In Skype for Business, Contact privacy relationships setting lets you control how much of your online information should be visible to others. Basically, the feature organizes your contacts into different relationship categories such as:
- Colleagues
- External Contacts
- Workgroup
- Friends and Family
In this topic, we will cover what information each privacy relationship can access and how to change 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. In comparison to Workgroup, less information is available to them. On the other hand, Workgroup contacts can see more information about you like, your meeting locations and demand your attention almost immediately via Skype for Business even when your Do Not Disturb status is active. If you would like to configure Contact Privacy Relationship and Block Someone in Skype for Business:
- Login your Skype for Business account
- Choose Contacts list
- Select Relationship tab
- Change or modify the Privacy Relationship with a contact
- Set your location
- Enable Privacy Mode
- Block a contact from Contact list
Please see the detailed description below.
Change your privacy relationship & Block a contact
To have a look at your contacts according to their privacy relationships,
Open Skype for Business and go to your Contacts list.
Click the ‘Relationships’ tab in the area just above your contacts.
Now, to change the privacy relationship you have with a contact, right-click the contact > ‘Change Privacy Relationship’, and then click a new privacy relationship for the contact.
As mentioned earlier, for every new contact you add to the contact list, the relationship assigned by default is ‘Colleagues’.
Now, to hide the location, click the ‘Set Your Location’ menu under your name.
Clear the check box against ‘Show Others My Location’ to hide it.
Skype for Business is automatically configured to update your location. So, whenever you attempt to log on from different places, it shows your location. You can change this and hide your information from others by taking the above steps.
Enable Privacy Mode
Except ‘Blocked Contacts’ your presence status is visible to all others. To change this, try doing the following.
Click the gear icon, choose ‘Tools’ from the list of options displayed and then, select ‘Options’.
When the Options dialog box appears on the screen, click ‘Status’, and then, select any one of the following options –
- ‘I want everyone to be able to see my presence regardless of system settings’. This action, upon confirmation, will override default settings.
- ‘I want the system administrator to decide’.
Lastly, to block everyone from reaching you, change your Status to ‘Do not disturb’ or ‘Appear Away’.
Also, to forcibly stop contacts from reaching you via IM or phone in Skype for Business, do this for each one,
Navigate to your ‘Contacts’ list.
Right-click the contact you want to block, click ‘Change Privacy Relationship’, and then select ‘Blocked Contacts’ option.
Note that Your name and email address will still be visible to a blocked contact/s.
That’s it!
Also read: How to disable or completely uninstall Skype for Business.
