CVI and Teams Rooms services for Microsoft Teams: order, setup and monitoring

This article explains how to order and set up Pexip's Cloud Video Interop (CVI) and Teams Rooms services for Microsoft Teams.

It covers how to:

• Order and set up Pexip's main Cloud Video Interop (CVI) Service for Microsoft Teams
• Order and set up the Microsoft Teams Room Service (to enable SIP/H.323 calling to/from Teams Room systems)
• Add trusted devices for SIP Guest Join
• Choose a different layout
• Understand the subsequent license/usage monitoring that occurs.

Ordering and setting up Pexip's CVI Service

This procedure describes how to order and set up Pexip's CVI Service:

1. Order a CVI service for MS Teams license plan.

   • You cannot set up a CVI Service for MS Teams unless the customer first has a Domain Hosting License plan and a CVI service for MS Teams License plan.
   • They can also optionally order FullHD for Microsoft as an add-on that enables them to receive 1080p video and content, and a Teams Room service that enables 1:1 SIP/H.323 video calls between Microsoft Teams Room devices and VTCs.
   • If the customer requires a second or subsequent CVI service (on another domain), you can only order this by submitting a support request to Pexip Support.
   • For tips on how to order a license plan, see Ordering a new license plan.

2. Ensure that the calling domain and the Microsoft 365 domain the customer will use for the interop service have been verified.

   Before Pexip can provision the CVI service, the customer administrator must have set up the DNS SRV records and DNS TXT record for their calling domain, and then you must complete the calling domain verification process. If a new domain was ordered as part of this process, the customer administrator should have received an email with instructions on how to do this.

   As with the calling domain, before Pexip can enable the CVI service, the customer administrator must set up a separate DNS TXT record for their Microsoft 365 domain (their tenant domain), and then you must have completed the Microsoft domain verification process. When setting up the Microsoft 365 domain in the partner portal, the customer administrator should have received an email with instructions on how to do this.

3. Initiate the CVI Service for MS Teams process:

   1. Select your customer in the portal.
   2. Select the Interop tab, and select the + Add Pexip Connect for Teams (CVI) button.

   3. Complete the fields:

      Calling Domain	Select the custom calling domain the customer will use for the interop service.
      Microsoft 365 Domain	Select the Microsoft 365 domain the customer will use for the interop service.
      O365 Admin Emails	Specify the customer recipient(s) who will create the tenant trust relationship. This defaults to the main contact address but you can add other addresses if required.
      Service Notification Emails	Specify the customer recipient(s) who will receive service notifications, for example that the service is ready for use. This defaults to the main contact address but you can add other addresses if required.

   4. Select Next.

   

4. The specified customer O365 administrator is sent an email advising how to create a tenant trust relationship between their O365 instance and the Pexip Service.

   

   This requests the same consent and permissions as the app used by the Teams Rooms service, therefore if the customer has already granted consent for the CVI app for the Teams Rooms service then they are not made to repeat this step. However, they do still need to complete the associated set of PowerShell commands to complete the CVI setup and to grant CVI interop for users.

5. After the customer has completed their setup steps, an internal process is triggered at Pexip for the provisioning of the CVI service for this customer.

6. When provisioning is completed (this should be within minutes), a readiness email is sent to the customer (to the Service Notification recipients).

   

7. The customer may now begin to use the CVI service for MS Teams.

The customer process is fully described in Microsoft Teams setup for Pexip CVI.

Ordering and setting up the Microsoft Teams Room Service

This procedure describes how to order and set up Pexip's Microsoft Teams Room Service (to enable SIP/H.323 calling to/from Teams Room systems):

1. Order a Connect for Teams Rooms license plan.

2. Ensure that the Microsoft 365 domain and, if used, Rewrite origin "From" domain the customer will use for the interop service have been verified, and that they set up the appropriate DNS TXT and SRV records:

   • Before Pexip can enable the Teams Room service, the customer administrator must set up a separate DNS TXT record for their Microsoft 365 domain (their tenant domain), and then you must have completed the Microsoft domain verification process. When setting up the Microsoft 365 domain in the partner portal, the customer administrator should have received an email with instructions on how to do this. If they also use this domain for CVI interop then they may have already verified this domain, however some longstanding CVI users may also need to perform the verification process.
   • If the customer wants to receive inbound calls to their Teams Room then they must also set up the DNS SRV SIP records for their calling domain (their Microsoft 365 domain or, if used, their Rewrite origin "From" domain) as described at Setting up DNS SRV records. Note that SRV SIP records are not required if the customer only wants to make outbound calls.
   • If the customer opts to use a Rewrite origin "From" domain then, as with the Microsoft 365 domain, before Pexip can provision the Teams Room service, the customer administrator must set up a DNS TXT record for the calling domain they will use as their Rewrite origin "From" domain, and then you must complete the calling domain verification process. If a new domain was ordered as part of this process, the customer administrator should have received an email with instructions on how to do this.

3. Initiate the Microsoft Teams Room process:

   1. Select your customer in the portal.
   2. Select the Interop tab, and select the + Add Microsoft Teams Room Service for MS Teams button.

   3. Complete the fields:

      Microsoft 365 Domain	Select the primary Microsoft 365 domain the customer will use for the Teams Room service.
      Rewrite origin "From" domain	This is an optional field where you can select a custom calling domain that the customer wants to use as a "from address" for their Teams Rooms instead of their primary Microsoft 365 Domain. When a Teams Room makes an outbound call, the domain specified here is inserted into the SIP Invite From header (replacing the Microsoft 365 Domain selected above), meaning this is the domain the recipient will dial if they return a missed call. This allows the customer, if required, to use a different domain and associated DNS SRV records for incoming/returned calls.
      O365 Admin Emails	Specify the customer recipient(s) who will create the tenant trust relationship. This defaults to the main contact address but you can add other addresses if required.
      Service Notification Emails	Specify the customer recipient(s) who will receive service notifications, for example that the service is ready for use. This defaults to the main contact address but you can add other addresses if required.

   4. Select Next.

   

4. The specified customer O365 administrator is sent an email advising how to create a tenant trust relationship between their O365 instance and the Pexip Service.

   This is requesting the same consent and permissions as the app used by the CVI service, therefore if the customer has already granted consent for the CVI app for their existing CVI interop they are not made to repeat this step. However, they do still need to complete the associated set of PowerShell commands to enable the Teams Room calling policy and give permissions to their VTCs that are used for 1:1 calling.

   

5. After the customer has enabled their Teams Room calling policy they may begin to use the Microsoft Teams Room Service.

The customer process is fully described in Microsoft Teams Rooms SIP/H.323 calling.

Enabling SIP Guest Join

Pexip's standard Microsoft Teams interoperability solution allows your customers (and their guests) to use their own video conferencing endpoints to join Microsoft Teams meetings that they are hosting. The "SIP Guest Join" (SGJ) feature lets them join Microsoft Teams meetings with their own video conferencing endpoints where that meeting is being hosted by an external third-party organization who has not enabled Pexip interoperability themselves.

Scope and limitations

This is a Teams commercial focused capability, thus all Teams meetings for Work or School i.e. used by enterprises and most governments in the commercial cloud are supported.

Note that the following are not supported:

• Teams meetings with "teams.live.com" (part of Teams for Home or Small Business)
• Teams meetings with "gov.teams.microsoft.us" (part of the Microsoft Government cloud)

Prerequisites

Setting up trusted devices (if required)

If the customer's devices are registered to the Pexip Service, then no further configuration is required — there is no need to configure any trusted devices.

For customers who are not registered to the Pexip Service (i.e. self hosted Pexip Infinity customers), you must create the customer as a company in the Partner Portal in the standard manner, and they need to purchase a Trusted Devices license for the number of endpoints they own. This license will allow trusted join for Teams/Google Meetings on the Pexip Service and also enable them to use the SIP Guest Join feature.

After the customer has been created on the Partner Portal, you must configure their Trusted Devices (see Trusted Devices: trial, orderability and configuration for general details):

Under the Interop tab, in the Trusted devices configuration section, add one or more rules as required.

• Set Policy action to Trust.
• Set From domain to the domain presented in the customer's VC systems.
• Set Source IP Address to the IP address that their SIP signaling will come from (typically their public-facing Conferencing Nodes or their VCS Expressway).

You need to add one Trusted Device per IP address of the public-facing servers that will send SIP calls to the Pexip Service. Note that when setting up trusted devices for SIP Guest Join, the Source IP must be a /32 address (i.e. a single IP address); larger subnets are not supported in Guest Join scenarios.

Layouts

By default, the Teams-like layout is used for VTCs connecting to Teams meetings. However, customers can choose to use any one of the following layouts as their default layout:

• Teams-like (similar to the meeting experience seen by native Teams clients — see below)
• 1+7 (1 large main speaker and up to 7 other participants)
• 1+0 (full-screen main speaker only)
• Equal 2x2 (4 speakers)
• Equal 3x3 (9 speakers)

Dynamic meeting controls

Also see Using endpoints to control the layout and manage meetings for information about how customers can dynamically change the layout during a meeting.

Note that:

• Teams-like and the 1+0 layout are not included in the dynamic layout cycling feature, even if it is configured as the initial/default layout.
• Teams-like is not available in the Meeting Controls macro as a layout option, even if it is configured as the initial/default layout.

In addition to cycling through Pexip's layouts you can also switch to Microsoft's Large Gallery view.

Teams-like layout

Pexip offers a Teams-like layout for VTC systems that looks and operates in a similar manner to the meeting experience seen by native Teams clients. In this layout, spotlighting, use of avatars for audio-only participants, active speaker indication and raised hand indicators all have a similar look and feel to the native Teams layout.

The Teams-like layout also supports multiscreen participant display, and receiving the presentation stream as part of the layout mix.

CVI meeting with the Teams-like layout

Microsoft's Large Gallery view

Host VTC participants can toggle between their current layout and Microsoft's Large Gallery view by entering *3 via their keypad. Note that:

• There can sometimes be a short delay before the Large Gallery view takes effect.
• While in Large Gallery view, using *8 to cycle layouts has no visible effect but you will see the effect if you toggle back out of Large Gallery view.

Additional information on other layouts

Here's a demonstration video showing some of the layouts in use:

Please raise a support ticket (one per customer) if you would like to request a different default layout for your customers. Note that you cannot request or set the layout via the partner portal.

License/usage monitoring

To ensure the best possible user experience, we want to notify our CVI for Teams customers and their partners about possible over-usage of license capabilities. We therefore send out two separate notifications to the customer administrator and the partner:

1. When usage is getting close to full license capacity

• This warning is only sent to customers with 10 or more concurrent call licenses.
• Sent if customer is using 80% or more of licenses bought.
• After an email is sent, the system waits a minimum of 7 days before sending a new mail.

2. When usage is exceeding license capacity

• Triggered if using more than 100% of licenses bought.
• Sent a maximum of once per day.

Emails are sent to:

• The company administrator.
• The partner account manager.
• The recipients in the Service Notification Emails field (Interop tab settings).
• Pexip inside sales.