I use Office 365.  Probably no surprise for many, but I like the world wide access and simplicity.  However, since leaving Microsoft I found having to Skype people a little frustrating if I wanted to host a multi-party conference call, especially if some people need to dial in using a phone, rather than Lync from a PC.  To this end I ended up purchasing a certified solution from PGi.

PGi charge me per minute per person and I have dial in and out capability, so I can dial people to join the call and people can dial in with numbers for most countries around the world.  Perfect, just like the solution I had when I worked at Microsoft.

Except it didn’t work.  People could dial the conference number and hear each other and others could be connected via VoIP, but the two groups could not hear each other. Not the solution I wanted.  I ran the DNS tests that Microsoft asks for and did test calls with the nice people from PGi, but nothing was showing up as the error.  Searching the internet showed various potential solutions, but nothing seemed to be working. When I tried to dial people in, I got this error here:

Eventually, I came across a post that said it was a licensing problem and the users needed to be un-licensed, left for 15 minutes, then re-licensed.  I tried this and hey-presto, it all worked. So here is the fix I used:

Go to http://office.microsoft.com and sign in with your office 365 credentials

Select users and groups from the admin screen

Select the user you want to enable and press the edit link that looks like a pencil

Now press licenses on the left hand side

Remove the tick from Lync Online (P1) and select save.  Repeat this for each user that needs to have access to Lync Voice

Now, have a nice coffee, leave it at least 5 minutes, but 15 is advised

Now go back, do the same again for the users, but re-select Lync Online (P1) and save the changes for each user.

For me, I was able to now schedule a meeting and it all works – hopefully the same will work for you.  If not, Microsoft will want you to check your DNS settings and other things, but for me at least, this was the solution.

Thanks

David