Skype for Business on Mac updated with several essential features

Microsoft today released an update for Skype for Business on Mac to Insiders in both Fast and Slow rings. This v16.13.168 update comes with several new features like the ability to have status updates from your Outlook calendar, the ability to see your missed IM messages, the ability to manage people in meetings and calls and more. Find the full list below.

• Status from your Outlook calendar: Skype for Business will automatically update your status to indicate when you are in a meeting or busy based on your Outlook calendar. You can turn this off by clearing Update my status based on my calendar information in General page of Preferences dialog box.
• Manage people in your meetings and calls: When in a meeting or call, you can easily mute someone’s microphone, make them a presenter or attendee, or remove them from the meeting. In the People list, select the user and then select the More Options (…) button.
• Know when you are offline: You’ll see a notification at the top of the window when you aren’t connected to the Skype for Business server, and the buttons to start conversations and join meetings will be disabled.
• See your missed IM messages: When you miss an IM conversation, you can see the message text in the chat window even if your organization has disabled automatic archiving of IM messages.
• Monitor the quality of your audio and video calls: If you are on macOS Sierra or later, your admin can monitor the Quality of Service (QoS) of your audio and video calls to keep your service running smoothly.

In addition to the above new features, this update also comes with following minor improvements.

• Fixed an issue that prevented a user from seeing a security desk notification when they dial 911
• Fixed an issue where IM messages were not displayed in the order in which they were sent
• Improved the performance of opening chat conversations
• Changed the position of notifications so they do not cover action buttons when you leave a call or meeting
• Improved the performance of displaying the Devices window
• Improved the visibility of Next Slide and Previous Slide buttons when sharing a PowerPoint file in a meeting
• Fixed issues around sending IMs when a presenter enables or disables all IM in a meeting
• Fixed an issue with how HTTP proxy passwords were stored
• Fixed an issue that caused users with an Alternate ID to be prompted to sign in multiple times.

Source: Microsoft