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.

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Quality of Service (QoS) is a mechanism that lets you prioritize certain types of network traffic. Prioritizing the traffic for real-time communications services such as Teams is important in order to deliver a business-grade user experience. For QoS to be truly effective, a QoS-capable connection must be configured end-to-end (PC, network switches, and routers to the cloud), because any part in the path that fails to support QoS could degrade the quality of the entire call.

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Do you recognize the situation that you have a Team in Microsoft Teams and members of the team keep sending you emails instead of using the chat and collaboration functions in Teams?

You can now move your email conversation including the attachments to your Teams channel and continue the conversation in your Teams channel.

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Let’s move your conversation to Teams channel

In the Teams client while selecting the channel where you want to port your conversation to you can click on the … now select “Get email address”

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Need to have Skype for Business  Quick starter guides? You can download your localized version by the links below in the table. The download contains the following categories:

• Audio setup and making Calls
• Contacts, presence, and IM
• Meetings
• Sharing and collaboration
• Video

Documents in the ZIP file are in PPT and PDF format, so you can brand the guides with your own company logo.

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The evolve 65 MS Stereo is a lightweight headset for both music and Skype for Business. The specially designed leather feel ear cushions are pretty comfy to wear all day long. I like this model also because it has a busy light ring so my colleagues can see I’m calling or busy and do not want to disturbed. This one is located at the microphone side.

You can use the headset with 2 devices at the same time, so for example your Laptop and your mobile phone. I’ve been using this headset for quite a while and streamed a lot from Spotify. I like the sound from the headset and it really closed me off from the noise in the room.

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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.

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Office 365

The Office 365 ProPlus update model supports 4 production channels;

• Monthly Channel (Targeted),
• Monthly Channel,
• Semi-annual Channel (Targeted),
• Semi-annual Channel.

Each channel receives features updates, security and non-security updates on different release intervals.

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Switch Channels

Below are the steps to switch channels:

1. Identify the channel which you would like to switch to. Features and updates by channel are documented here.
2. Launch Command Prompt as an administrator.
3. Navigate to “C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\ClickToRun"
4. Run the following command to change the desired channel, let’s say Monthly Channel Targeted “OfficeC2RClient.exe /changesetting Channel=Insiders” (When running in powershell the command will be “.*OfficeC2RClient.exe /changesetting Channel=Insiders”*

or if you want to switch to the Montly channel:

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This headset is a more than a standard headset. The Voyager Focus has some advanced stuff build in. When you take of your headset while playing music, the music pauses. When you are in a Skype for Business meeting and you turn your microphone up or take of your headset it will mute you. This is all work of the Smart Sensors Plantronics has built in. The Active Noise Cancelling of this headset is working as you may expect.

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This week I had the possibility to test the new Jabra Evolve 75e MS, a wireless earbud design. And I must say I like the design. 

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Some quick info on this headset:

• Stereo-earphone headset;
• Bluetooth connector, no cords to the headset;
• Busy light for your colleagues;
• Microphone only on right side;
• Active Noise Cancellation (ANC) switch;
• List-in function;
• Vibrator for incoming calls;
• Magnetic earbuds.

It will take only 2 hours for fully charge of the headset and you will have up to 14 hours of battery life.

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When configuring a new Office Online Server i run in to the following error while setting up the new farm with command:

    PS C:\Windows\system32> New-OfficeWebAppsFarm -InternalUrl "https://oos.contoso.com" -ExternalUrl "https://oos.contoso.com" -CertificateName "Skypeweb"
    New-OfficeWebAppsFarm : Office Online was unable to find the specified certificate.
    At line:1 char:1
    + New-OfficeWebAppsFarm -InternalUrl "https://oos.contoso.com" -Exter ...
    + ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
    + CategoryInfo : ObjectNotFound: (:) [New-OfficeWebAppsFarm], ArgumentException
    + FullyQualifiedErrorId : CertificateNotFound,Microsoft.Office.Web.Apps.Administration.NewFarmCommand

I imported the certificate chain in the computer personal store, i noticed the intermediate and root certificate where also placed in the personal store.

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