Skype integration (Consumer Federation)
It would be nice to integrate public Skype (not Skype for Business) into Teams. I am able to chat with Skype for business users within my organization but when working with external clients I still have to go back to public Skype. If I could even just simply chat and call with Skype users as well that would allow me to use Teams as my sole communication platform.
Matt
shared this idea
Please check “Teams/Skype Consumer chat and calling interop” on the public roadmap at microsoft.com/microsoft-365/roadmap?filters.. for updates.
522 comments
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Lachlan Macdoanld
commented
What happened to this statement....Hi everyone, it looks like this got put as “declined” — I actually have a best practice on my team to NEVER put anything as declined (you’ll see some older tickets have that, that was before my time, folks). So I’m sorry this got slipped through — its not a decline, for the very reason that Mark points out below.
Also special thanks to Andreas for seeing the activity on this closed item and bringing it to my attention.
And thank you to all of YOU for helping us makes Teams better!
Sincerely,
Suphatra -
Ewald M
commented
Well we were waiting for a better Skype Consumer Integration into S4B (not only Peer2Peer , include Skype Consumer Clients in conferences) for ages... now MS wants to cut this off for Teams??? Really need this feature (federation wiht millions of skype consumer users) because its a differentiator from cisco spark...
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Evgenii Badakh
commented
We need this feature so much!
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Michael Gorn
commented
We really need this feature!!
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[Deleted User]
commented
This is not good! We need this!
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Daniel
commented
We used to use consumer Skype as our business communication tool until Microsoft started pushing Business users away from it and onto their business platform. How are we supposed to hold interviews with candidates now? Complete rubbish that you don't include this.
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Brad Weir
commented
Has this really been cancelled? its still listed in the Ofiice 365 Roadmap
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Steve
commented
Presumably justification for this u-turn on policy will be provided? Simply saying the Feature team declined is a rather lame way to keep a community updated.
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Brad Weir
commented
This is very disappointing, many businesses communicate with potential hires using Skype consumer for interviews.
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Anonymous
commented
/me stops Teams rollout in the organisation
/me uninstalls Teams from PC
/me informs the team to begin uninstalling Teams and going back to Slack
/me curses self on having bought into a MS Product like a dunce -
Anonymous
commented
One less reason to push for Teams usage in my organisation...
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Anonymous
commented
I always thought Microsoft is a software company. Why do I get the feeling that Microsoft wants too much and performs too little (technically). Do as Apple: introduce only new products when they are all set and be consistent.
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Anonymous
commented
Well, that’s pretty effectively killed mass adoption of Teams. Any other S4B existing functionality you’re planning to remove?
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Anonymous
commented
You can chat to S4B users via Teams (they appear with a little "External" text next to their name) but Skype consumer is a separate platform.
When we do interviews with external Skype consumers users we use S4B to chat to them instead.
That way it also separates out those one-off chats with people you may never speak to again.
If I chat to my suppliers and vendors I use Teams as the one stop shop as I chat to them regularly. -
Anonymous
commented
This is extremely disappointing. Not only does it go back on a previously roadmapped item, it fails to respect the basic tenant of Skype for Business migration that feature parity will be maintained.
My team have failed to migrate to Skype for Business due to its incredibly poor UX; Teams was a great opportunity to resolve this however interacting with a network of SME businesses is essential to day-to-day use. Running parallel chat clients to serve this need is not a compelling proposition, and as such will reduce Teams adoption.
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Standard Forge
commented
This is a joke, right? Does the feature team have no idea how much more useful that would make Teams? Especially for organizations who use remote contractors for work? I don't think the request means adding a Skype user as a Team member so much as it means at least being able to call and chat with a Skype user (clients, contractors, etc). If I'm mistaken in my understanding, and Teams to Skype calling will (at the basic level) exist, then ignore this comment, but if I'm correct in my understanding, this is a stupid decision.
By all means, if you want to put a dagger in yourselves, then by continue to not consider integration. If Teams wants to overtake Slack before Google or someone else buys them (which will hurt MS), then the feature team should reconsider declining this request. I'm guessing Mr. Nadella knows nothing about this decision?
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ian J
commented
Sadly this may stop us moving to teams in the short term. Our resource team use SFB to communicate with candidates and conduct interviews.
We are testing teams currently and were looking at 4000 moving across in Q3. However loss of this functionality challenges that option
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Stefan Wennink
commented
Bringing consumer Skype to Teams isn't really the problem, the problem is that we don't have any normal way to communicate with Consumer Skype users.
We're not allowed to create consumer skype accounts as a business (so far, ok).
But what way are we supposed to use to communicate with them now?
Looking at the roadmap, let's move ahead a bit and say SfB is already gone.
Can you answer the above question?
Remember: "you're not able to" is not a valid option for businesses.
If SfB is killed without a proper way of solving the above problem, the remaining method for us IT guys would be creating a new company domain name and register consumer skype accounts using that for our internal users...
There must be a better way surely?
Even just enabling Consumer Skype account creation for our business domain would be infinitely helpful and perhaps the most practical. -
Brad PFEFFER
commented
My request here is to enable the consumer Skype App to support Microsoft Teams Meetings. This will mean every user who has the Skype App installed can easily join Microsoft Teams Meetings. This would give MS a competitive edge over WebEx, Go-to-meetings, etc., because a broader range of users will have a usable App already installed on their device.
As a Microsoft Teams user, I frequently send out meeting requests to users outside my organisation who have difficulty joining the meetings from their PCs. There are often issues with downloading the app, and once they install it, it is often not be configured to use correct microphone/speakers. Having the Meetings function in the consumer Skype App would largely eliminate this issue. -
Anonymous
commented
Well, this is unfortunate....