What’s the difference between Skype and Skype for Business?

Skype is great for home and work and lets you connect with millions of people to grow your business. If you want to use Skype at work, you have two options – either use the same Skype that you use at home or use Skype for Business.

 The Skype that you use at home is great for smaller businesses of up to 20 employees. It is free to use, unless you want to buy credit to make calls to landlines and mobiles.

 Skype for Business lets you add up to 250 people to online meetings, gives you enterprise-grade security, allows you to manage employee accounts, and is integrated into your Office apps.

 

Skype For Business Plans & Features

Microsoft Lync is Microsoft Skype For Business

Plans & Features of Skype for Business

Features SFB Plan 1 SBF Plan 2
Clients for Skype for Business Online    
Skype for Business Full No Yes
Skype for Business Basic yes No
Lync 2013 Basic yes No
Skype for Business Windows Store app Yes Yes
Lync for Mac 2011 Yes Yes
Skype for Business mobile clients Yes Yes
Skype for Business Web App Yes Yes
Instant Messaging, Presence, and Contacts    
PC-to-PC IM and Presence Yes Yes
Multiparty IM and Presence Yes Yes
Contact Card Configuration Yes Yes
My Picture Configuration Yes Yes
My Picture: URL Photo Experience No No
Contact List Configuration Yes Yes
Unified Contact Store Yes Yes
Address Book Search Yes Yes
Distribution List Expansion Yes Yes
Persistent Chat No No
Photos of Sender/Receiver Yes Yes
Skype-to-Skype Audio, Video, and Media    
Desktop sharing over video-based screen sharing (VbSS) Yes Yes
Desktop and application sharing over Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) Yes Yes
File transfers Yes Yes
Video Yes Yes
Network Quality of Service (QoS) – Differentiated Services Code Point (DSCP) No No
Federation and Public IM Connectivity    
Office Communications Server 2007 R2 and Lync Server 2010 (IM, Presence, Audio, Video, Conferencing) Yes Yes
XMPP (used by Google Talk, for example) and Sametime federation No No
Skype federation Yes Yes
AOL and Yahoo! federation No No
Skype for Business Online Meetings    
Ad Hoc and Schedule Audio Conferencing Yes Yes
Ad Hoc and Schedule Video Conferencing Yes Yes
Active Speaker Video Yes Yes
H.264 Encoding and Decoding Yes Yes
Multiparty Video Yes Yes
High Definition Video or Pictures of All Attendees Yes Yes
Presenter Controls Yes Yes
Participant Selected View Yes Yes
OneNote Sharing Yes Yes
Ad Hoc and Schedule Web Conferencing Yes Yes
Skype for Business meeting dial-in via Audio Conferencing (first party) No5 No5
Skype for Business meeting dial-in via Certified Audio Conferencing Provider (ACP) Yes Yes
PowerPoint Sharing Yes Yes
File Transfer Yes Yes
Whiteboard and Annotations Yes Yes
PowerPoint Upload Yes Yes
Polling Yes Yes
Client-Side Recording and Playback Yes Yes
Server-Side Recording and Playback No No
Meeting Lobby Yes Yes
Skype Meeting Broadcast Yes Yes
Guest Access to Skype Meetings with Skype for Business Web App Yes Yes
Schedule Skype for Business Meetings in Outlook Yes Yes
Schedule Skype for Business Meetings in Outlook on Behalf of Others (Delegation) Yes Yes
Schedule Skype for Business Meetings with Web Scheduler Yes Yes
Schedule Online Meetings in Outlook Web App Yes Yes
Outlook Delegation for Scheduling Meetings Yes Yes
Create public meetings with static meeting IDs from Outlook No No
Voice calling    
Auto attendants No No
Busy options No No
Branch office survivability No No
Call admission control No No
Call answer/initiate Yes Yes
Call delegation No No
Call forwarding and simultaneous ring No No
Call history Yes Yes
Call hold/retrieve Yes Yes
Call park No No
Call transfer (blind, consult, and mobile) Yes Yes
Caller ID Yes Yes
Call waiting Yes Yes
Camp-on Yes Yes
Clients for PC, Mac, and mobile Yes Yes
Device switching Yes Yes
Distinctive ringing No Yes
Do-not-disturb routing Yes Yes
Emergency calling – static location No No
Emergency calling – dynamic location No No
Enterprise calendar call routing Yes Yes
Extension dialing No No
Group call pickup No No
Hunt groups/call queues and treatment No No
Integrated dial-pad No Yes
Location-based routing No No
Music on hold Yes Yes
Outbound DID manipulation No No
Private line No No
Qualified IP desk phones No Yes
Shared line appearance No No
Skype and federated calling Yes Yes
Team calling No Yes
Video call monitor Yes Yes
Voicemail No No
Calling Plans (Domestic Calling Plan, with required add-on purchase) No Yes3
Calling Plans (International Calling Plan, with required add-on purchase) No Yes3
Communication Credits No6 Yes
Skype for Business Voice Yes Yes
Security and Archiving    
IM and Media Encryption Yes Yes
IM and File Filtering No No
Client Version Control Yes Yes
IM Content Archiving No2 Yes
Conference Content Archiving No2 Yes
Application Sharing, and Desktop Sharing Archiving No No
User Level Archiving Configuration No2 Yes
Login Trace Files Yes Yes
Customer Key for Office 3658 No No
Exchange and SharePoint Interoperability    
Presence Interoperability with Exchange Server Yes Yes
Presence Interoperability with Exchange Online Yes Yes
Unified Messaging interoperability with Exchange Server No No
Unified Messaging interoperability with Exchange Online No No
Outlook Web App interoperability Yes Yes
Archiving interoperability with Exchange Server No No
Archiving interoperability with Exchange Online Yes Yes
Skill Search with SharePoint Server No No
Skill Search with SharePoint Online No No
Skype for Business Online Administration and Management    
Microsoft Office 365 portal Yes Yes
Microsoft Office 365 admin center Yes Yes
Skype for Business admin center Yes Yes
Windows PowerShell Yes Yes
Skype for Business Online reporting in Office 365 admin center Yes Yes
 

Add several users at the same time to Office 365

Each person on your team needs a user account before they can sign in and access Office 365 services, such as email and Office. If you have a lot of people, you can add their accounts all at once from an Excel spreadsheet or other file saved in CSV format.

To add multiple users to Office 365

1. Download this sample spreadsheet and open it in Excel.

Your spreadsheet needs to include the same column headings as the sample one. It also needs to include values for the user name (like bob@contoso.com) and a display name (like Bob Kelly) for each user. To leave other fields blank, enter a space plus a comma in the field as shown in the following figure.

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If you have people working in different countries, you’ll need to create one spreadsheet for users in each country. For example, one spreadsheet that lists everyone who works in the US, and another that lists everyone who works in Japan. This is because the availability of Office 365 services varies by region.

2. Sign in to Office 365 with your work or school account.

3. Select the app launcher icon clip_image001in the upper-left and choose Admin.

image

 

4.Select Users > Active Users

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5. Choose clip_image001[4] as shown in the following figure.

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The Bulk add user’s wizard appears and steps you through adding a group of users to Office 365.

6. In Step 1 – Select a CSV file, specify your own spreadsheet as shown in the following figure.

clip_image002[5]

7. In Step 2 – Verification, the wizard tells you whether the content in the spreadsheet is formatted correctly.

clip_image004

1. In Step 3 – Settings, choose Allowed so that the people listed in your spreadsheet will be able to use Office 365. Also choose the country in which these people will use Office 365. Remember if some people in your organization are going to use Office 365 in a different country, create a separate spreadsheet with their names and run the Bulk add users wizard again to add them.

clip_image002[7]

2. The assign licenses page tells you how many licenses are available.

clip_image004[5]

Go to Billing in the Office 365 admin portal. After buying more licenses, you’ll have to wait a few minutes for the order to be processed and then start the Bulk add users wizard from the beginning.

If you don’t buy more licenses, accounts won’t be created for everyone listed in your spreadsheet.

In this example, we don’t buy any more licenses and continue with the Bulk add users wizard.

3. In Step 5 – Send Results, type the email addresses of the people who you want to get an email that lists all of the Office 365 user names and temporary passwords for the people in the spreadsheet.

clip_image006

The following email is sent to all the email addresses you specified in Step 5 – Send results. This email indicates which accounts were created. Notice that accounts weren’t created for some people because there weren’t enough licenses.

clip_image008

4. The final page in the Bulk add users wizard lists the user names and temporary passwords, as shown in the following figure.

clip_image010

 

Is Internet access required for Office 365?

Internet access is required to install and activate all Office 365 plans and to manage your subscription account. Internet connectivity is also required to access Office 365 cloud productivity services, including email, conferencing, IT management, and other services.
 
 
Many Office 365 plans also include the desktop version of Office, for example, Office 365 Business Premium and Office 365 Enterprise E3. One of the benefits of having the desktop version of Office applications is that you can work offline and have the confidence that the next time you connect to the Internet all your work will automatically sync, so you never have to worry about your documents being up to date. Your desktop version of Office is also automatically kept up to date and upgraded when you connect to the Internet, so you always have the latest tools to help you work. Compare Office 365 plans.
 

Will Office 365 work with my copy of Office?

Office 365 works best with the latest version of Office, Office 2010, and Office 2011 for Mac. Office 365 works with slightly limited functionality with Office 2007. If you have an earlier edition of Office, you will need to update to a newer version of Office in order to use Office 365; or you can subscribe to one of the many Office 365 plans that include the latest version of Office

In addition to getting the latest version of Office as part of your subscription, you will also get automatic updates, so your Office will always be up to date. Compare plans.

 

What is Office 365? How is it different from Microsoft Office?

“Office 365” refers to subscription plans that include access to Office applications plus other productivity services that are enabled over the Internet (cloud services), such as Skype for Business web conferencing and Exchange Online hosted email for business, and additional online storage with OneDrive and Skype world minutes for home.

Many Office 365 plans also include the desktop version of the latest Office applications, which users can install across multiple computers and devices. The Office 365 plans that are online-only are a great choice for certain business needs, and they are compatible with desktop versions of the latest version of Office, Office 2010, Office 2007 (with slightly limited functionality), Office 2011 for Mac, and Office 2008 for Mac.

All Office 365 plans are paid for on a subscription basis, monthly or annually.

“Microsoft Office” is the name we still use for our familiar productivity software. Office suites have traditionally included applications such as Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook. All the new Office suites (for example, Office Standard 2013) include the latest versions of these applications. These suites can be installed on only one PC and do not come with any cloud-based services included in Office 365.

 

What is the difference between Office 365 ProPlus and Office Professional Plus 2013?

Both Office Professional Plus 2013 and Office 365 ProPlus deliver the same application experiences. However, Office Professional Plus 2013 is a traditional Office installation that is tied to the computers it is installed on, and it is available through volume licensing only. A user-based service, Office 365 ProPlus is available as a subscription.

 

What is Office 365 Pro Plus?

Office 365 ProPlus is one of the subscription service plans in the new Office. It is productivity software (including Word, PowerPoint, Excel, Outlook, OneNote, Publisher, Access, Skype for Business) that is installed on your desktop or laptop computer. Office 365 ProPlus is a user-based service that allows people to access Office experiences on up to 5 PCs or Macs and on their mobile devices. Traditional Office installations were tied to the computers they were installed on. Office 365 ProPlus enables flexible new deployment options that IT and/or individual users can choose from to install Office.