Skype for Business Server– Deploy and configure Busy on Busy Options

Busy on Busy came in CU3 of Skype for Business Server 2015 and adds the options to send calls a busy tone or send calls to voicemail if the person you are calling is on the phone / Busy. Also in CU3 came offline messaging, Video based screen sharing and multiple emergency numbers.

The default behaviour for busy up until now was a second toast pop up would alert the user who is on the phone that they have another calls and from there they can action to answer, forward, send to voicemail etc. while the caller is hearing the usual ringing tone.

Now if i was a traditional PBX user i probably wouldn’t have this behaviour or get notified whilst i was on the phone that another caller was calling and be able to answer that call. From PBX migrations I’ve found users not liking the fact they are receiving another call whilst on the phone and the common phase “the old system didn’t do, it distracts me and can we turn it off” well now with CU3 for Sfb Server we have the option to.

BUT

For me think is it the right option to do? i personally like the fact i can see the other call and action it. for example i may be expecting an urgent call but someone calls me just before, when the important call comes i can jump to it.

Enabling Busy on Busy (BoB) options send a busy tone or goes to voicemail nice feature to have but please consider the options and don’t limit the power of SfB Smile .

Well hope that waffle made sense let get to the deployment and config bits.

Prereq items

Skype for Business Server 2015 (Sorry Lync Server Guys)
You must have Skype for Business Server 2015 Cumulative Update 3 installed. This is a requirement to add the busy on busy options. Link below.

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/3061064

After you have deployed CU3 you need deploy and configure the busy on busy (BoB) functionality.

The below assumes you have already deployed CU3

(Please note following the deployment of CU3 i had to restart the SfB services to register the Busy on Busy Application but you can see below where we can check the Event viewer on the server.

Deployment

1. Enable Busy Option in Voice Policies

Open SfB Management Shell and

Lets check the SfB Voice Policies for the BoB option, as we can see below they are false by default.

To enable for the global policy (Please note this does not enabled for user based voice policies)

Set-CsVoicePolicy -EnableBusyOptions $true

Lets check the voice policies again

Enable for user based Voice Policies

use get-csvoicepolicy to find all policies and identity to use below.

Get-CsVoicePolicy -Identity "<VOICE POLICY IDENTITY>" |
set-csvoicepolicy -EnableBusyOptions $true

To Enable all user based voice policies

Get-CsVoicePolicy | Set-CsVoicePolicy -EnableBusyOption
s $true

Site based voice policies

Get-CsSite

Get-CsVoicePolicy –identity Site: <Site Name>

2. Add Busy Option Server Application

From SfB Control you can see the list of server applications

To add the new application from SfB Management Shell enter

New-CsServerApplication -Identity ‘Service:Registrar:lyncse01.ucmart.co.uk/BusyOptions’ -Uri http://www.microsoft.com/LCS/BusyOptions -Critical $False -Enabled $True -Priority (Get-CsServerApplication -Identity ‘Service:Registrar:lyncse01.ucmart.co.uk/UserServices’).Priority

You can now see BusyOptions has been added as a server application Smile

Verify Busy Application has loaded Settings in Event Viewer

You can also use Windows Event Viewer to verify that the Busy Options installation was successful and that Skype for Business Server successfully loaded Busy Options. From an FE check for.

To verify Busy Options, open Event Viewer -> Application and Services Logs –> Lync Server and search for Event ID = 30253.

As you can see the last event above was following the CU3 update and BusyOptions applications wasnt deployed so i have to restart the SfB Services using Management Shell.

Stop-CsWindowsService

followed by to start them back up.

Start-CsWindowsService

There we go its registered Smile