Upcoming Enhancements to Microsoft Teams Meeting Chat Controls

There are many kinds of meetings, and Teams is a great tool to have virtual meetings in. As an example, it is possible to get to the chat of the meeting and start the discussion up front or continue the discussions or ask follow up questions after the meeting is over.  But sometimes, there are scenarios where organizer would want to keep the chat closed for comments outside of the meeting timeframe. And here is a new feature coming our way, to control exactly that behavior. The Teams admin center will soon allow setting up policies that will enhance your control over meeting chats. These new options are designed to give administrators more flexibility in managing how and when participants can interact via chat during meetings. These options will be available across all platforms, including Teams for Windows and Mac desktops, Teams on the web, and Teams for iOS/Android. This update is part of the Microsoft 365 Roadmap   If you are an admin, here is where you can find and contro...

Making Lync 2013 work on your Android tablet?

*Updated April 20th 2015*
The link provided is now to the updated version of April 2015 (v5.5.3.8960)

*Updated March 17th 2015*
The link provided is now to the updated version of February 2015 (v5.5.3.8935)

*Updated Jan 5th 2015*
The link provided is now to the updated version of December 2014 (v5.5.3.8930)

*Updated May 13th 2014*
The link provided is now to the updated version of May 2014 (v5.4.1106.0)

*Updated Mar. 10th 2014*
The link provided is now to the updated version of March 2014

*Updated Feb. 12th 2014*
The link provided is now to the updated version of February 2014

*Updated Oct. 11th 2013*
The link provided is now to the updated version of October 2013

*Updated Oct. 8th 2013*
The link provided is now to the updated version of September 2013

Before I begin, the method described in this post is in no way supported by any of the vendors involved, and should you choose to do so anyway, you do it on your own risk.

During Easter, the Lync 2013 client got released for the Android market as well, bringing the client to virtually all platforms. By the looks of the tweets on the subject, people are quite happy about the client and how it works.

But as rumored, it seems like the Lync client was only released for phone models, and not tablets. Not my tablet, anyways. I do not know if there will be a version for tablets, like the one they made for iPad, but I do know I want my Tablet to run Lync 2013.

Here is a description of how to make the phone client run on a Samsung Galaxy Tab, with Android 4.0.1 running ( I have no idea if this will work on other tablets or versions, so please let us know if it does!!).

Step 1 - Make sure you are able to install "insecure" packages (meaning not from the store)


Step 2 - copy the package from a working phone, or grab  it from this link: (there is a 2010 version available here, But I have not tested it.)


Step 3 - Once downloaded, start the installation manually.

Step 4 - Configure your options as with all the client installations, Phone number, WiFi requirements and so on.

Step 5 - ENJOY!

As you can see from the following screen shots, things works just as they would have on any Phone Device (or at least I have not been able to find any major faults yet).

My status:

Search for users and presence (presence took some time to update at first):


Meetings: 

One thing about online meetings: You might have some issues starting a meeting from the meeting page. When I clicked the link, and selected my default browser, it did not recognize my Lync client and failed.
But if You set the client to use the native Internet application, it all worked as a charm!



There is nothing much to it, use it at own risk. But I am currently enjoying audio and video calls to my colleagues from my Android Tablet now, as well as presence and audio calls to my Skype contacts. 

Downside of this client:
You can't see shared content, and the video is scaled for smaller devices.
I can only hope for a proper release for Android tablets in the future. Why should the Android guys not be able to enjoy the same features as the iPad users?