If you want to record an outbound telephone call you are placing, Skype for Business makes it very easy. For example, you may want to record a phone call to a student about an assignment or a research subject for transcription and data analysis later. Keep in mind that the first voice the caller at the receiviing side will hear will be the  system advising them that “this call is being recorded.”  If the recipient chooses not to be recorded, they can just hang up.  Because the laws vary by state on whether the receiver needs to be notified of the call being recorded, Microsoft automatically adds that information to the beginning of the call.for EVERY call. 

Keep in mind you MUST have a Skype for Business assigned telephone number to make outbound calls to actual telephone numbers and not just to other skype for business account holders.

You may need to place a call and have it recorded such as if you are doing a research interview by phone.  Keep in mind the receiver will be notified in the call that the call is being recorded.

Bring up Skype for Business. If you have the top menu showing, click Meet Now. If you do not have that showing, click the gear icon and select “Meet Now”

Use the Skype for Business full audio and video experience.  Click OK

Click the circle with the 3 dots at the bottom right.

Click Start Recording

Click the X to get rid of the yellow band that says Recording has Started

Now add the person you want to interview by clicking the people icon in the top right.

Add the person’s phone number. As you add the phone number  (just numbers) it will display it correctly immediately below. Click OK.

The very first thing they will hear is “this meeting is being recorded”. After that anything they say and anything you say will be part of the recording.

When you want to end the recording, click the 3 dotted circle again in the bottom right

Then click Stop Recording.

You can then disconnect from the call by pressing the red button

Now you wait. Eventually you will see a message in the lower right of your computer screen telling you the processing of the recording is done.  You will now have to find where the recording is located.

In the Cortana search box put in PC and click This PC.

Look to the left and find the Videos folder….that is where the mp4s are put by default. Keep in mind you made a video but it has noting in the image side, just audo since no one shared a desktop.

Click on Lync Recordings. The most recent one is the first one. You may then drag that file out to your desktop, put in as an email attachment, or moved to a folder in Box.

Just so you know, as long as the email stays inside of Vanderbilt it is very secure. It does not pass as clear text, it is encrypted using TLS security so it would qualify as HIPAA compliant. The one issue is that there is a 14MB limit on file sizes of attachments and you could reach that easily. We can strip off the audio, save as mp3 and it then becomes much smaller but that is an additional step.

One more note……let’s say you are on your home computer and you can launch Skype for Business BUT you don’t have a phone attached to your home computer. That is no problem. In the part where you invite someone by typing in their phone number, put in YOUR home or cell phone number and add yourself first. Then go back and add the interviewee’s phone number after you have been added to the meeting. You get added first, followed by the other person. You will both be told the meeting is recorded but that is no problem. The machine doesn’t know that your first number in is your home phone.

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