11th MVP Award Rewarded

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I am actually on vacation, but as I sit here under the summer sun, toes in the pool and a cold drink within reach, I have been waiting for that email confirming that I’ve been awarded my 11th Microsoft MVP Award! As last year, I am being awarded in both the Teams and Copilot category. To say I’m humbled would be an understatement. Being part of the global Microsoft MVP community for over a decade now has been an incredible journey, filled with learning, sharing, speaking, and connecting with passionate technologists from every corner of the world. What is the Microsoft MVP Award? The Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP) award is given to technology experts who share their knowledge and real-world expertise with communities. With fewer than 4,000 MVPs worldwide, it’s an honor to be part of such a vibrant and dedicated group. MVPs contribute through speaking engagements, writing, open-source contributions, and helping others online and offline. You can learn more about the progra...

Teams to Skype for Consumer federation is coming

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Here is a feature many of my customers have asked for ever since switching from Skype for Business Online to Teams: Teams/Skype Consumer chat and calling interop. 
The feature is listed as Roadmap ID: 53935

According to the message center, the feature will be rolling out in a disabled state, and admins will have to log into the Teams Admin Center to configure it under "external access":


Once configured, users can search the external directory, the same way they can search for internal chat users:

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Once set up, users can chat, call by audio or video, just as they can with other Skype for Business or Teams users. There are a couple of limitations in this initial release, such as no rich formatting, no mentions or emojis. It also looks like you can't search for a Skype ID or phone number, but it is all documented in the interop description found at docks.

And just like that, the world became a little smaller.....