Skype for Business compatibility with regular Skype

Copper Contributor

Greetings.  We're new to Skype for Business having switched to Office 365 midway through 2017.  Clients and vendors that used to be able to reach me via Skype are having difficulty connecting with us now that we run Skype for Business.  Files do not transfer during IM sessions, and conference calls involving more than one person (where I am the only Skype for Business user) fail to connect regardless of who initiates the call.  All Microsoft seems to say is that the two programs aren't very compatible, but this is a big impediment if we cannot communicate well with clients/vendors.  Does anyone have insight into this?  We run Windows 10 on our laptops and the 32bit version of Skype for Business.

Thanks!

Greg

8 Replies

Hi Greg,

What you're experiencing are the expected limitations around Skype for Business and Skype Consumer interoperability. You ultimately only get basic communication capabilities between the two;

  • Peer-to-Peer voice and video calls
  • Instant messages
  • Online status information

Anything beyond that such as the file transfer and the multi-party conferencing you mention is not supported. There's nothing to stop you running the two clients concurrently, but I appreciate this will almost definitely result in a disjointed user experience and negate some of the benefits that you were looking to gain through use of a single application.

 

Kind regards
Ben

I have been having some of the same issues. I have however found that you can schedule a "Skype Meeting" and invite people who do not use Skype for Business. They can access the meeting by using the internal link within the meeting invite. It opens up within their browser and they can join in. You can give them 'presenter' access and you can then all share desktops, documents, use the whiteboard etc. You can also record it (which i regularly do, and then post the video to our external Yammer group).

Skype for business will allow you to have a 'normal' skype call/video call with a Skype member; but you wont be able to share desktops/documents etc. This is also the case if you use the "meet now" function within Skype for Business. So you are best to schedule a skype meeting and have everyone join that way (then they don't have to worry about having any skype access)

EDIT: I just found out the SFB in my org is on-prem. It may be related to the firewall. I will keep posting the updates here

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Our situation is worse than yours. The Skype user cannot initiate the conversation to the SFB users. For instance, when a Skype user sends a message to SBF user, the message is sent but never arrives SFB user. If SFB user sends a message first, the Skype user can receive and reply to the message. It's more strange that as soon as the SFB user closes chatbox, the issue comes back again that Skype user cannot send any message to SFB user. It feels like the session is closed.
If the Skype user calls SFB, it just pops up "Oops something went wrong". But the SFB user can initiate a call to Skype user. I tried with 4G and got the same result so the issue is not caused by the enterprise firewall.

Hi.

I'm in the same situation.

Can you solve this?

@RobinShi 

I feel your pain.

We tried to Skype in to a funeral from a Business to a regular version and it continually failed to connect. Set up a basic Skype account and it worked first time connecting with the other basic Skype account.

@Ben Donaldson 

 

I am just about to get S4B, but I don't want it going anywhere near my regular Skype because I use the latter to stay in touch with friends and family in faraway places.

 

Can I run them simultaneously, or will I have to go through the rigmarole of having to manually logout of one to login to the other, please?

 

@ScorpioPower Yes both the Skype for Business and Regular Skype Applications are two different application. We can keep both the applications separate. One for Business Use and other for Regular Personal Usage.

 

#Skype #SkypeforBusiness #S4B 

@Satish_Upadhyaya 

 

Unfortunately, Microsoft will not allow me to use both professionally. Normal Skype will not allow me to create an account with my 365 email. Because of this, I need to give out my personal Skype account to all of my work colleges.