Being able to communicate with Skype users via Skype for business is fantastic – however, the interface for adding Skype users – well, is confusing.

Generally, when talking to someone and exchanging Skype details – the other person will quote their Skype name – which is fair enough – that’s how it works with Skype….

When using Skype for business, the address bar forces you to use a full SIP address format…. but, its fair to say that’s its not really clear from the UI how to add someone correctly

First up, you need to get the email address associated with their Skype account.

If this email address is a Microsoft account, such as outlook, Hotmail etc – then you can use that address.

If this email address is not a Microsoft account, its a bit whacky, the format is

user(domainname.com)@msn.com

So joe.Bloggs@contoso.com would be joe.blogs(contoso.com)@msn.com….

Hopefully Microsoft will sort this out at some stage – as its not very intuitive.