Teams/Skype consumer chat and calling interop

During the #M365Notification setup (receiving Notifications about “Service Health”, “Message Center” and “Roadmap”) in MSTeams, I saw the below message:

Teams/Skype consumer chat and calling interop


This message is populated from the Teams Message center and reformatted in a Microsoft Teams card, so I looked it up in the Office365 Message Center to get all the info in the correct format.

In here I noticed that it looks like the message has been adjusted on the 7th of March with “Stay Informed”, see below:

Teams/Skype consumer chat and calling interop

As curious I am, I thought to give it a try and see if it is already active in my tenant.

I went to: Teams Admin center –> Org-Wide Setting –> External Access. As my domain has been migrated from On-Prem to Online, the “User can communicate with Skype Users” is already turned on.

Teams/Skype consumer chat and calling interop

Microsoft mentioned the following limitations with the interop to the Skype consumer network:

  • Conversations are text-only. This means that there’s no rich formatting, @mentions, emojis, or any other chat features that are available in a native Teams chat experience. (SPOILER ALERT: In the example below, you can see that I send an emoji from MSTeams to Skype Consumer, and that is working 🤷‍♂️)
  • Conversations are one-on-one only. Group chats aren’t supported
  • Teams users and Skype consumer users can’t see each other’s presence
  • Searching for Skype consumer users by using their Skype ID or phone number isn’t supported

I searched on my email address that is linked to my Skype Consumer account. As this email address isn’t in the address book, it is giving me the option to search externally

Teams/Skype consumer chat and calling interop

After clicking on it, I found the Skype Consumer account.

Teams/Skype consumer chat and calling interop

MSTeams is informing me that this person is outside of my organization and tagged it with the “External” label.

Teams/Skype consumer chat and calling interop
From here I send a short message, just to see if it is working.

*Skype consumer notification Sound* 😮

A Toast (pop-up) appeared in my screen about the message that I received in my Skype Consumer client.
Clicked on the notification to open my Skype Consumer client, and there it is….. The test message from MSTeams.
The Skype Consumer client is giving me the option to “Accept” the message.

Teams/Skype consumer chat and calling interop

After clicking on “Accept”, the conversation is active and I’m able to send a reply on the message. I tested the Emoji from the MSTeams client and, as you can see, it showed up in the Skype Consumer client 💪🏼

Teams/Skype consumer chat and calling interop

So, the chat is working! But what about calling?

I can confirm you that it’s working as well 😊

Teams/Skype consumer chat and calling interop

Do you think this is something your organization is going to use when it is rolled out to everyone?

If not, and you migrated from Skype for Business to Teams, remember to double check this feature as it might be turned on already!

Source: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoftteams/teams-skype-interop

Thanks for Reading and Stay Healthy!

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