14 DAY TRIAL // We’ve known for a while that Microsoft was planning to kill off Skype for Business Online, and now the time has finally come.
This weekend, the Redmond-based software giant officially retired the service, finally making the migration to Microsoft Teams the only choice for companies who are still relying on Skype for online communications.
Microsoft has warned on several occasions that the end of Skype for Business Online is approaching, and on July 31, the company finally knocked the service offline.
The transition to Microsoft Teams, however, isn’t as painful as you’d expect it to be, as IT pros are being provided with tools to migrate meetings data and contacts to teams as easily as possible.
“Organizations that have not yet upgraded to Teams Only will be scheduled for Microsoft assisted upgrades to Teams to help with last-mile technical elements of the transition. Scheduling notifications are sent to tenant admins within the Microsoft 365 Message Center and Teams admin center 90 days before the date of the assisted upgrade. Even after scheduling, customers may still self-upgrade prior to the assisted upgrade date to better control the timing of their upgrade experience,” Microsoft explains.
Smooth transition to Teams
These assisted upgrades to Teams are already underway, and worth knowing is the companies that are waiting for the process to start can still use Skype for Business Online.
This is only a temporary workaround until the move to Microsoft Teams is complete.
“The duration of the upgrade will vary by volume of users and the characteristics of the deployment. In most cases, users within a tenant will be upgraded within 24 hours of the start of the upgrade. During this time, end users will still have access to Skype for Business Online functionality. Once the upgrade has completed and users sign out of Skype for Business Online, they'll start using Teams for messaging, meetings, and calling. Post-upgrade, all new online users will be added in Teams Only mode,” Microsoft notes.