Skype for Business Online support in Outlook on the web

Important

Skype for Business Online operated by 21Vianet in China will be retired on October 1, 2023. If you haven't upgraded your Skype for Business Online users yet, they will be automatically scheduled for an assisted upgrade. If you want to upgrade your organization to Teams yourself, we strongly recommend that you begin planning your upgrade path today. Remember that a successful upgrade aligns technical and user readiness, so be sure to leverage our upgrade guidance as you navigate your journey to Teams.

Skype for Business Online, excluding the service operated by 21Vianet in China, was retired on July 31, 2021.

Outlook on the web (Outlook Web App) in Microsoft 365 or Office 365 offers a basic Skype for Business web client from the navigation bar. This basic client is available for Online users whose admin hasn't configured a vanity URL for their Microsoft 365 and Office 365. As long as the user's account is online and doesn't have a vanity URL, they'll still see the experience even if their organization has some user accounts that are homed on-premises. Users who have user accounts on-premises (whether they have a vanity URL or not) or are managed by Microsoft will see the Lync experience in the Outlook web app.

The following table summarizes the different setups that you may have and the web client that is used.

User account is located Vanity URL is configured or there is a dedicated organization Skype for Business or Lync Experience?
Online No Skype for Business web experience
Online Yes Lync web experience
Hybrid but homed online No Skype for Business web experience
Hybrid but homed online Yes Lync web experience
Hybrid but homed on-premises No Lync web experience
Hybrid but homed on-premises Yes Lync web experience
Pure on-premises No Lync web experience
Pure on-premises Yes Lync web experience

Set up Skype for Business Online

Let Skype for Business users add Skype contacts