New Skype for Business Community Champ
Hi there, My name is Helbert and I’m one of the new Skype for Business community champ. I’m the principal engineering manager responsible for all the telephone number management for Skype for Business globally. Everything you can think of from number stock/availability, onboarding new markets to port numbers to and from Microsoft will show up in my radar (and touch “my” code). I’m also familiar with other aspect of Skype for Business, mainly around cloud PSTN and Cloud Conferencing and know pretty much all the developers, product owners and managers working in this area, so I can count on good help to shed some light at your questions. I’m very passionate about making things right and always making them better, and this is why I volunteered (really volunteered) to be engaged with this community. I would love to hear your difficulties, feedback (and also compliments, end of the day I’m also a human ). Please let me know how can I help and what you have in mind and I’ll do my best to be of any use. Cheers, HelbertSkype for Business Broadcast: Cloud Voice Update
Join the Skype Meeting Broadcast on Thursday, Dec 15, 2016 at 9:00 am PST. Come join Delanda Coleman and Jamie Stark from the Skype for Business marketing team to hear all about Skype for Business Cloud Voice Reporting and manageabilityas well asPSTN Calling updates including new service in France. There will belots of demos! Don’t miss it! Calendar Invite below. If you have missed our previous broadcasts they are all available on demand at aka.ms/sfbcastpastTell us your thoughts in our Microsoft Voice Services survey!
Hi all, We are conducting research to better understand the usage of different voice services. Microsoft has built a strong portfolio of voice services and we are looking to feedback to help us form the future of Microsoft Voice Services. If you have a few minutes, we would love to hear your feedback on Voice Services here: https://www.instant.ly/s/iYKnS Thank you in advance for taking the time to help us!Did you miss Ignite? Join Jamie Stark and Sean Wilson recap Ignite live at 5pm.
Live From Microsoft Ignite Jamie Stark and Sean Wilson will walk through Ignite talking about the latest updates we have announced in Skype for Businessand good news from the Show Floor as well as a quick recaps of what the show has been like. Join us at 5PM Eastern Time Todyay Thursday September 29th at http://aka.ms/sfbcast.Skype for Business iOS CallKit integration now available!
We recently announced deeper integration of Skype for Business with iOS devices using Apple’s CallKit framework, which enables a better experience for Skype for Business calls on the iPhone. The CallKit API with iOS 10 enables Skype for Business calls to work the same way as the native calling experience on iOS, allowing you to seamlessly extend your personal device as a business phone.To try the new calling experience, update your iOS app today. Learn more at http://aka.ms/ioscallkit
All Skype for Business Ignite Videos YouTube Playlist
Hey all, Great to catch up with so many people at Ignite. For those who couldn't make it, or were busy networking ;-), Microsoft have posted all the session recordings on YouTube. There is so much great content there. I have created a quick Skype for Business session playlist for those particularly interested in SfB. There is also a way to pull all those videos from YouTube for offline viewing. Don't forget there is a thread on this tech community forum for each session. You can still ask questions and discuss the sessions here. http://tomtalks.uk/2016/10/skype-business-ignite-conference-videos-youtube-playlist-download/ If you watch my PSTN conferencing session I would love your questions and feedback. Cheers TomSfB Mobile to leverage new "CallKit" API in iOS 10?
"Apple has created a new "CallKit" API that allows third-party VoIP apps like Skype to behave much like a standard phone call." (http://www.macrumors.com/roundup/ios-10/) Are there plans toleverage this new functionality in SfB Mobile for iOS? It seems like it would be an excellent enhancement for incoming calls.Skype for Business MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses) - Available Now
Hi all! I wanted to share some great FREE training available to you called MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses).The firstof three Voice and the first of three Infrastructure Skype for Business MOOCshave been released on www.edx.org.These new Skype for Business courses cover topics ranging from cloud voice planning and workloads to how to plan, design, configure, and maintain a Skype for Business deployment. . This is in addition to the Skype for Business Fundamentals MOOC that is already on Edx.org. Take a look at the courses below and share with yourcolleagues, partners, and customers. Skype for Business: Fundamentals - Available now Want to learn about Microsoft communications and collaboration solutions and products? Skype for Business provides a single platform for both meetings and voice at hyperscale. This course is an introduction to Skype for Business. By completing this course, you will learn about the vision, value, features and capabilities of Skype for Business. No previous knowledge is needed. Skype for Business: Voice Concepts and Planning- Available now First in a series of Skype for Business Voice courses, this course will teach you how to plan and deploy voice capabilities with Cloud PBX. This course will help youprepare for taking the“Deploying Enterprise Voice with Skype for Business 2015” exam (70-333). Skype for Business: Infrastructure Planning and Design- Available now First in a series of Skype for Business Infrastructure courses, this course guides you through planning and designing server components. This course will help you prepare for the“Core Solutions of Microsoft Skype for Business 2015” exam (70-334). We will continue to provideupdates when the next Voice and Infrastructure courses are going to be available.(CDR/QoE) data for Call quality performance - reporting trends and details
I am very interested to understandto hear the <pings>out there - you who use the data from Lync or Skype on-prem's QoE database - whether you consume it in it's raw format in the manner of a data scientist, or consume it through a 3rd-party-developed reporting app in the manner of a customer-experience-support analyst /investigator. Is it just me or does the SfBO reporting still leave something to be desired? There is some elementary reporting, but I am not seeing anything that matched Lync/Skype Monitoring Reports. There is a mountain of meta-data in the QoE database. Is that getting left behind? Microsoft did a good job creating simple report-query-templates in the Monitoring Report server that couldrender80% of what most Telecom Managers would expect their team to know from a platform. And for the other 20%, ALL thedata was simply... available at the customer's disposal (and/or a partner's disposal). For Voice Engineers, Support Analysts, and Service Owners, this was a dream come true. Performance data at our fingertips. Now, with Skype for Business Online, I seem to bottom out on report category / type templates that I am otherwise accustomed to leveraging in the Monitoring Reports. And I hear partners are unable to get access to the Call Analytics API, so this tells me - simply - that in Skype for Business Online, there is some data I am no longer able to access, that I would like to access. @ Microsoft: Are there still developments happening in this space? I would like to see the SfB Online window unlocked for me to get into my QoE data, so that I (or a partner) can render the data in more relative context, with custom filtering. Some of that data can be used to prove Skype is not the root cause of an issue. Next, I would like to also understand the product team's vision of reporting call quality - for calls made in Microsoft Teams. I guess you have a challenge... because the boil-the-ocean expectation is that we will see all platforms(Skype on Prem + Skype Online + Teams...) to be rendered into a one-report-viewing experience. Right? ;-) What is the road map and pending enhancements for CQD and/or Call Analytics, in general? Where / when does Teams sit on that roadmap? And... Will a customer be able to rendertheir ownmeta-data or be restricted from it?Cloud Connector Edition Coexistence alongside On-Premises not on roadmap
Update 11/10/2017:We heard at Microsoft Ignite that making CCE work alongside SfB Server in the same customer/topology is no longer on the roadmap for CCE. Instead, if you have SfB Server and wanted CCE alongside it, Microsft is recommending instead a small deployment of SfB Server in the OPCH model or AudioCodes CloudBond which is essentially a single “CCE like” appliance but it runs full server so can run OPCH. Sonus’ CCE can also run Server on the appliance blade in “OPCH model” but they don’t have a SKU to buy it/have it officially supported by them in this model. Note all these models run full SfBS server in the “appliance”.Here is the official announcement from Paul Cannon Paul Cannon’s announcement: https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/Skype-for-Business-Blog/New-CCE-version-due-later-in-November/ba-p/123336 Great news that CCE 2.0 is out. For those who missed it; in the really good Skype Broadcast fromOliver Chiuand@BillVerthein, as well as going over new 2.0 features, Bill gave some details of this upcoming feature. Many customers have SfBS deployed, possibly already in Hybrid but also want to deploy CCE, today that is blocked; you must be either SFBO and CCE or SfBO and SfBS hybrid. Why would you want both? Some examples: Customer has an existing SfBS, Lync2013S or Lync2010S deployment (with or without EV) and wants to move to SfBO/Cloud PBX without making further investments in server infrastructure A global customer has SfBS in some regions/countries, but now another country wants to deploy Cloud PBX with CCE and is blocked A customer has a small feature requirement for SfBS that isn’t available on SfBO today (server-side call recording for example) but would like to deploy the lighter weight CCE everywhere else Coexistence is now due in CCE “2.1” (Bill used “2.1” to represent the “next version”). It requires some updates in the SfBO service and SfBS (specifically the Federation edge) hence it’s taking a little longer. As always, information and dates given at the development stage are subject to change. Coexistence will require the next version of CCE, “2.1” due “US Fall” which is October, November, December, or CY2017 Q4 It will be supported for SfBS Hybrid It will be supported for Lync2013S Hybrid, but like OPCH you will require at least one SfBS pool and Federation Edge. So if you’re a Lync 2013 Install holding out for CCE get deploying at least one SfBS pool now Coexistence will Require Cumulative Update 6 (CU6) on SfBS (not yet released) Lync 2010 or OCS 2007 R2 will unsurprisingly not be supported, so if you are on these and want to move to CCE you’ll need to look at other upgrade and or migration options Private TAP (Technology Adoption Program, similar to “preview”) is due to start in August 2017 I wrote a blog post with a bit more detail here for those interested: http://tomtalks.uk/2017/07/cloud-connector-edition-2-1-coexistence-premises-hybrid-due-2017-quarter-4-requires-sfbs-cu6/
