Communicate from Skype for business 2015 to external contacts

Skype for business is one of Office 365's most widely used products. In addition to including Skype features, it also includes extra functionality as it can record meetings / presentations.

When we want to have a meeting with a colleague, supplier, friend, ... who has an e-mail account in Office 365, digital address and communication is done, even if it does not belong to the organization.

But when the contact does not have Office 365 Skype for business informs that the contact is unknown and message / communication cannot be sent to due to company policy.
When we want to have a meeting with a colleague, supplier, friend, ... who has an electronic account in Office 365, just digital the address and make the communication, even if it does not belong to the organization.

But when the contact does not have Office 365 Skype for business informs that the contact is unknown and message / communication cannot be sent to due to company policy.

Does this mean that we can only communicate to contacts who only have Office 365?
No!!!

There are two ways to add your organization's external contacts to Skype for business:

• Skype external ID
• External e-mail address

Why two forms of identification?

All Microsoft services work through a Federation system, and all contacts must have a valid address that uses the Session Initiation Protocol (SIP). This protocol allows to establish communication through the IP protocol. These are the reasons for using Microsoft services domains.

For Microsoft accounts that do not use microsoft domains (hotmail.com, live.com, outlook.com, ...) in their email address, Microsoft internally replaces them for two domain types. In old accounts uses the domain skypeids.net, currently uses the msn.com domain.

E-Mail address	Skype	Microsoft Account	SIP Account
Microsoft Domains	Test	test@live.com	test@live.com
Not Microsoft Domain  (old accounts)	Test	test@gmail.com	test@skypeids.net
Not Microsoft Domain (actual accounts)	Test	test@gmail.com	test(gmail.com)@msn.com

Summarizing all old accounts use the format <username>@skypeids.net all new accounts use <e-mail ID> (e-mail domain)@msn.com.

Searching external accounts via Skype ID

All Skype accounts have a live ID and can be viewed at https://web.skype.com/en/

To search with the identification is used: <Identification> @ skypeids.net.

If you add this type of contact already will inform that it is offline.
But it can only communicate after receiver accepts the request for contact.

If the recipient does not receive a contact request, then the Microsoft account is not old and does not support the skypeids.net domain. So, it is necessary to search by external e-mail address.



How to search / communicate by external e-mail address

The search form is the same but instead of using the full e-mail address you must search as follows.
Instead of test@domain.com it will be test(domain.com)@msn.com.
What is the best method?

Depending on the contact type is an old account then you should use the format <username> @ skypeids.net. If that does not work, then you must use <e-mail> (email domain) @ msn.com.

Skype for business 2016
If you use Skype for business 2016 you can already search the Skype directory.