In-Call QoE Reports in Skype for Business

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When a Lync or Skype for Business user is in a call, the client is continually capturing call quality data that is invaluable in helping diagnose call issues. There are lots of metrics that are recorded, like round-trip times, network jitter, packet loss and even things like "Insufficient CPU event ratio" that indicates the call quality was affected by a heavily loaded processor.

Prior to Skype for Business, all these call quality metrics were stored by the client until the end of the call, at which point it would send a summary report of this data via SIP.  This summary included minimum, maximums and averages for some metrics (such as round-trip times), and just an average for many others.  If you do a trace with OCSLogger, look for a SERVICE message after the final BYE message.  There will be one for each participant (assuming both users are in the same company). The SERVICE message body contains the quality report in XML format and looks something like this:

There's a LOT more than what I've shown here, but you get the idea

The Lync Server takes this information and sends it on to the monitoring database (QoEMetrics for those of you keeping track), at which point it's available for review.  It's because of this behaviour that you won't see any information about the call in Lync Monitoring Reports until the call is done.

For people who use Lync Monitoring Reports, having to wait for the end of the call before you see any data is a minor annoyance. For users of 3rd party tools such as Event Zero's UC Commander (full disclosure, I work for EZ), it's highly annoying. Tools such as UC Commander are able to see calls that are active at any given moment, which is great, but since the client holds the quality report tightly until the call is done, it is unable to provide much information about the call until the client sends off the report.  UC Commander makes sure to let you know this in a big red banner when you're looking at details on an active call (see below).

"Uh, yeah...I'm calling you about that.....accounting.....thing. It would be easier to explain in person."

Skype for Business changes things so that Skype for Business clients can report call quality while the call is active. You won't have to wait until the end of the call to see call quality data. The feature is off by default, but can be enabled via PowerShell using the following command:

Set-CsMediaConfiguration -Identity Global -EnableInCallQoS:$TRUE -InCallQoSIntervalSeconds x (where x is a digit from 1 to 65535).

You may have noticed the commands say QoS, when they really should say QoE. QoS is all about Quality of Service at the network layer, where QoE is Quality of Experience, which is what we're talking about here.  I flagged this during the beta, but was pretty much told to suck it up and live with it. 

Setting the interval to something like 1 second doesn't necessarily mean your network will be flooded with QoE reports every single second.  The client only sends this if there is a change detected.  So, in a stable network, you may not see many additional QoE reports. 

To turn this feature on, you require Skype for Business on the server-side, and the Office 2016 Skype for Business client (currently in beta at time of writing), NOT the Lync client with the Skype for Business UI patch.  I've heard that the Skype for Business patched version of Lync 2013 will eventually get this in a future patch.  Pretty much the only way to tell if you're running the Office 2016 version of Skype for Business is to look at the version number.  Patched Lync 2013 clients will have a version of 15.x.x.x, where the Office 2016 Skype for Business client will have a version of 16.x.x.x.

With this feature enabled, you can see call quality statistics while the call is active, which can be especially useful when the CEO is breathing down your neck complaining about the poor quality call he's on RIGHT THIS MINUTE.  Keep in mind that if you want to make good use of this, you have to use a 3rd party Skype for Business analytics tool that supports this feature, such as *cough cough* Event Zero's UC Commander.