Looking over the Skype for Business SOF Blog the last post is regarding Meeting invite updates for the windows client and some new and i think welcomed formatting changes.

To check out the full post go here

Microsoft note based on feedback some new updates to meeting invites are here, so lets take a look.

The first

The Join by Phone Section

Now creates a hyperlinks including the dial in numbers and a pause and then followed by the Conference ID and then a pound sign ! nice!

This noted especially useful when joining conference using a mobile phone without the SfB app so going old school pstn call only, how many times have you tried to join you first grab the number then you need the code and then you cant remember and then wished you wrote in down but don’t have a pen lol.

Requirements for this are

1. For an online user (hosted in Office365), the meeting organizer needs a license for Cloud PSTN Conferencing (CPC). They also need to be leveraging Dynamic PSTN meetings.
2. For an on-premises user, no requirements are needed server-side.
3. Limitations on Outlook Client versions are as follows:
   • Outlook 2016 Click to Run (C2R) installs only. Minimum version 16.0.7369.2038 (Current Channel – October 2016).
   • Outlook 2016 MSI installs will not work.
   • Outlook 2013 C2R and MSI installs will not work.
   • The meeting needs to be created using Outlook Client. (Outlook Web App [OWA] won’t work)

I noted in the title of the post also that this is for Windows clients only so looks to not apply to the Mac client im afraid.

 

The second of the changes

Meeting Join URLS

There’s a hyperlink for joining with the web app in the invite  

This is a very requested features and reduced the need to tell people “can you copy the meeting url from the invite and then add ?SL=1, usually followed by “ do what !”

So you get an meeting invite like below

https://meet.lync.com/ucmart/martin.boam/7nhbtzz1

then copy the url and add ?SL=1 and add that in your browser, this forces the Skype / Lync Web App to launch to join the meeting instead of the client.

https://meet.lync.com/ucmart/martin.boam/7nhbtzz1?SL=1

Now this is also included in the invite under a Trouble Joining? section and Try Skype Web App.

 

I think both updates are a great for users and have been a long time coming but i think they will be welcomed by all, anything to make life easier as well.