IT Professionals:
The email below will be sent to all Skype for Business clients on August 3 notifying them of a change to location settings. Some clients may see location information appear in Skype for Business as we ramp up to Thursday morning’s transition.
For clients who work on campus, the change should happen automatically with no updates needed. For those who are remote or use the VPN, clients will need to enter their address manually to ensure 911 calls are delivered to the nearest Public Safety Answering Point (PSAP), which will enable a timely response.
While testing, support agents noticed inconsistencies with the Skype for Business software on MacOS. These inconsistencies should not prevent clients from using Skype for Business, but we recommend anyone off campus use another device (e.g. cell phone or landline) to call 911.
–IT Community Partnerships on behalf of Campus Communications Infrastructure
~~~~~ Text of Direct Mailing ~~~~~
Greetings,
As a Skype for Business Enterprise Voice user at IU, you should be aware of an upcoming change to the location field in your Skype for Business client. Due to federal mandates, these changes are necessary to improve location information when making 911 calls from your Skype client.
Effective August 4, 2022, the location information will be automatically updated when you log in to your Skype for Business client from on campus. When off campus or logging on to a VPN, you will need to enter your address manually to ensure 911 calls are delivered to the nearest Public Safety Answering Point (PSAP), which will enable a timely response. If your location is not set, you may see an alert on your client that will look like the first (left) example pictured below.
Note: If you are using macOS, your experience may look slightly different. While testing, support agents noticed some inconsistencies with the Skype for Business 911 location sharing software on macOS. These inconsistencies should not prevent clients from using Skype for Business, but we recommend anyone off campus use another device (e.g. cell phone or landline) to call 911.
Please be as accurate as possible when manually entering your location information. Also, please be aware that your location information will be blocked to other Skype users even if “Show my location to other users” is checked. It will only be shown to emergency responders when making a 911 call from Skype for Business. If you uncheck “Show my location to other users” and have address data filled in, your client will look like the second (right) example pictured below and will still provide location information for 911 calls.
For more information go to Privacy relationships in Microsoft Skype for Business. You can also access your IU Emergency 911 Acknowledgement Statement here.
Have questions? Contact your IT Pro or campus UITS Support Center.
Best regards,
UITS Support Center