Do you use Microsoft Teams? It may happen that a message you send doesn’t reach a person from another organization—even though that person is using Microsoft Teams or Skype for Business.
This issue is often caused by an incorrect setting in Microsoft Teams on the other organization’s side. Internally, everything works perfectly fine. Sometimes the other person can even reach you without any problems.
To change this setting, I first need to delve a bit deeper into the technology within the Microsoft Teams admin center. If you can’t figure it out from here, please contact me or ask your provider.
The Issue
The problem is that the settings in the other organization’s Microsoft Teams admin center are probably still set to “Islands.” This means they are reachable via both Microsoft Teams and Skype for Business. Since no specific platform is chosen, messages do not reach the intended recipient. It is therefore important that a choice is made.
Changing the Setting
To resolve this issue, my advice is to choose the “Teams Only” mode instead of “Islands.” Below, I will guide you through the process of changing this setting with the help of screenshots.
First, go to this page as an admin:
When the coexistence mode is set to “Islands,” that is the reason you can’t reach the other person. Click on “Islands.” Then the following settings will open up, as you can see below:
To be reachable by people outside your organization, you can choose from the bottom three options:
My advice is to choose the “Teams Only” option. For this, it is important that your organization works exclusively with Microsoft Teams and no longer with Skype for Business. Otherwise, Skype for Business will no longer function.
Note: When you enable “Teams Only,” you no longer have the possibility to schedule Skype meetings via Outlook. This isn’t really a problem, because this option has been replaced by Microsoft Teams meetings, which work even better than the previous option.
When you enable “Teams Only,” your organization will always be reachable for other organizations using both Skype for Business and Microsoft Teams.
You can notify your colleagues who are still using Skype for Business by using the button “Notify Skype for Business users that an upgrade to Teams is available.” (See the image above.) Turn on this button, and your colleagues will receive this notification so that they can start working with Microsoft Teams.
Good luck!
PS.
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