Skype for Business and Microsoft Teams Network Testing

If you want to easy test your network connection to Skype for Business Online and Microsoft Teams server from a GUI perspective?This is possible with a tool created by Korneel Bullens and is located in the Network Planner inside FastTrack. The setup is really easy and the outcome is very clear.

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Network Testing Companion Installation and Usage Guide

Prerequisites

• Windows 7 or later
• Windows Management Framework 5.1
• You must have a local Administrator account to install.

Installation

Anyone who has administrator rights to the computer can install the Network Testing Companion. The tool is hosted on PowerShell Gallery and can be installed as follows:

Skype for Business Online Audio Conferencing - Dial out behavior change

Microsoft is making some changes to Skype for Business Online Audio Conferencing Dial Out. To best meet our customer’s business needs, Microsoft is adjusting when attendees can add other participants to a Skype for Business meeting via dial out.

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How does this affect us?

Till now, meeting guests are able to add Audio Conferencing attendees at any time.

Going forward, the meeting service will require at least one authenticated user from the organizer’s company to be present in the meeting to allow adding another participant via dial-out. Company attendees can be authenticated through the Skype for Business Client.

Deploy error Skype for Business Cloud Connector - CredSSP

The problem

Last week i ran in to some errors while re-deploying a Cloud Connector, Changed some settings in the INI and while starting the redeploy gave me the following error:

	`Preparation phase started...
	The configuration file for Cms server setup is generated in C:\Users\Administrator\CloudConnector\ApplianceRoot\Instances\2.1.0\ExportedConfig\ServerConfig-Cms.ini.
	Preparation phase finished.
	Deployment phase started...
	Enabling credential delegation for NTLM on host machine.`
	`
	#text : false
	#text : true
	#text : true
	#text : false
	#text : true
	#text : Relaxed`


		[192.168.214.3] Connecting to remote server 192.168.214.3 failed with the following error message : The request is not supported. For more information, see the about_Remote_Troubleshooting Help topic.
		+ CategoryInfo          : OpenError: (192.168.214.3:String) [], PSRemotingTransportException
		+ FullyQualifiedErrorId : 50,PSSessionStateBroken
		[192.168.214.3] Connecting to remote server 192.168.214.3 failed with the following error message : The request is not supported. For more information, see the about_Remote_Troubleshooting Help topic.
		At C:\Program Files\WindowsPowerShell\Modules\CloudConnector\Internal\MtSetup.ps1:294 char:13
		+             Invoke-Command -ComputerName $machineIP -Credential $doma ...
		+            ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
		+ CategoryInfo          : OpenError: (192.168.214.3:String) [], PSRemotingTransportException
		+ FullyQualifiedErrorId : 50,PSSessionStateBroken
		Trying to exit current manual maintenance mode.
		Successfully exit manual maintenance mode.
		[192.168.214.3] Connecting to remote server 192.168.214.3 failed with the following error message : The request is not supported. For more information, see the about_Remote_Troubleshooting Help topic.
		At C:\Program Files\WindowsPowerShell\Modules\CloudConnector\Internal\MtSetup.ps1:294 char:13
		+             Invoke-Command -ComputerName $machineIP -Credential $doma ...
		+            ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
		+ CategoryInfo          : OpenError: (192.168.214.3:String) [], PSRemotingTransportException
		+ FullyQualifiedErrorId : 50,PSSessionStateBroken`

After some diging in to this problem i found some people having same issues with other Microsoft products. Last March Microsoft released the CredSSP update and this prevented connecting to vulnerable systems using older authentication methods.

The New Microsoft Teams & Skype for Business Admin Center

To enable a better manageability for admins, Microsoft has started to roll out a new Microsoft Teams & Skype for Business Admin Center.

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This new experience provides you with a unified experience to manage both Teams and Skype for Business and will also incorporate Call Analytics and the Call Quality Dashboard (direct links to the legacy portals).

Create a Microsoft Teams messaging policy

This is where you can create custom policies to disable deleting or the use of Giphys in conversations

Common Area Phones - Skype for Business Online

Microsoft has enabled a new service called “Common Area Phone”, this way you can enable IP Phones as a generic device. The “Common Area Phone” License contains:

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• Phone System
• Skype for Business Online (Plan 2)

Let’s create a user

I’m creating a IP Phone for my living room.

Make sure you assign the Common Area Phone license.

Now the user is created boot up the IP Phone.

Skype for Business Licensing Guide

Lately i’m getting a lot of questions about licensing for Skype for Business Server and Online. So i want to try to explain what kind of licenses you will need to have in the different scenarios.

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• Is E3 license enough for Skype for Business Server 2015 with Enterprise Voice?
• Do we need PSTN Calling plan with the use of Skype for Business Server 2015?
• Do we need to have Phone System (formally Cloud PBX) license when using Skype for Business Server 2015 in Hybrid mode?
• Do we need a server license to use Skype for Business?

To make one thing clear, Client Licenses are required to access all Skype for Business Online (Office365), Hybrid scenario’s and Server (On-Premises) features.

Can’t sign in to Skype – There was a problem acquiring a personal certificate required to sign in

 Problem:

Skype Error message when signing in: “Can’t sign in to Skype for Business – There was a problem acquiring a personal certificate required to sign in. If the problem continues, please contact your support team”.

Uninstalling or reinstalling Office 365 software is not going to help you. There are a couple of solutions here.

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Solution 1

Open Skype for Business login window and click on “delete my sign-in info”. Then – type in the login details and password again and try to log in.