AMA Summary: Skype for Business on Mac - 2/23/17
Overview On February 23, 2017 the Microsoft Tech Community hosted a Skype for Business on Mac AMA. The live hour of Q&A provided members the opportunity to ask questions and voice feedback with the product team. We hope you will join us live next time! We'll do another soon. What topics do you want to know more about? Comment below! Resources Be an Office Insider Office Insider releases for Skype for Business on Mac How to access early Skype for Business on Mac version Skype for Business group Skype for Business Blog Topics Introduction General Discussion Roadmap That's a wrap! Introduction Welcome to the Skype for Business on Mac Ask Microsoft Anything! View the list of introductions in this thread. General Discussion Q: Can you confirm Skype Room System Joining for meeting scheduled by mac user is fixed in CU3? Our company is a heavy user of Skype Room System conference rooms and we have ran into this issue, can you confirm that this known bug is resolved in CU3? (thread) A: The issue is addressed in the latest 16.4 InsiderFast build. You may need to reschedule the meeting from the latest client for the room system to be able to join the meeting. Q: The recent updates to Skype for Business Mac are reverting settings from allow everyone to join the meeting without going into the lobby back to allow only my company. Is there a way to allow the Macs to keep their preference, and is there a way to make the allow everyone into the meeting a default setting? (thread) A: You can click "Remember Settings" in Outlook to have it remembering your preferences. Q: Can Mac users be able to create a Skype meeting from Outlook? (thread) A: This feature is available today. Please confirm your Outlook version is updated (at least 15.28 or later). Q: Can you explain what works and does not with delegation? We're running tests on the latest builds that have delegation, but I'm not seeing the "My Delegates" group to add members to, nor is it clear if this would allow for Outlook meeting scheduling delegation as well (which is a big request form our Mac community). We have Skype for Business online, Exchange on-prem. (thread) A: Delegate is currently only available on our Insider channel. Supported features are listed here. The Delegation support is current available for limited number of SFB Online users. We are in the process on deploying to more users. We will clarify the documentation and will keep the community updated. Sorry about the confusion. Q: Is there a way to block external access for Skype for Business Mac app without disabling mobility? (thread) A: We have removed the requirement for mobility policy. Please make sure you upgrade to the server versions listed in our known issues page. Q2: Not requiring mobility policy does not help with blocking external access for Skype for Business Mac app. A2: I think you are asking if there is a way to block SFB Mac from logging in if they are not on the company network. Have you tried disabling the external access to the web services of SFB Server, by not publishing the external web services address? This is for a Dedicated customer so we external web services URLs are required. I believe that mobility would break as well as some scenarios with content sharing with Federation Partners. Q: When will screen sharing with Windows clients be available? (thread) A: This feature is already available for O365 and Server 2015. If you have Skype for Business Server 2015, please make sure you update to the latest server CU. We fixed a P2P sharing issue between Windows 2016 client and Skype for Business Mac client. If you are seeing screen sharing issues in meetings, could you please install the latest Insider build and submit a bug? Instructions for installing Insider build can be found here. Q: Is it possible to present PowerPoint slides from a Mac Slype for Business client? (thread) A: Yes, you can by sharing your screen. If you are asking about uploading slides, its definitely on our list but no public timing yet. One thing to consider is that with VBSS coming to the client, that may be the best way in the future to show PPT. VBSS = Video Based Screen Sharing. For most Skype for Business platforms, its the default method now for screen sharing as it is generally much more reliable and efficient. RDP, our first share technology was focused on high fidelity but at some performance costs. So we made the shift to VBSS as the primary method for sharing. Q: All of the Mac users in my environment have issues when scheduling meetings with Skype Room System conferencing equipment. In all cases, when a Mac user invites one of our rooms to a meeting, the Room is unable to join the meeting. When will this be resolved? (thread) A: This problem was addressed in the latest 16.4 Insider build. You may need to reschedule the meetings from the latest build to allow the room-systems to join the meeting. Q: We have seen (and others have reported in the community forums) issues where the dial-in information disappears from meeting requests. Restarting Outlook and Skype for Business fixed it until it happens again. Is this a known issue and any idea on when it will be fixed? We see this most frequently in the production (non-insider) builds. (thread) A: If you're not seeing dial-in information, you may have a cached meeting with no dial-in information. You can try to run "defaults delete com.microsoft.Outlook OnlineMeeting" in a terminal (while Outlook is not running), and then open Outlook and attempt to schedule a new meeting. If you continue to see this behavior consistently, please use the "Report an Issue" from a InsiderBuild, so we can look into the issue more in depth. Q: What info can u share around the Skype for Business server? We have tried twice to migrate and found we had to roll back. (thread) A: Here's the latest update for SFB Server 2015. Q: Can you clarify what Mac OS version works with the Skype for Business client? My users running El Capitan were unable to login to SfB after they upgraded their client from Lync 2011 to Skype for Business client 2016. (thread) A: Skype for Business on Mac works on OS X 10.11 (El Capitan) and later. If you're unable to sign-in with SfB, I would recommend installing the InsiderBuild and submitting feedback from within the app. if you are using an older version of our on-prem server you may need to enable mobility policy. Please see our known issues here. If you continue to see sign-in issues with the latest server builds, please install latest Insider build and submit a bug. Q: I have a fair amount of users in my contact list that are displayed by their email/UPN rather than seeing firstname lastname. Other contacts show up with firstname lastname. Is this an issue or something with my client specifically? (thread) A: Unfortunately we don't currently get the full name returned and thus it shows the email address instead of the name. Roadmap Q: As of this morning there are almost 38,000 total votes for preserving chat history with individuals in single threads. This is a basic feature in almost every other chat client available today, from Trillian to Slack. When will this be available in Skype for Business (for Mac, and in general)? (thread) A: We are currently looking into IM conversation history with various threads. There aren't any further details to share at this time. Q: Is there a plan to make a lite version for any platform as with the consumer version? We are a university with online students around the world. Many have low bandwidth. (thread) A: There is ongoing work to improve the efficiency of the clients. Our Mac and Mobile clients actually communicate with the user APIs on the servers and thus reduce traffic. Have you tried the latest mobile clients? Q: A staple feature of Lync and Skype for Business is integration with Outlook for Presence. When might we get this for Mac? (thread) A: This is something we know is important and is on our backlog. We can't comment on timing right now. Our Insider Program will have the latest notes on what is available. Q: When will we get Touchbar support? It has been mentioned but has not seen the light of day yet. (thread) A: This is on our roadmap but we can't share any details on timing at this time. Can you clarify which features you'd like to have on the touch bar? Q2: Call control would be #1 in my book. Mute and unmute. Hangup. Shortcut to dialer. A: Thanks for the feedback! Q: Can we get the ability to load Chat History when you start a conversation? Could be controlled by the user itself or any administrative account. (thread) A: We are currently looking into IM conversation history with various threads. There aren't any further details to share at this time. Q: When will secondary ring be implemented? (thread) A: This is actively being worked on. As soon as its ready it will land in a build but no specific timing yet. Its definitely an asking we are hearing. Q: When are we going to get a separate ring tone? So if we have a headset plugged in we get the ring over speakers on the computer like Windows? (thread) A: The work to allow for this is in progress, and will be available in a Insider build in the nearby future. We are calling this "Secondary Ring" and when we begin communicating about it, that is how we will refer to it. Q: What are the plans/timeframe for enabling application sharing, not just screen sharing? (thread) A: Thanks for your inquiry. This is an interesting question as we are undergoing a change in how we share in general in the Skype for Business ecosystem. Starting with the 2016 windows release we have begun using Video Based Screen Sharing (VBSS) as the default method of screen sharing. It does not support app sharing. In Windows, when customers want to app share, it falls back to our legacy RDP technology. At this time, its in our backlog but its unlikely we want to invest into further RDP work. Q: Are there plans to be able to attach files in Chat for the Mac client? This is currently available in the Windows client. (thread) A: If you mean file transfer, that is something we are targeting for Online users for Q2CY17. Q: When will file transfer and remote control be available? If we drag/drop a file into a conversation, it just sends a local path to the file. Now that screen share is available, are there any plans for remote control? (thread) A: File Transfer is targeted for Online users in Q2CY17. remote control is currently in backlog with no timing at this time. Q: Anything to share about an alternative to Persistent Chat on the Mac Client? (thread) A: Thanks for your ask. Currently Persistent chat is in maintenance across the product. The future of persistent chat for most customers will be Microsoft Teams. Persistent chat is different then conversation history. Its a feature that came for on-premises users and is particularly of interest to customers in the finance sector. Going forward, we generally believe the Microsoft Teams will be the right tool. We have no public timing to share on availability on Teams for EDU customers at this time but I know there is a lot of planning going on for this. Q: Is there a published roadmap with planned feature availability? (thread) A: You can find the public roadmap here. We do have an NDA futures presentation that your Microsoft Account team can present to you. Q: Is there a site where we can get the latest patch notes for insider builds? (thread) A: Yes, insider release notes are here. That's a wrap! Thank you for reading through this AMA summary. Please continue to ask questions and share your feedback with the product team in the Skype for Business group and on Skype for Business Blog. (thread) If you're not an Office Insider yet, we strongly recommend you join. Here are a few resources to get you started: Be an Office Insider Office Insider releases for Skype for Business on Mac How to access early Skype for Business on Mac versionsIntroducing the Office 365 Productivity Library
A common request we hear from customers is: 'Help me make Skype for Business real for my users.' This is a very real challenge when you are rolling Skype for Business, a new product which challenges the way users normally communicate. Key to landing this message with users is to help them understand the power of the Office 365 suite of products they now have access to. Enter the Office Productivity Library. This library introduces the concept of Productivity Cards - resources that help users understand (1) how they can be more productive (2) provide tips to work faster and (3) show them various tools, which will assist with making faster decisions. To access the Productivity Library, go here: http://aka.ms/productivitylibrary. From this point, your users are able to explore the various cards through Roles, Industry or even Product. The above is only one example of the productivity cards we have come up with so far. Based on feedback and need, we are adding new cards every quarter. If you see the need for a new card or have ideas on how to make this more actionable for you and your users, please let us know. Remember, your users have a world class suite of products, which all integrate and work together, at their fingertips. Help guide them through unlocking their potential, by steering them to the right resources. As always, you can find our full assortment of ‘approved’ adoption materials referenced in the Adoption Content Directory.
