Following an In-Place upgrade we wanted to enable server-side conversation history as its a new feature in Skype for Business and we already had Exchange 2013 available which is a prerequisite for this feature.
Server-side conversation history allows conversation history to be shared between desktop and mobile clients which was often a major pain that conversations on your Lync mobile client was separate and a nightmare to manage 😦 boo.
Prerequisites
- Skype for Business Server 2015
- Exchange 2013 or Exchange Online
- Exchange Partnership and integration setup and working on both Exchange and Skype for Business. Details here https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj688151.aspx
- Test Exchange Connectivity to ensure it configure and working correctly Test-CsExStorageConnectivity -SipUri “sip:kenmyer@litwareinc.com”
- Enable settings in Skype for Business.
Enable Server-Side Conversation History in Skype for Business
1. Enable Client Policy option
Theres an option in the Client policy that requires enabling use
Get-CsClientPolicy
This was set to false and i used to enable this in the global policy. Please note all client policies will need this to be true if more client policies exist.
Get-CsClientPolicy -Identity global |Set-CsClientPolicy -EnableServerConversationHistory $true
Following these changes it worked 🙂
The experience i have found using the most up to date Lync Mobile clients for Windows Phone, IoS and Andriod.
- ios – works great and seems to work the best user experience of the three clients.
- Windows Phone – works but wasn’t refreshing. Removes option for delete all conversations and adds a refresh button instead but i couldn’t get this to work.
- Android – did not work at all
Items to check and are also required if not working following client policy enabling.
1. From Skype for Business Management Shell check is Server Side conversation history is enabled first. This was enabled by default for me.
Get-CsConversationHistoryConfiguration
2. Check Mobility Settings
Ensure Allow Save IM History is enabled
Get-CsMobilityPolicy
3. Check Client Policy
Check that disable saving IM is not enabled using
Get-CsClientPolicy again
4. Check Exchange
Partnership and use test connectivity to ensure all exchange tests are succesful.
Martin Boam's Microsoft Blog 
Hello,
So, if we upgraded from Lync 2013 to Skype for Business Server 2015 and continued to use our existing Exchange 2010 server, will conversation history just work like it did before (i.e. separate logs for mobile and desktop) ? What would happen if we happen to go to Exchange 2013 and be mixed with Exchange 2010 in regards to conversation history ?
Hi John, thanks for reading my post. If you have Exchange 2010 then your correct, it will stay the same as Lync 2013 and you will have separate conversation history for the desktop and mobile clients. The users mailbox has to be on Exchange 2013 and you would have to enable server side conversation history and set up the parter ship between SfB and Exchange 2013 first before your users get server side conv history.
Hello
I’m not quite understand where it will save history. On the Exchange server or S4B server?
Thanks!
It saves it in the users mailbox in the conversation history folder. Both the desktop and mobile client can now access this folder. Before the mobile client stored conversations on the mobile device and it wasn’t shared or accessible between the desktop and mobile clients. It’s a nice feature. Hope that helps.
Now I understand. Thank you!
Thank you for the reply. It makes sense now.
Hey Martin! Great post, and thanks. Quick question, have you gotten any further, or found any official MS announcements, about the Android client not working for this? I am trying to find anything at all on it, but not having much luck.
Josh
Hey Josh, thanks 🙂 no more news I’m afraid not. I assume it will be available when the SfB client for android is released. At the moment android users have Lync 2013 and it doesn’t work 😦 if I find out anything I’ll let you know. Thanks for checking out my post 🙂