Create and manage a Skype for Business talk room
If you’ve been given authorization by your Skype for Business administrator, you can quickly get embarked creating your own persistent talk rooms. Here’s how to create, manage, and disable talk rooms.
Create a fresh talk room
In the Skype for Business main window, on the Talk Rooms tab, choose Add a Room > Create a Talk Room.
Note: If you don’t see these options, your Skype for Business administrator hasn’t given you permission to create and manage talk rooms.
On the My Rooms page that opens, choose Create A Fresh Room.
Name your fresh talk room
When you create a talk room, give it a unique and descriptive name.
On the Create a room page, in the Room Name section, come in a name.
Note: A room name can contain up to two hundred fifty six alphabetical, numeric, or special characters, including spaces, in any combination.
Choose Check Names to make sure it’s not already being used, and choose a different name if prompted.
Note: If you determine to switch the room name later, the fresh name will be displayed for you and the room’s members and followers going forward. It’s a good idea to find an suitable name to commence with and then stick with it. Switching a room name can create confusion for users who’ve set up notifications or added your room as a Beloved.
Write a talk room description
When you create your talk room, add a description of the purpose. Keep your description brief and write it so that it helps others determine whether to request membership and whether to set up notifications to keep tabs on what’s being discussed in the room. You can switch the description at any time.
On the Create a room page, in the Description section, write an explanation (256 characters maximum) of the room’s purpose.
Select a privacy setting
There are three privacy settings. Every Skype for Business talk room has one.
On the Create a room page, in the Privacy section, choose a privacy setting—Open, Closed, or Secret—to control who can find and participate in a talk room.
Anyone can find (via search) this room, open it, and read and write in (post to) it. Open rooms have no “membership” as such.
Non-members can find this room and see who is a member, but only members can open the room and read or post to it. (This is the default setting.)
To join a closed room, the user must ask a manager of the room to be added to the members list. The room card identifies the talk room managers.
Non-members can’t find this room or its room card, learn who has membership in the room, or read or post to it.
You can switch the privacy setting for a room you manage at any time.
Add web-based applications to your talk room
Depending on how your organization has determined to use Skype for Business persistent talk, you might have access to useful web-based applications that can make the room a more productive place for your members. If there are web-based applications available for your room, you’ll see an Add-in heading in the Create a room window.
On the Create a room page, in the Add-in section, use the drop-down list to choose the web-based application you want to use.
Select categories for your talk room
A Skype for Business talk room “category” is a collection of room characteristics that, for convenience, can be applied to several rooms. A real estate stiff, for example, might find it useful to set up a category of rooms specifically for the sales team, another category for the legal department, and another for the executive team. Each room category also might have distinct policies about records retention and a required privacy setting. All rooms that participate in that room category would inherit those characteristics.
The room-category concept affects room membership as well as settings. When persistent talk is very first installed, your Skype for Business administrator creates a list of potential talk room participants. After this list is set up, the administrator might create subcategories in a talk room category based on organizational needs. The scope of a particular category identifies all the users and groups that can be members of a talk room in the original category. If the administrator sets the scope of a room category to contoso.com, for example, any group or user at Contoso can be added as a member of the rooms in that category. If the scope is set to Sales, only groups and users in the Sales distribution list can be added as members.
On the Create a room page, in the Category section, choose the category whose settings and membership pool you want to use. Only the categories that are available to you as a room manager are listed.
Significant: The Skype for Business administrator can lock most settings of a given room category, which prevents you and other talk room managers from switching the settings. Your administrator can also limit the pool of users from which you and other talk room managers can select members. If you come across limitations (that is, you find you can’t switch a room setting or you can’t add a specific user as a member of your room), check with the Skype for Business administrator to see if there are limitations in place.
Add or eliminate talk room managers
As the manager of a room you’ve created, you can add others as managers to share management duties. Managers must emerge in the pool of potential members for the room category that your room belongs to.
Your fresh managers won’t automatically become room members—you’ll have to add them as members.
On the Create a room page, in the Managers section, type the names of the managers. Use a semicolon to separate names—for example, Scott Oveson; Molly Dempsey.
Note: Managers, like a room manager, can add room members and edit some room settings.
Choose Check Names to confirm that Skype for Business can identify the people you’ve added as managers.
Add or eliminate talk room members
Rooms that have an open privacy setting don’t require or permit membership, but closed or secret rooms do. As the room manager, you can control who can join the closed or secret rooms you create. You’re automatically a member of any closed or secret room you create.
You can add members as you see fit. But anyone you add must show up in the pool of potential members for the room category that your room belongs to. And you also can eliminate members from the room.
On the Create a room page, in the Managers section, type the names of people to invite to be room members. Use a semicolon to separate names.
Choose Check Names to confirm that Skype for Business can identify the people you’ve added as members.
Final steps and confirm your talk room settings
Choose Inherit invitation setting from category to accept the corresponding setting of the category your room is identified with and notifications will or won’t showcase up in each member’s Fresh list (just like a contact notification) on the Talk Rooms tab in the Skype for Business main window.
Choose No invitations sent to members to make sure contacts aren’t alerted that they’ve been made members of your room.
After you’ve selected the adequate options, choose Create.
Manage a talk room
Who gets to manage a talk room?
You can manage a Skype for Business talk room under these conditions:
You’ve created a talk room, which, by default, makes you that talk room’s manager.
You’ve been granted room manager permissions by the Skype for Business administrator.
You’ve been named as a talk room manager by the person who created the room.
You have talk room administrator permissions, which lets you manage any talk room in the Skype for Business environments you control.
If you’re the manager of a talk room, you’ll see your name in the Managers box on the talk room’s Room card.
As a talk room manager, you control most of the settings of the talk rooms you manage. In addition to creating your own persistent talk rooms, you can switch their privacy levels, assign extra responsibilities to room managers, and add or eliminate members.
You also can switch the names and descriptions of the rooms you manage. And if your administrator has made more web-based applications available, you can add them to the room environment. Ultimately, you can disable a room to lock out members.
Here is a list of deeds and what you can and can’t do as a room manager.