Howdy,

So welcome once again in this series of Complete guide to integrate Skype for business and Exchange 2016 server, this is part-II of a two parts articles make sure you check part-I before going into integrating both servers as you need to make sure you have server-to-server authentications and Partner application configured between them before enabling the integration

So let’s start with UM integration, I also uploaded the full guide into my one drive so my visitors can download it locally.

Complete Guide for Integrating Exchange and SkypeFB

Enabling Skype for Business with Unified Messaging

Jus to say, the following configuration has not been tested as I run all my machines virtually on a server provided by a hosting company so using headsets or Mic(s) is not an option, but I see Voice Mail notifications happening so I guess it worked J

Prepare Exchange UM

We start with creating a UM dial plan

Using GUI

Navigate to your Exchange Control Panel then choose in the left menu “Unified Messaging” then under UM Dial Plans click the + sign

Fill the information by giving it a name, choose your organization Extension schema (3 digits, 4 digits or whatever)

  • In the Dial plan type, choose SIP URI
  • Make sure you using “Secured” under VOIP security mode
  • Put your country code

Click Save

When creating a UM Dial plan, a UM policy is created by default for it, you can double click the newly dial plan which you will see the associated UM policy inside

Double click the UM Policy again and it will open the configuration window for you

Using PowerShell

This is easier to use and to the point, if you not familiar with PowerShell, stop here, go to your to-do list, go to number one and put the following

  • Learn Basic PowerShell

So anyway use following two command lines to create and configure UM dial plan and UM policy

New-UMDialPlan -Name <dialplan name> -VoIPSecurity “Secured” -NumberOfDigitsInExtension <no. of Digits> -URIType “SipName” -CountryOrRegionCode <Country Code>

Set-UMDialPlan <dialplan name> -ConfiguredInCountryOrRegionGroups “Anywhere,*,*,*” -AllowedInCountryOrRegionGroups “Anywhere”

Configure the UM Services

Now you need to use the PowerShell to set the startup mode of the Unified Messaging to Dual

Set-UMService –Identity <Exchange Server> -Dialplans <Name of Dialplan> -UMStartupMode “Dual”

Next to allow secure communication between Exchange and Skype for business, you need to assign a Certificate to the UM services (if you did not already do that)

Use Get-Exchangecertificate command line to get list of your SSL certificates, and copy the Thumbprint of the certificate you using for OWA from before and assign to UM services

Now use the Enable-ExchangeCertificate to assign the certificate to the UM services

Enable-ExchangeCertificate -Server <server name> -Thumbprint <value> -Services “UM”

Now restart the UM services, and by this you finished configuring the UM services component of Exchange

Configure the UM Call Router

Next is configuring the UM Call Router component, use the following command line

Set-UMCallRouterSettings –Server <server name> -UMStartupMode “Dual” –DialPlans <name>

Now assign the certificate to the UMCallRouter services using the same thumbprint and the following command line

Enable-ExchangeCertificate -Server <Server Name> -Thumbprint <value> -Services “UMCallRouter”

Now restart the UM Call Router component

Configure Access Number & Auto-Attendant

Now define your Access and Auto-attendant phone numbers, on your Exchange Control Panel open your unified messaging page using the left hand menu then double click the UM dial plan you created, scroll down till you get to the Auto Attendant box and click on “+”

  • Give it a descriptive name
  • Enable it by checking the box “Create this Auto-attendant as enabled
  • Check the box “Set this Auto-attendant to respond to Voice command”
  • Put the phone number you going to use as auto-attendant number
  • Click Save

Now back to the UM Dial plan configuration page, click on “Configure”

Now press on Outlook Voice Access in the left menu and add the Access Number you want to use

Click save

Last thing to do on Exchange is to run the ExchUCUtil.ps1 script to create the gateways on Exchange side

Configure Skype for Business

I ran the Exchange UM Integration Utility on Skype for business and defined both the auto-attendant and the Access number

  • Start the OcsUMUtil located under C:Program FilesCommon FilesSkype for Business Server 2015Support
  • Click on “Load”

Now click on Add, and add the Subscriber contact

Click add again and add the Auto-attendant contact

Click ok

Once finished close the OcsUMUtil

Configure Skype for Business to use Exchange Archiving

This feature was introduced with Skype for Business release where Administrators can now configure Skype for business to archive Instant messaging and web conference transcripts using the Exchange archiving feature than using SkypeFB SQL databases.

P.S. when this feature is enabled, the archiving data is written and saved in the Purges folder in user’s mailboxes, this folder is not visible to the users but searchable using the normal search functionalities of Outlook or SharePoint.

Enable Exchange Archiving

First step is to enable exchange archiving on Skype for business server. By default, archiving is not enabled in the Global settings nor the exchange archiving, you will need to enable this using PowerShell command line

Set-CsArchivingConfiguration –identity “Global” –EnableArchiving <Value> -EnableExchangeArchiving $true

The value of EnableArchivig properties can be one of the following:

  • None: which mean you are not archiving anything
  • ImOnly: only IM session transcripts are archived
  • ImAndWebConf: will archive both IM and web conference transcripts

Using GUI, log in to Skype for business control panel and select Monitoring & Archiving from the left menu, and go to the Archiving Configuration tab

Select the global Policy and click on the Edit icon

  • Under Archiving Setting, enable archiving for the sessions you would like
  • Check the box “Exchange Server Integration” to enable the Exchange integration

When done click “Commit”

Now you need to enable the archiving on the Archiving policies and assign it to the users which is done in the normal way, nothing new here but just in case

Set-CsArchivingPolicy -Identity <PolicyName> -ArchiveInternal $True -ArchiveExternal $True

Also doing this is possible by using SkypeFB control panel

Edit the global policy or create a new one and make sure you enable the archiving for internal and external communications and don’t forget to assign the policy to the users for the archiving to actually happens.

Configure Skype for Business to use Unified Contact Store

So this is a feature that were released with Exchange 2013, by utilizing the Exchange Web Services, administrator can enable a unified contact store where users can maintain a single contacts list and have it available across SkypeFB client, Outlook and outlook on the web.

By default, user’s SkypeFB contacts are kept SkypeFB server and not in the unified contact store, to enable this integration all you need is to have server-to-server authentication setup and partner application configured (check Part-I)

So using the following PowerShell you create a new users service policy where you enable Unified contact store in it, then assign it to the users you would like to move their contacts to a unified contact store.

New-CsUserServicesPolicy -Identity “Allowed-UCS” -UcsAllowed $True

Grant the new service policy to the users you wish to enable UCS for them.

Configure high resolution photos in Skype for Business

Now last part of this guide is about enabling High resolution photos in Skype for business, for this integration to work you need to have server-to-server authentication configured and partner application (Check Part-I)

How to use it, I won’t go into details as it is already covered by other amazing MVPs out there, I recommend you check Jeff’s article about this subject where he collected all information you would need.