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Collaborating with people from partner organizations

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Circuit allows you to collaborate with external people from specific partner organizations you do business with that do not own a Circuit domain. You can invite them to Circuit in order to virtually meet, chat, exchange ideas, and share information in Circuit conversations.

Circuit makes it possible for you to reach colleagues from partner organizations even when they are on a communication system other than Circuit using the Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol (XMPP). You can exchange presence and chat in direct conversations with Skype for Business or Lync 2013 users from partner organizations that federate with yours via XMPP.

Being able to invite to Circuit external people from a partner organization requires your administrator to:

  • get and assign the appropriate subscription packages to your Circuit domain users;

  • add a Circuit domain for the partner organization and configure it as a federated domain.

Being able to invite to Circuit external people from a partner organization that federates with yours, so that you can reach them either on Circuit or on Skype for Business/ Lync, requires your administrator to:

  • get and assign the appropriate subscription packages to your Circuit domain users;

  • add a Circuit domain for your partner organization and configure it as both: a) a partner domain, i.e. as one of the allowed domains to invite externals from, and b) a federated domain.

  • To invite to Circuit externals from a partner organization:
    1. On the web client and Desktop App, click your user name and then click Invite external.
    2. Type the First name, Last name and corporate Email address of the external person you want to invite to Circuit in their respective fields.
    3. Click Invite.

    An invitation email is sent to the email address you have entered.

    Note:

    In case the email address you have entered belongs to a domain that is configured as both, a partner domain and a federated domain, the invitation is only sent if the email address belongs to an XMPP user (Skype for Business or Lync user, in particular)

    After receiving an invitation email, externals need to click the Get started button contained therein in order to setup their Circuit account and get started. Once the account is created, they are added as Circuit users to their partner domain. You can then reach and collaborate with them on Circuit as you would do with anyone registered in a domain other than yours. For more information, please refer to: Collaborating with people from other domains (https://www.circuit.com/unifyportalfaqdetail?articleId=124624). People from partner domains have, also, the word External appended to their names.

    Note:

    In case an external is from a domain that is configured as both, a partner domain and a federated domain, then a second account is created for them. This second account is used to reach the external on Skype for Business /Lync. You can easily identify this second account by the word XMPP that is appended to the external's name.

  • To reach an external on Skype for Business or Lync, you need to start a direct conversation first:
    1. Click or tap the green plus icon () and, then:

      • On the web client and Desktop App, click Conversation.

      • On the iOS mobile client, tap Private conversation.

      • On the Android mobile client, tap Conversation.

    2. Type the name of the external.
      Note:

      If you want to start a conversation with an external that you never had a conversation with before, you need to type their corporate email address.

      As you type in, a list of suggested names is displayed to select from.

      Note:

      Invited externals from partner organizations that federate with yours appear twice in the suggestion list: 1) <First name><Last name> (External) and 2) <First name><Last name> (XMPP)>. You need to select the second entry in order to proceed.

    3. To finish creating the conversation:

      • On the web client and Desktop App, click Start.

      • On the iOS mobile client, tap Start.

      • On the Android mobile client, tap .

    A special type of direct conversation is created.

    You can now exchange instant messages with the external who is on Skype for Business or Lync and see their presence. Messages are shown in unthreaded view. You cannot format or add a title or attachment to a message. You can send just plain text.

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