Posts
1. Overview This guide will walk thru creating and installing a custom Skype Room System installation image on a Surface Pro 4. There is an optional section for the creation of a custom theme as well. 2. Pre-Requisites a. Hardware The official hardware requirements can be found in this article . For my deployment, I have a Surface Pro 4 with a Core i5 processor, 4 gb RAM, and 128gb disk. The article mentions using a bootable USB key that’s at least 32gb. However, I created the install media on a 16gb key without issue. My SP4 plugs into a Logitech SmartDock for additional power and USB ports. I recommend using a USB keyboard and mouse to perform the on-screen setup once the install media is finished installing. b. Software Here is a list of files and their locations that I used to create the install media. Throughou...
I had a customer a few weeks ago that could not escalate to a conference. They were having a P2P call with someone, tried to add a third user to the conversation and received an error each time. The problem had been going on for about a week and they asked if I could take a look and see what was going on. I'll admit, I've heard of this issue before, but I had not seen it yet. I started parsing the Lync Event Log on the FE server and noticed a lot of the following SQL Errors: The 'General' tab included more data, but here is the most pertinent thing we need to focus on: The transaction log for database 'rtcxds' is full due to 'LOG_BACKUP'. I'm not a SQL expert, but shouldn't there be a way to increase or decrease the size of the logs? Well, there is, but it turned out to be more convuluted than I had hoped. I logged onto the BE SQL server where the rtcxds database is located. I right clicked on the database, went to 'Propert...
I had Skype for Busiess EV customer contact me saying one of their call center agents couldn't call a delear in Guatemala (For reference, the customer has multiple dealrs throughout Centeral America.). I knew the customer has international dialing capabilities through their PSTN Carrier, so not being able to call one country in Central America seemed odd to me. Why was their PSTN Carrier singling out Guatemala? I started troubleshooting by making sure the user with the failed calls was EV enabled and also had a voice policy in Skype for Business that allowed for international calls. (Yes, I know, it seems kinda basic, but I prefer to start with the easy things and work my way up.) Upon investigation, the user was EV enabled and setup properly in Skype for Buisnesss to allow for international dialing. I asked if other international calls were working and the user said 'yes'. The problem didn't appear to be in Skype for Business. I also had another user confirm that t...
I've had multiple clients approach me with the same scenario in Skype for Business/Lync 2013: <NAME> in <DEPARTMENT> wants to change the caller id for their individual DID or extension to a different number. For clients that have a Sonus 1k/2k SBC, this is very easy to do. Transformation rules on the Sonus 1k/2k SBC allow for manipulating the 'Calling Party Address/Number' field. The 'Calling Party' is who initiates the call. If we change the calling party from the users number to the number they want, that addresses their issue. First, we create a transformation rule. Below are examples for both an e164 number and an extension: Extenstion Example E164 Example Lastly, we'll also need to include a 'catch all' rule. The 'catch all' rule catches any other number and passes it through without manipulation. Below is an example: Catch All Example After our rules are created, we'll need to make sure they are order...
A customer contacted me with an inbound call issue. Inbound calls were taking at least 30 seconds to connect, and some would not connect at all. While I've experienced call delays before, the root cause was different each time I investigated. Since the issue was happening so frequently, I took a SIP trace from their Audio Codes Gateway. I noticed the following pattern in the SIP trace: INVITE SIP 183 INVITE SIP 183 CANCEL 200 OK If everything was working correctly, *I should* see the SIP 183 answered with a '200 OK' rather than an additional SIP 183. My initial thought was, "Why isn't the carrier answering my 183 message?" I spoke with an engineer from the carrier (AT&T) and he provided logs from his end showing they were, in fact, answering my SIP 183. The customer side, however, was not sending the SIP 200 back to them. What's going on here? The carrier's log proved they weren't causing the problem. The other time I've exper...
Taking the 70-333 Exam soon? If so, you'll want to check out this book written by Michael Tressler (aka, flinchbot ). I found this book super helpful when preparing for my exam (which I passed in April 2017, by the way, with a 975 😉) and it does a really good job of covering all aspects of Enterprise Voice. Hands on experience is the best teacher, in my opinion, but I would recommend using this book as a study/reference guide. Time to study for my Office 365 Exams. MCSE Productivity , here I come!
Well, this is odd. I was helping a customer in an Office 365 Hybrid Deployment. They decided to go with S4B on prem and Exchange in the cloud. The customer tested scheduling a S4B Meeting and noticed the following: ( Dial-In Conferencing Numbers are blacked out, but trust me, they're the same. ;) ) Why is this a thing? I wasn't for certain, however, my best guess was this was either being caused by the O365 Pro Plus Client or Exchange. Time to troubleshoot! I checked S4B Technet Forums and found a post from another user regarding this same issue. I followed the advice in the post above and had the customer schedule a meeting through OWA rather than through their client. Low and behold, scheduling the meeting through OWA listed the dial-in conferencing number once. Alright, now I'm getting somewhere, but what's going on with the client? The customer was running the most recent O365 First Release Deferred Channel Version (v 1701 as of June 2017)...
