated.

 

Kind Regards

Kenn Christensen

 

 

 

 

1. Skype for Business and Teams are both cloud based

2. AD is synced from On-prem, all accounts are local

3. Org default is "Islands" and My personal default is "Teams only"

 

Here is what I am seeing

I am only able to see presence of people who have Teams turned on, when I create a new Message to someone they do not get it unless they have Teams open.

 

A skype user is able to see my presence, they are able to IM me and I am able to respond.  I am able to see their presence once they initiate the IM and I see two entries in my Teams client one of them the one they never receive and then one with Skype logo on it.

 

What I want is to be able to see Skype presence in Teams and be able to send IM's to skype users if they are not signed into Teams.

 

36 Replies

@Kenn Christensen I don't have a solution to your issue with external users but I would definitely suggest you to move away from Island mode and rather go for Skype for Business only and Teams only for all users (depending on if they want to use Skype or Teams). The Island mode is just so confusing and you get all sort of weird things happening and no one knows when to use what.

@Kenn Christensen I assume you have set the setting Users can communicate with Skype for Business and Teams users on in External access in Teams admin and that you don't have any allowed/blocked domains.

You cannot use External Chat from Teams in Islands mode. You can only use Skype, all chats will go to your Skype client coming inbound as well. Once you go Teams only then you'll be able to use external chats from and to Teams client.

Guess I should have finished reading your whole post :P.

Responding to a few things you said here:

Here is what I am seeing

I am only able to see presence of people who have Teams turned on, when I create a new Message to someone they do not get it unless they have Teams open.




Not sure here, is the user internal or external? Shouldn't matter, Teams is persistent. Sounds like one of your Islands users, so your Teams will go to their Teams so they need to be in Teams to get it, it won't go to Skype when they aren't in Teams.


A skype user is able to see my presence, they are able to IM me and I am able to respond.  I am able to see their presence once they initiate the IM and I see two entries in my Teams client one of them the one they never receive and then one with Skype logo on it.

 


The Teams entry without the logo is their Teams endpoint aka because of Islands, the Skype one is their Skype contact which you can see because when they message you it routes to your Teams only endpoint in your Teams. You can only initiate these when Skype user sends to you first. Otherwise your messages always go to Teams. Islands means that they are just that, each is their own product, until someone gets moved to Skype or Teams Only, which in your case, you start to see both endpoints.

What I want is to be able to see Skype presence in Teams and be able to send IM's to skype users if they are not signed into Teams.

 

Basically this isn’t possible in Islands mode. Any Teams initiated chat, from Islands or Teams Only user will be sent to another Islands user’s Teams client.

All that said, if you are in Islands, the #1 requirement is everyone needs to have Teams client installed and using Teams, if not, Islands will be a cluster F. In that case you need to pick a side, Teams or Skype, and that seems to be why you are having headache's here.

 

To accomplish this you need your org in Skype Only mode, and users wanting to use Teams in Teams. Or those that Know they will use both, can use Islands.

 

@Chris Webb 

 

Sorry basically I copied some content from another post on this forum and forgot to delete the last bit, everything from after my signature you can disregard. sorry :(

 

I just cant understand that when my office 365 moves to Teams only and I compare settings with my friends office 365 org that's also teams only. he can write to external user nr 1. but I get an error saying that: "we cannot setup the conversations, because the 2 organizations are not setup to talk to each other"

 

The other thing that's bothering me is that we have many clients, some has their own SfB onprem setup. and if we go Teams only, which I prefer then it appears that all communications with SfB orgs. are dead. that's very bad.

 

What would you guys suggest? I cant very well stick with skype only or island mode for our office 365 setting can I, I read that Microsoft is moving everyone to teams before 2020. Or am I missing something?

 

Kind Regards

Kenn Christensen

@Kenn Christensen If you go to Teams only you will be able to chat with SfB orgs but the functionality is limited (such as screen sharing, formatting etc). I am not sure but as long as you have the org-wide setting in Island I don't think the user setting (Teams only) matters when it comes to federation between two tenants.

 

Here are a few good blog posts regarding why you should move away from Island mode:

https://tomtalks.blog/2019/05/moving-from-microsoft-teams-islands-mode-to-teams-only-mode-the-user-e...

https://regarding365.com/beware-of-the-island-understanding-teams-and-skype-coexistence-modes-300bcf...

https://www.enowsoftware.com/solutions-engine/teams-islandmode-trap

@Par Linderoth 

 

Im fine with limited functionality when chatting with SfB when im on teams only mode. but now im confused. everyone keeps writing that if you go to teams only, you wont be able to chat with SfB clients? which one is it.

 

In an ideal world, I would:

1: change to teams only org wise

2: colleagues use only teams for everything, chat, meetings etc etc

3: if a external arranges a skype meeting, we can join with the SfB client minimal version, running in the back ground.

4: we can chat to both teams and SfB external users.

 

The thing is the external orgs which I have available for test, I cant chat with them if I switch to teams only. But as I said I have a friend which is an administrator of another 365 solution which runs teams only, and they are able to chat with SfB external users from Teams.

 

Kind Regards

Kenn Christensen

@Kenn ChristensenIf you go TeamsOnly you will only use the Teams client application (except for when attending SfB meetings). You are able to chat with both Teams and SfB users (internally and externally). Perhaps you are confused by the wording SfB Client which is not referring to a client in the business but the actual application?

 

This blog post has a FAQ regarding what to expect.

https://tomtalks.blog/2019/05/moving-from-microsoft-teams-islands-mode-to-teams-only-mode-the-user-e... 

@Par Linderoth 

 

I have testet from my internal user with teams only set. and at least the 2 skype for business external setups im trying to reach, I cant from teams. my tests are as follows below

 

I have 2 internal users and 1 external contact

 

Internal user nr1. is set to Teams only

Internal user nr2. is set to Islands mode

External nr1. Skype for business contact

 

Internal user nr1 gets error "we cant setup the conversation, because the 2 organizations are not setup to talk to each other" when trying to chat to external user nr1 from teams

 

internal user nr2 can chat to external user nr1 from skype for business. But also gets the "we cant setup the conversation, because the 2 organizations are not setup to talk to each other" when trying to chat to external user nr1 from teams

 

Kind Regards

Kenn Christensen

 

@Kenn Christensen Just to be sure, in Teams Admin Center - External Access have you set Users can communicate with Skype for Business and Teams users?

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/MicrosoftTeams/manage-external-access

@Par Linderoth 

 

Yes both options under external access have been turned on.

@Kenn Christensen Was it done recently? Changes in the setup can sometimes take very long time.

 

I still believe the org-wide setting is causing the issue but I am not sure so let's see if Chris or someone else can add some additional information.

@Par Linderoth 

 

Its been set to external access for months if not longer.

 

The thing is, for my internal user that's set to islands mode, I cant IM the external Skype for Business user via Teams but I can if I Chat from Skype for Business

 

But if I take the same user and change coexisisting setting and change to teams only I should be able to chat from teams to the external skype for business user. but that does not work.

 

So by that logic, is I change my entire org to Teams only, there potential will be many external orgs I cant chat with.

 

Kind regards

Kenn Christensen

@Kenn Christensen I would suggest checking your DNS settings are set up correctly for your domain, federation uses this data to route traffic correctly. While I appreciate that SfB may be working, it might just be more tolerant of an issue.

 

I would also point out that switching from Islands to Teams Only mode doesn't happen instantly, it can take 24, 48 even more hours to complete. You can't just change it then test.

@Steven Collier 

 

DNS should be setup correctly, what did you have in mind? what should I be looking for? I have troubleshooted so much, might be I have been looking in the wrong place for solution.

 

The users I switched to teams only, I did that over a week ago, still same issue.

 

 

@Kenn Christensen DNs setting will be tested in the admin center, setup, domains. Specifically the setting for sip, _sip and _sipfederationtls

 

 
 

... and in both domains, your one and the target.

@Steven Collier 

 

Ran the Check DNS: All DNS records are correct, no error found

 

:(

@Steven Collier 

 

I only tested my own domain in office365, How do I test the target?