In Skype for Business, Contact confidentiality relationships This setting allows you to control how much of your online information should be visible to others. Basically, the functionality organizes your contacts into different categories of relationships such as:
- Colleagues
- External contacts
- Work group
- Friends and family
In this section, we will cover the information that each privacy relationship can access and how to modify it if necessary.
How to block someone in Skype for Business
By default, any new contact you add is assigned to the colleague’s relationship. Compared to Workgroup, less information is available to them. On the other hand, workgroup contacts can see more information about you, your meeting places, and request your attention almost immediately via Skype for Business even when your Do Not Disturb status is active. If you want to configure the contact privacy relationship and block someone in Skype for Business:
- Log into your Skype for Business account
- Choose the contact list
- Select the Relationship tab
- Change or modify the confidentiality relationship with a contact
- Define your location
- Activate privacy mode
- Block a contact from the contact list
Please see the detailed description below.
Edit your privacy relationship and block a contact
To view your contacts based on their privacy relationships,
Open Skype for Business and go to your contact list.
Click the ‘Relationships“In the area just above your contacts.
Now to change the privacy relationship you have with a contact, right-click the contact> “Modify the confidentiality relationship“, Then click a new privacy relationship for the contact.
As mentioned earlier, for each new contact you add to the contact list, the default assigned relationship is ‘Colleagues“
Now, to hide the location, click on the “Define your location»Under your name.
Uncheck the box “Show my location to othersTo hide it.
Skype for Business is automatically configured to update your location. So every time you try to connect from different places, it indicates your location. You can change this and hide your information from others by following the steps above.
Activate privacy mode
With the exception of “Contacts blocked”, your presence status is visible to everyone else. To change this, try to do the following.
Click on the gear icon, choose “Tools“From the list of options displayed, then select”The options“
When the The options appears on the screen, click ‘Status“, Then select one of the following options –
- “I want everyone to be able to see my presence regardless of the system settings.” This action, once confirmed, will overwrite the default settings.
- “I want the system administrator to decide.”
Finally, to prevent everyone from reaching you, change your status to “Do not disturb‘ or ‘Appear away“
In addition, to forcibly prevent contacts from reaching you via instant messaging or the phone in Skype for Business, do it for each of them,
Go to your ‘Contacts‘ listing.
Right-click the contact you want to block, click “Modify the confidentiality relationship“, Then select”Blocked contacts“
Please note that your name and email address will always be visible to blocked contact (s).
That’s it!
Read also: How to disable or completely uninstall Skype for Business.