Skype for Business, pls...
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The more I use Skype for Business, the more I'm convinced it was @wood's first software project.
My fun challenge this morning:
- User X used to have a DID number, and that number was added to his AD contact information
- User X no longer needed a DID number, and we had a new user coming on that we needed a number RIGHT NOW for, so we pulled the DID and assigned it to User Y
- People can no longer blind transfer calls to User X via Skype, because the client defaults to the Work # (from the AD contact), rather than a Skype for Business call.
- I find and remove the now incorrect phone number from the AD contact information, attempt to force an Address Book update & resync.
- Skype be all like NOOOOOOOOOOOOOPE.
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@izzion I love you man, you know that? You sometimes make me happy with what I work with :P
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Are you looking for another Asterisk engineer? :P
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@izzion Unfortunately, not one that can work remotely. And Skype is still better than moving to this shithole.
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@izzion said:
Skype be all like NOOOOOOOOOOOOOPE.
If you find a way to have it update let we know ... maybe I can finally get rid of all those ex-colleagues who are cluttering up the contact list
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@Luhmann said:
If you find a way to have it update let we know ... maybe I can finally get rid of all those ex-colleagues who are cluttering up the contact list
Oh, do you get that stupid popup message saying that it "can't do that at this time" or whatever? I hate that.
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@e4tmyl33t
I gave up on the contact list
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Well, after much weeping and gnashing of teeth, I think I sussed out enough of the WTF that is the Lync/Skype backend SQL database to determine that Skype's address book has picked up my AD change and removed the incorrect TN from User X.
Except we have SharePoint set up to sync stuff from AD, and that hasn't picked up the change yet... and the Skype contact card synthesizes data from both the Skype address book and SharePoint.
And @Luhmann , I doubt I'm working with the same problem that you are - our inactivated users seem to be disappearing as expected.
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@Luhmann maybe try http://www.skypefeedback.com/forums/299913-generally-available/suggestions/11054166-fix-the-error-a-contact-group-with-that-name-alre?tracking_code=69574ddd7fae9c2c2adffc90bd33d53d
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@izzion said:
our inactivated users seem to be disappearing as expected.
I wish ours disappeared as they were deactivated, but more likely what's happening is that their AD accounts still exists but are "disabled", meaning Lync/SFB can still pick up on that and it won't auto-remove them.
I tend to curiously have another problem where I can't add someone who I search for by name to my contact list unless the software inexplicably decides I can for some reason. Yet if I search for them by email address, it works fine.
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@e4tmyl33t I assume your environment is using E-mail address = SIP / Skype address? A lot of times, I see the behavior you're describing on new profiles (before the Address Book cache has populated).
The blogosphere is a little short on accurate information for modern SfB clients and forcing a cache reload, but some information is here (except he forgot to escape his \ when they went into his content database, so some of the formatting is
...)tl;dr - a registry key at HKLM\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Communicator (for OCS 2007 or Lync 2010) or HKLM\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Office\15.0\Lync (for Lync 2013 and SfB 2015... I expect 2016 is probably under \Office\16.0\Lync) controls the initial delay (otherwise randomized for 0-60 minutes) to download the Skype Address Book cache.
http://www.fots.nl/lync-address-book-sync-process-information/
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I have quite a few grievances with Skype for Business, much of which are bona-fide bugs.
Often times when someone is offline, it will give a timespan of a few months even though I had seen them online just 20 minutes ago. I assume this has to do with them logging in via more than one device and it getting confused which device logged in last.
I also notice it repeatedly logs me off and back on every 10 minutes or so. I don't know what's up with that. It only seems to happen if I'm not actively using it, so it at least doesn't interfere with communication. I don't have any fancy proxy or router configuration and everything else has a solid connection throughout.
It tries to seemlessly integrate with Office 365 and fails miserably. When I'm signed onto Outlook 365 IMs aren't consistent. Sometimes I get an IM on the web portal but not in the desktop app (which is a pain because I don't always notice it, and it doesn't even log these IMs in my history so if I miss them I'll never know). On the other hand, when it works on the desktop, it will "helpfully" inform me that a stale conversation has been saved in history. That's not a big deal, except it just distracts me and when I see that in the corner of my eye I glance at it thinking the other party is IMing me again.
The audio is an enigma. Half the time, despite all the other audio on the system working properly, and seeing I have everything configured properly, either my mic won't work or my speaker won't work or both. I spend 5 minutes fiddling with options until it just decides to work. Often times making it work consists of unchecking a box followed by checking it again, which indicates to me it's a bug or glitch and not really something I'm doing wrong.
The only thing "good" about it is when we have meetings, it's easy to join, and that part integrates well with Outlook. I just get a reminder that I have a scheduled meeting in 5 minutes and I just click the link to join. Better than a lot of other conference systems like GotoMeeting and WebEx.
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@izzion said:
I assume your environment is using E-mail address = SIP / Skype address? A lot of times, I see the behavior you're describing on new profiles (before the Address Book cache has populated).
It is, with the additional quirk of us not hosting our own Exchange but it instead going through Office365 because...raisins. I'd originally chalk it up to the fact that I'm using the SfB client but it's connecting to a Lync server (and it complains about that mode the first time you launch it).
And delay has nothing to do with it, honestly. I get the same problem if I do it first thing in the morning or if I do it 5 minutes before I leave for the day. Our implementation is just shite.
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@e4tmyl33t From having spent the last several months (off and on) cleaning up things here and there on our Skype implementation, it's definitely a major poster child for "simple to set up, impossible to set up correctly."
Do you know if you're getting EWS Autodiscovery errors, or Address Book Sync Service errors on the server side? (Or, alternately, do you just want to blakeyrant about Skype and I can not speculate on possible fixes further :D)
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@izzion said:
Do you know if you're getting EWS Autodiscovery errors, or Address Book Sync Service errors on the server side? (Or, alternately, do you just want to blakeyrant about Skype and I can not speculate on possible fixes further :D)
Fuck if I know, honestly. I'm not internal IT here, so I'm mostly just bitching about things from the user-side.
For being an IT company (we provide helpdesks for other companies), we have shit IT ourselves.
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I know a guy that suggested that I should connect Asterisk to AD to pick contacts up multiple times.
Now I will just link him this thread next time he brings it up. Sure, I wouldn't run into all these problems because I wouldn't be integrating with 17 different applications, but holy fuck, if Microsoft themselves have that many problems with it, no freaking way I'm touching that.
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@The_Quiet_One said:
I also notice it repeatedly logs me off and back on every 10 minutes or so. I don't know what's up with that. It only seems to happen if I'm not actively using it, so it at least doesn't interfere with communication. I don't have any fancy proxy or router configuration and everything else has a solid connection throughout.
It tries to seemlessly integrate with Office 365 and fails miserably. When I'm signed onto Outlook 365 IMs aren't consistent.
I definitely don't have problems with online IMs in our environment (other than leaving an Edge window open from when I was futzing with the O365 admin portal or something and getting bombed with the same IM in multiple spots). Sounds like there might be some sort of DNS and/or O365 federation "fun" involved...
The audio is an enigma. Half the time, despite all the other audio on the system working properly, and seeing I have everything configured properly, either my mic won't work or my speaker won't work or both.
I do know that the Lync/SfB client has its own default audio device settings, independent from the system's settings (I think it might initially populate from the system default, but it definitely won't "stay in sync" with the system defaults if you're adding / removing / changing devices frequently). Have you tried verifying the default devices under Options > Audio Devices and Options > Video Devices?
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@izzion said:
I do know that the Lync/SfB client has its own default audio device settings, independent from the system's settings (I think it might initially populate from the system default, but it definitely won't "stay in sync" with the system defaults if you're adding / removing / changing devices frequently). Have you tried verifying the default devices under Options > Audio Devices and Options > Video Devices?
Ah, that very well could be it. I typically have regular speakers on for music (I work from home) and usually switch to a headset when someone calls me. So, I guess when I'm fiddling with the options, at some point it "resyncs" and fixes itself by updating the active device or something.
Still annoying, but if I could verify that's the problem I can at least work around it.
