Its been announced that the Skype for Business Client update will being April 14th 🙂 after using the client preview for nearly a month now I’ve pretty much got used to the new look and feel and am loving it. Lync 2013 feels a little old already.

Below is a link to the Office blog with a great video and further details

http://blogs.office.com/2015/04/01/whats-new-in-skype-for-business-and-how-you-can-take-control-of-updates/

A new feature to Skype4B is the ability to control what client the user will use either the Lync 2013 client or the new Skype for Business client this is controlled via client policies and is available for Lync Online and On Premises deployment. This is a great new feature allows training and the deployment of the new client ui to be controlled and one item to note for enabling the Skype4B client is Remote Call Control for on-premises deployment is not supported so you have to use the Lync 2013 client interface.

Following the 14th April update:

• For Lync Online users the default  user experience will be Skype4B Client UI
• For Lync Server users the default user experience will be the Lync Client UI

Below are some PowerShell cmdlets for controlling the UI on Lync Online.

You can enable all your users with Skype for Business Client UI use the following

Grant-CsClientPolicy –PolicyName ClientPolicyEnableSkypeUI

To disable Skype4B client UI and use Lync UI for all users

Grant-CsClientPolicy –PolicyName ClientPolicyDisableSkypeUI

You can even grant to single users

Grant-CsClientPolicy –PolicyName ClientPolicyEnableSkypeUI -Identity <username>

To disable Skype4B UI for single users

Grant-CsClientPolicy –PolicyName ClientPolicyDisableSkypeUI -Identity <username>

For more Skype for Business Online cmdlets

https://support.office.com/en-us/article/Switching-between-the-Skype-for-Business-client-and-the-Lync-mode-client-a2394a4c-7522-484c-a047-7b3289742be0?omkt=en-us