Teams cannot chat with Skype Users

[aalbright-diablo]

Hi,

I'm seeing an issue with Teams where I cannot chat with Skype users. For context we currently have NO users in Teams (except myself for testing), and I'm using a personal email to log into regular Skype (not Skype for Business). The purpose of this is to simulate what it would be like if we turned Teams on for all ours sales members and they were communicating with a client, many of which use Skype.

So far I changed 2 Org wide settings to see if I could get this to work

1. Under Teams Upgrade -> Teams Only (nobody uses Teams yet so this was easy)
2. Under External Access -> Users can communicate with other Skype for Business and Teams users (ON)
   Users can communicate with Skype users (ON)
   

Even with those settings changed over 72 hours ago it still does not work.

Teams successfully recognizes that I am contacting an external Skype user, and Skype recognizes that I am contacting a Teams user. However when sending a message from Skype it seems to work but nothing appears in Teams. However sending a Teams chat to Skype fails after tying for a few seconds. Calls don't work at all either way.

Screenshots are attached

[#2]

Seems you’ve done the work. Maybe wait some longer for propagation! (COVID times) then I would have contacted support. Answers.Microsoft.com or create a ticket from admin portal so Microsoft can take a lock I. The back end

Adam

[#3 · Accepted solution]

Hey, sorry for the late reply. I believe it’s still in preview, which is weird, and can recall several conversations with different issues related to it. At least I haven’t heard of anyone getting this to work as intended (actually work). But this was some time ago so maybe Microsoft has fixed that.

In addition to the reply from Adam you should verify the settings with PowerShell, (CsExternalAccessPolicy cmdlet with the EnablePublicCloudAccess).

72 hours should be enough, but then again you just don’t know these days. It could be a preview issue as well, but it’s difficult to say and as mentioned you can always open up a support ticket.

[#4]

Any update on this?

My Teams is having the same issue with all members with following the same steps.

Connor

[#5]

@connorhatcher Hello, this is still in preview so I suppose that's one reason for the official docs being inconsistent and incomplete. I think I have to raise a GitHub on the Docs for this.

They mention that you can toggle it on using Teams admin center

Manage external access (federation) - Microsoft Teams | Microsoft Docs

But I've never actually heard of anyone succeeding in doing that so that's why we use PowerShell as also mentioned here 

Manage external access (federation) - Microsoft Teams | Microsoft Docs 

But that's not all steps required and the others are instead listed here

Teams and Skype interoperability - Microsoft Teams | Microsoft Docs

So you would have to verify these settings (1, 2, 3) and also be aware of the online vs hybrid scenario Manage external access (federation) - Microsoft Teams | Microsoft Docs

1. Set-CsExternalAccessPolicy
-EnablePublicCloudAccess

"Indicates whether the user is allowed to communicate with people who have SIP accounts with a public Internet connectivity provider such as MSN. The default value is False."

2. Set-CsTenantFederationConfiguration
-AllowPublicUsers

"When set to True (the default value) users will be potentially allowed to communicate with users who have accounts on public IM and presence providers such as Windows Live, Yahoo, and AOL. The collection of public providers that users can actually communicate with is managed by using the Set-CsTenantPublicProvider cmdlet."

3. Set-CsTenantPublicProvider
-Provider

"Indicates the public provider (or providers) that users will be allowed to communicate with. Valid values are:"

• AOL
• WindowsLive
• Yahoo

Let me know how it goes!

[#6]

OP here, updating this post much much later.

There was a solution to this issue, I had to update the DNS records on our domain with the Skype for Business entries. Once I did that and the DNS entries were live everything started working as it should.

Hope this helps!

[#7]

This? https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoftteams/teams-skype-interop#set-whether-teams-users-can-comm...

More specific, please.

[#8]

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/enterprise/external-domain-name-system-records?view=o...

This, specifically the "External DNS records required for Skype for Business Online" section. We don't use O365 for email so the other DNS records aren't configured.

[#9]

@aalbright-diablo - are you saying that this allowed you to communicate seamlessly between Skype (personal, not "for business") and MS Teams?  I have this communication working, but *only* when the MS Teams side initiates the conversation.  Once the conversation starts, it works both ways.  After some time passes, Skype can no longer send messages to MS Teams.  It's almost like the MS Teams=>Skype opens up the communication channel.

Is this the same experience you had?

[#10]

I'm still seeing this some three years later ... sending four messages, none of which were received by my colleague.

However, when sent to *my* teams account, they came through.