Two weeks in a row, the #Skype4BRecap has been published on time! Now I just need to keep up the momentum. This week was a big week for Skype for Business and other Microsoft UC community news, so please pardon the fast-speaking; I had a lot of good content to get out in a short period of time! Bigger topics include some major changes to the MVP Award program, General Availability (GA) of PSTN Calling in Spain, and some new video-based training of Tenant Dial Plans (Preview), but you can check out the full list of topics below. Enjoy the episode:
Topics
- MVP Award Program Changes Some unexpected changes to the MVP Award Program came down the pipe this week, including an announcement that New awards will be announced on a monthly basis, and re-awards will only happen once each year for everyone. This was good news for some happy new MVPs on February 1st! Check out all the details of the changes here: https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/stevengu/2017/02/01/continuing-the-evolution-of-the-mvp-award/
- Tenant Dial Plans (Preview) Training The arrival of Tenant Dial Plans, in Preview, was announced a couple weeks back, but more content is starting to trickle out to the public, as is entry for some tenants into the Preview. Here is the latest training video on Skype for Business Online Cloud PBX Tenant Dial Plans: https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/Skype-Operations-Framework-Skype/Tenant-Dial-Plans-Preview-training/ba-p/43521
- PSTN Calling in Spain, GA PSTN Calling Preview was announced for Spain back at Microsoft Ignite in September of 2016, and it has finally been release to General Availability, following France. There are a number of cities with their local area codes available for PSTN Calling. Tom Arbuthnot put together a great blog post covering this release, along with the available cities, here: http://tomtalks.uk/2017/02/microsoft-pstn-calling-spain-carrier-services-generally-available-skype-business-online-cloud-pbx/
- WhoBot, in Teams Microsoft gave an update on the state of Microsoft Teams this last week, and in the process they announced a new Bot that will be making its way into the GA release of Teams: WhoBot. MVP Tom Morgan wrote a great post hypothesizing a bit about this new Bot: https://blog.thoughtstuff.co.uk/2017/01/microsoft-announced-they-will-launch-whobot-for-microsoft-teams-your-new-company-assistant/?utm_content=buffer5df9b&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer. Also be sure to check out Microsoft's post about the state of Microsoft Teams as it inches closer to GA: https://blogs.office.com/2017/01/30/microsoft-teams-gains-steam/
- S4B Online CQD - Upload Building Info Template The ability to upload your Building information (subnets, descriptions, etc.) for advanced analytics in Skype for Business Online Call Quality Dashboard is pretty awesome, but doing so requires a specifically-formatted CSV file. Apparently the proper formatting can be a bit annoying to come by, so Martim Boam did us a favor and provided a free template for download from the TechNet Gallery: https://gallery.technet.microsoft.com/lync/Skype-for-Business-Online-f28c57f7. You might also want to check out his blog post on using the template: https://ucmart.uk/2017/01/31/call-quality-dashboard-online-cqd-upload-building-information/
- New Skype Academy Training The team has been very busy with generating training for all the incredible changes that have been coming our way in the Skype for Business and Office 365 world. This last week they published a bunch of new training resources on a number of very relevant topics. Get your Learn On here: https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/Skype-Operations-Framework-Skype/Training-extravaganza-New-training-sessions-about-E5-workloads/ba-p/42682
If you would rather watch the episode at my YouTube channel instead of in the window above, check it out here: https://youtu.be/5lXp9iFnBfE
Stay Techy, My Friends!
