Few Simple Steps to Start Using Lync-Skype Connectivity

Microsoft Lync and Skype connectivity has been announced for messaging, voice and recently also for video calls. This enables users to reach each other in much more convenient way from their preferred tool at home or office environments. Let's have a look at how to actually connect the both as a user.

From Lync
1) To add a Skype connection, click "Add a Contact" icon.

2) Select "Add a Contact Not in My Organization" and then "Skype" in the sub-menu.

3) Type the Microsoft Account ID address of your Skype contact and click OK. As result, the contact will be added to your contact list in Lync.

From Skype
1) You must log into Skype using Microsoft account instead of Skype or Facebook ID in order to use Lync connectivity.

2) Add your Lync contact by typing the email address in Search field and clicking "Search Skype" button.

Once the address is identified, continue by clicking "Add to Contacts".

At first, your Lync contact might appear as follows in the contacts list.

Results and Tips
Connectivity might not work immediately and you can try the below tricks before inquiring IT support.
* Make sure contacts are added from both sides (Lync and Skype explained above).
* Restart Lync (log off and on) to get the contact actually enabled for communication. You can also try the same in Skype.
It might be also that Lync server administrator has not enabled connectivity with Skype.

Six Ideas for Increasing Consumption of Office 365 Investment

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Organisations of today require increasingly advanced tools for productivity and communication to serve their customers, accomplish various tasks and stay connected. Meanwhile, it may happen that companies are not aware of various capabilities in the packages or services they are to use. Technology or business decision makers need to plan in advance or facilitate more consumption of existing software or service packages to achieve higher return in investment. With this article we will start exploring ways to plan and increase package consumption in case of Office 365.

Simple Tip: Share Access to Documents Instead of Sending Files

Office 365 provides simple way to grant access (edit or view) to your folder, files and documents. This can help you not only to control permission levels to your documents, but also save a lot of space and confusion in mailboxes by having one storage place and version control system with collaborators.

Leverage Integration With Other Applications
Office 365 enables many enhanced use cases to increase productivity by integrating with other applications. For example, Lync now works with Skype contacts enabling instant messaging, voice and video calls between both.
Sales Productivity is a package solution combining Dynamics CRM Online and Office 365 in a powerful way. Integrated scenarios include, but not limited to the following.
* Internal social networking on Yammer enabling better collaboration when working on sales opportunities and other scenarios.
* Advanced sharing and administration of documents related to entities in CRM using SharePoint
* Exchange Online support for email campaigns, calendar integration etc.
* Data integration with Excel (on-premise and Office Web Apps)
* Microsoft Office mail merge for direct mail campaigns
* Data analysis in Excel, Power BI

Selecting The Right Plan for Business Needs (Sizing)
Office 365 has various plans to select the right solution components for organisations to match with their actual requirements. For example,  some workers are without a desk or office, such as shift or retail staff, or any workers who use a shared PC. Office 365 kiosk plans are designed to provide services to improve communication and collaboration for these workers without investing into other capabilities which are not used.

Explore New Releases
As Office 365 is evolving and new capabilities are released on monthly basis, explore what business value they can bring. Examples of past updates include - enhancements of Office Web Apps, Microsoft Office for iPad, mailbox size increase etc.

Align Consumption With Timeline of Projects
Deployment and migration for Office 365 or its separate products such as Exchange Online, SharePoint etc. require planning, allocation of resources leading to some need for project management and scheduling. It might be a good idea acquiring the new capabilities while making sure the actual ability to implement and at least have a rough plan to deploy them.

Explore Possibilities with Free Training Resources
You can always learn new things and nowadays a lot of resources are for free. Getting training in Office 365 and learning  ways to use it is available for free at least in English. Here is a good list of available free assets.

Introduction to Omni-channel Retailing and Single Platform Approach: Case of Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 for Retail

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This article introduces the basic ideas behind Omni-channel concept, explains advantages of adopting a single platform approach as business solution and reviews key retail capabilities of Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 R3.

Requirement for Omni-channel Approach and System Readiness
Retail is one of the industries experiencing impactful changes. It has expanded from traditional brick-and-mortar to call centers, e-commerce and continuing to shift into social and mobile spaces. One of the new industry buzzwords is Omni-channel retailing (where the word “Omni” stands for “All”). It is retail marketing discipline focused on seamless approach to the customer experience through all available shopping and interaction channels - physical stores, kiosks, call-centers, Web sites, social networks, mobile and even TV and radio can be considered here. This approach means tracking and managing customers, their transactions and experiences across all channels. Unless Omni-channel is successfully adopted, it is not a surprise if a customer is better educated of the latest company offerings than sales staff in a store by learning from their e-commerce site . Furthermore, customer can expect to buy online but pick-up at a store. It means that all retail teams shall have the same understanding, readiness and information from systems available in their roles. Customer will expect to have the same great brand experience in both - the physical world of stores and online. Merchandise and campaigns are expected to bring the same value and experience in all touch points with the customer and not differ by a channel.
As the business technology advances, retailers often end-up with separate systems and multiple vendors for their Line of Business (LOB) solutions to be coordinated and integrated. For example, in-store POS systems, separate solution for call-center, and another platform for e-commerce, native mobile apps etc. These front-end solutions also have to link with back-office (financials, SCM, warehouse etc.) to provide seamless customer experience. Supply chain visibility becomes even more relevant in Omni-channel model since merchandise is now a customer centric as opposed to channel oriented. In not so distant future, a retailer might even like to improve customer service whereby warehouse staff is notified as soon as customer enters a store and triggers communication with a nearby beacon device. More about beacons here.

Approach based on Many LOB Systems
Depending on business strategy and existing IT landscape, a retailer could choose updating and extending their often distinct existing systems and adding new LOB packages to keep up with the latest Omni-channel and industry requirements. At first glance, this sort of gradual approach could seem less risky compared to large overall platform changes like implementing Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system with integrated retail functionality. The “Big bang” approach is often avoided due to challenges and dependencies associated with large implementation projects. Meanwhile, the downside of having many LOB packages is enabling integration and middleware among all front-end technologies and their linkage to the back-office requiring investments into analysis, interface development, handling data-integrity as more packages are added, modified, extended or upgraded.

Single Platform Approach
Alternatively to handling many LOB packages, a retailer can consider adopting a single, end-to-end business platform, which can support majority of requirements, require minimal integration, provides extensibility and offers a road map into the future. Integrated ERP for retail approach shall provide one solution for back-office areas such as SCM, finance and warehousing as well as enable centralized data management. Retailer shall be able to manage merchandising, catalogs, run POS and various sales channels including e-commerce, call-centers and have variety of CRM functions. Modern ERP solution for retail should enable Omni-channel capabilities possible for business and united technological platform that IT can support.

Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 R3 ERP in Retail
Besides the back-office support (finance, SCM, warehousing etc.), Dynamic AX currently offers the following architectural components and functionality in retail as part of one ERP package while not being limited only to these features.

Retail HQ
Retail HQ module allows to configure and administer retail channels as brick & mortar stores, call centers and online stores. Retailer can manage assortments and product selections offered at the stores based on various criteria like region, demographics etc. Retail workers can be assigned roles and privileges. The module allows to manage kits, catalog of products attached to channels with expiry dates control if necessary, pricing, discount, and promotion functionality. Replenishment requirements are also supported with push, cross-docking and replenishment rules. Loyalty program management is available as well as gift card management.
Inquiries functionality provides data on retail transactions, sales, posted statements etc. Periodic tasks include data updates and technical level communication with retail channels.

Retail POS (traditional and modern)
Dynamic AX for Retail provides Point of Sales (POS) program built on .Net framework. POS administrator can customize look and feel - font color graphics of the user interface.
POS application can be role tailored. Store manager can access store reports and real-time sales data. POS solution allows to processes sales orders and codes and cash draw. It provides bar codes, printing of receipts, amount and tax calculations, shift close, gift cards, loyalty transactions and other functions. From back-office perspective, it proves inventory receipting, reporting and stock count.
Along with traditional POS, new in Dynamics AX 2012 R3 is Modern POS app for PCs, tablets and smartphones which allows to process sales transactions, orders and daily operations including some inventory management within the store. It can also be used in conversations with customer - clienteling using product catalog details and Bing maps integration for store locations etc. Modern POS must connect to Microsoft Dynamics AX Retail server which performs business logic and processing.

E-Commerce and Social Features
Online store is one of the retail channels published on SharePoint site from Dynamics AX. Categories and hierarchies are driven out of Dynamic AX and mapped to other channels to enable consistency. Functionality includes shopping card capability, real-time inventory updates, sharing on social networks directly from Web site, pick-up at the store, map integration with Bing to find store and many other solutions.

Commerce Data Exchange (CDX) 
Channel database (or store database) holds data that is required for retail transactions while master data is sent to channels from Dynamics AX database. CDX is a synchronization service that transmits data among head office, stores and channels. Data distribution is asynchronous while in some scenarios require real time communication between Dynamics AX and the channel which is also supported in CDM architecture.

Commerce Run Time (CRT) 
The Microsoft Dynamics AX CRT enables multi-channel commerce capability and provides retail content and services in a scalable way. CRT addresses the requirement to manage different channels with same tool via same logic and integration. It can also serve to innovate with new capabilities on the same platform.

Enterprise Portal for Retail
The Web portal and can be set up for access over the Internet to serve retail team for sales reporting, inventory monitoring, receiving and picking. Retail employees can also view retail products and related detailed information as well as access read-only price adjustments and discounts. Various sales reports, such as sales by hour, worker, store, performance by product, sales or retail category are available. Furthermore, staff can perform stock account over the Internet, receive purchase or transfer orders and complete outgoing transfer orders

Retail Hardware Station
Retail Hardware Station is another novelty in Dynamics AX 2012 R3 providing services for Modern POS clients, peripherals as printers, payment devices to communicate with Dynamics AX.

Why I Really Like Skype on Xbox One?

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While not being a serious gamer, I bought my Xbox One with Kinect quite soon after its release. In fact, gaming takes only less than 5% of my Xbox usage time while Skype accounts for around 40%. Here are the reasons why Skype on Xbox is really cool and I could not find anything close to this rich experience in other apps for communication or gaming.

Immersive Experience and Convenience in Living Room
The first obvious advantage of using Skype with Xbox is possibility to have large screen and convenience in living room as opposed to Skype and other similar apps on desktop PCs or mobile phones. One can enjoy using Xbox Skype with video while relaxing in sofa or even moving around the room. This all enabled with the same familiar user interface and navigation from Skype. For me it gives immersive and close communication with friends and family members abroad, thousands of miles away without feeling the great distances and coping with small screens in PCs, tablets and smartphones. In fact, Skype on Xbox is also comparable to Telepresence - expensive conferencing tool with large screens found in many executive offices around the world.


Auto Zoom
Kinect camera can zoom into speaker automatically and amazingly in the right context during increased activity, such as  speaking or moving around the room. Once your friend or family member joins you nearby on sofa or elsewhere, the Kinect camera can automatically detect the change and broadcast full family of participants on the screen. No desktop PC or mobile based software has this capability and experience in general use.

"Xbox Call" + Name
If user likes to use voice for giving commands to Skype for calling, it is also possible - say "Xbox Call" and name your contact in Skype favorites (works from anywhere in Xbox). This is similar to familiar experience on Cortana for Windows phone and Siri on iPhone, but available now on TV console.

Call Landline and Mobile Phones from Your TV
Sure, technically speaking it is Xbox One console, but the user experience is as calling from TV.

One Service, Many Devices
Skype is probably one of the best cases by Microsoft enabling its service and device strategy where data and user experience is integrated across mobile, PCs and console connected to TV. Furthermore, now Skype can be used to communicate with Microsoft Lync users, but more about that next time.