Configuring Office 365 for scheduling

The VMR Scheduling for Exchange feature allows you to create an add-in that enables Microsoft Outlook desktop and Web App users in Office 365 or Exchange environments to schedule meetings using Pexip VMRs as a meeting resource.

To enable VMR Scheduling for Exchange in an Office 365 environment, you must first configure Office 365 appropriately. The steps are as follows, described in more detail in the sections that follow:

  1. Creating a service account. The Pexip Infinity VMR Scheduling for Exchange feature uses a unique service account to log into Exchange.

    This should be a different service account to any used for One-Touch Join, because the configuration will be different.

  2. Configuring Application Impersonation on the service account. This allows the service account to impersonate users on Exchange.

  3. Create an equipment resource. This resource will be added as an attendee to all meetings scheduled using the Pexip add-in.

  4. Configure the equipment resource.
  5. Enable OAuth authentication for the service account.

PowerShell commands are provided for all steps; parameters to be replaced with your own relevant information are shown in the format <your info here>.

Prerequisites

Before you start, ensure you can access your Office 365 Admin Center: https://portal.office.com/adminportal/home#/homepage.

You will also need to have a remote PowerShell session to your Exchange server. To enable this, follow the instructions at: https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj984289(v=exchg.160).aspx.

Note that for Office 365, the service account must have a mailbox license and appropriate licenses to allow it to connect to Exchange and use EWS.

In this step, you create the service account to be used by VMR Scheduling for Exchange.

The VMR Scheduling for Exchange feature uses a service account to log into Exchange. You can use an existing service account (the same service account can be used by more than one VMR scheduling for Exchange integration), or create a new account.

You need to provide the authentication credentials of this service account when configuring Pexip Infinity to integrate with a Microsoft Exchange deployment.

After creating the service account, you must ensure that it is assigned an appropriate Exchange license, such as Office 365 Enterprise E1, Office 365 Business Basic (formerly Essentials) or one of the Exchange Online plans.

A single service account can be used by more than one VMR scheduling for Exchange integration.

Changes to the service account may take some time to take effect, depending on the cache lifetime configured on the Microsoft Exchange server.

You can create a new service account using either the Office 365 admin portal or PowerShell, as follows:

O365 PowerShell
  1. Go to portal.office.com and log in as the administrator.
  2. Go to the admin portal by selecting the Admin tile (this will take you to https://portal.office.com/adminportal/home#/homepage).
  3. From the Users section, select Add a user and complete the necessary fields:
    1. In the Password section:
      • select Let me create the password
      • uncheck Make this user change their password when they first sign in.

    2. In the Product licenses section, assign an appropriate product license from the available list.

  4. Select Add to create the user.

Establishing a remote connection

To use PowerShell for Office 365 you first need to connect remotely. Full instructions are given at https://technet.microsoft.com/en-gb/library/dn568015.aspx but the commands are:

Set-ExecutionPolicy RemoteSigned
$UserCredential = Get-Credential
$Session = New-PSSession -ConfigurationName Microsoft.Exchange -ConnectionUri https://outlook.office365.com/powershell-liveid/ -Credential $UserCredential -Authentication Basic -AllowRedirection
Import-PSSession $Session
Import-Module MsOnline
Connect-MsolService -Credential $UserCredential

Creating the service account

The first command lets the administrator type in a password for the service account as a secure string. This password variable is then used in the second command to create a mailbox for the service account. The third command ensures the password of the service account will not expire. The final command terminates the remote session.

$password = Read-Host "Enter password" -AsSecureString
New-Mailbox -Name "<Account Name>" -MicrosoftOnlineServicesID "<UPN>" -Password $password -Alias "<Account Alias>" -FirstName "<Account First Name>" -LastName "<Account Last Name>" -DisplayName "<Account Name>"
Set-MsolUser -UserPrincipalName "<UPN>" -PasswordNeverExpires $true
Remove-PSSession $Session

For example:

New-Mailbox -Name "Service Account" -MicrosoftOnlineServicesID pexip@example.com -Password $password -Alias pexip -FirstName Service -LastName Account -DisplayName "Service Account"
Set-MsolUser -UserPrincipalName pexip@example.com -PasswordNeverExpires $true

Assigning a license to the service account

You must now assign an appropriate license to the service account. You can use the command:

Set-MsolUserLicense -UserPrincipalName "<UPN>" -AddLicenses "<license>"

In this step you configure the service account with a Role of Application Impersonation, which allows the service account to impersonate users on Exchange.

The service account must be configured with a Role of Application Impersonation. This allows the service account to impersonate all users who will be using VMR Scheduling for Exchange, and to impersonate the equipment resource that is to be used for the scheduling service. For more information, see Using application impersonation.

The VMR Scheduling for Exchange service impersonates users when sending email updates containing joining instructions (in cases where these instructions could not be added at the time of scheduling). This makes it appear to the recipients that the joining instructions were sent from the meeting organizer, instead of the service account.

To check if your service account has Application Impersonation already configured, use the PowerShell command:

Get-ManagementRoleAssignment -RoleAssignee "<email_of_service_account>" -Role ApplicationImpersonation | Format-List

Below is an example of the output of the command when the service account already has Application Impersonation configured:

If the service account does not have Application Impersonation configured, then the above command will not return anything at all. If this is the case, enable Application Impersonation as follows:

New-ManagementRoleAssignment -name:"<role_name>" -Role:ApplicationImpersonation -User:"<email_of_service_account>"

For example:

New-ManagementRoleAssignment -name:PexipSchedulingService -Role:ApplicationImpersonation -User:pexip@exchange.example.com

This will enable the service account to impersonate all users in the organization.

For more information on these commands, see Microsoft help:

In this step you create an equipment resource to be used by VMR Scheduling for Exchange. This resource is added as an attendee to all meetings scheduled using the Pexip add-in. The scheduling service monitors the equipment resource's mailbox, processes all meeting requests sent to it, and schedules the meetings as appropriate.

An equipment resource can only be used by a single VMR scheduling for Exchange integration. If you have separate test and development environments, you must use a different resource for each.

The equipment resource will be added as a resource attendee to all VMR Scheduling for Exchange meetings. Users will see replies from this resource when it accepts or rejects a meeting request.

Each equipment resource can be used by only one VMR scheduling for Exchange integration.

Previously we recommended using a room resource, but this may cause issues if users are using the Room Finder tool. For this reason, we now recommend using an equipment resource.

You can create an equipment resource using either the Office 365 admin portal or PowerShell, as follows:

O365 PowerShell

To create the equipment resource via the Office 365 admin portal:

  1. Go to portal.office.com and log in as the administrator.
  2. From the left-hand menu, select Resources > Rooms & equipment and then Add.
  3. Select a Type of Equipment.
  4. Assign an appropriate Name and Email address and select Add.

    The equipment name will appear as the location of any meeting requests, and as a recipient.

The equipment resource should now appear in the list of resources.

This command creates an equipment resource with the specified Name, Alias and Display Name. Name and Display Name should be the same, and will appear as the location of any meeting requests, and as a recipient. The Alias (also known as the mail nickname) will be used as the email address.

New-Mailbox -Equipment -Name "<Equipment Name>" -Alias "<Equipment Alias>" -DisplayName "<Equipment Name>"

For example:

New-Mailbox -Equipment -Name "Pexip Meeting" -Alias pexipmeeting -DisplayName "Pexip Meeting"

In this step you disable automatic processing for the equipment resource, so that the processing can be done by the scheduling service. You must also configure it to permit conflicts, because meetings may be scheduled at the same time by different users.

This configuration is done using the following PowerShell command:

Set-CalendarProcessing -Identity "<email_of_equipment_resource>" -AutomateProcessing None -AllowConflicts $true -BookingWindowInDays 1080 -MaximumDurationInMinutes 0 -AllowRecurringMeetings $true -EnforceSchedulingHorizon $false -ScheduleOnlyDuringWorkHours $false -ConflictPercentageAllowed 100 -MaximumConflictInstances 2147483647

To verify that the above command has configured everything correctly, use the PowerShell command:

Get-CalendarProcessing -Identity "<email_of_equipment_resource>" | Format-List

The output should look something like this:

For more information on these commands, see Microsoft help:

In this step you enable OAuth authentication for the service account.

VMR Scheduling for Exchange uses a service account to log in to Exchange.

As of H2 2021, Microsoft will stop supporting and fully decommission Basic Authentication for EWS to access Exchange Online (for more information, see Microsoft's announcement). We therefore strongly recommend that for Office 365, all new deployments authenticate the service account using OAuth 2.0, and all existing deployments are updated to enable this option as soon as possible.

To use OAuth for the service account, you must create an app registration in Azure and then use the settings from this app registration when enabling and configuring the OAuth options within the VMR scheduling for Exchange integration.

Create a new App Registration in Azure

  1. Log into the Azure portal at portal.azure.com.
  2. From the main panel on the left, select Azure Active Directory.

  3. Select App Registrations and then New registration:

  4. In the Register an application panel, enter the following options:
    1. Name: this can be anything you wish. In our example we have used Pexip Scheduling App.
    2. Supported account types: select Accounts in this organizational directory only.

    3. Redirect URI: from the drop-down menu, select Public client/native (mobile and desktop). The URI should be the IP address or FQDN of the Management Node, in the format
      https://<Management Node Address>/admin/platform/msexchangeconnector/oauth_redirect/
      In our example we have used https://infinity.example.com/admin/platform/msexchangeconnector/oauth_redirect/

      You will need to enter this as the OAuth redirect URI when configuring a VMR scheduling for Exchange integration.

      The OAuth redirect URI is the URI to which you will be returned after you have successfully signed in to the service account. It must be the same on Azure and Pexip Infinity in order for Azure to validate the sign-in request.

  5. Select Register.

    A new panel will open where you can configure your application.

  6. From the panel on the left, select API permissions.
  7. Select Add a permission.

  8. From the Request API permissions panel, select APIs my organization uses, search for Office 365 Exchange Online and select it:

  9. Select Delegated permissions, and from the Select permissions list, expand EWS and select Access mailboxes as the signed-in user via Exchange Web Services, and then select Add permissions:

Taking note of configuration

When you Configure the VMR scheduling for Exchange integration and enable OAuth authentication for the service account, you'll need to provide the following information from Azure:

  • Application (client) ID: this was generated for you by Azure when you saved the App Registration:

    You can find this again in Azure under Azure Active Directory > App registrations, under the Application (client) ID column.

    You will need to enter this as the OAuth client ID when configuring the VMR scheduling for Exchange integration.

  • Redirect URI: this is the URI you entered when creating the App Registration.

    You can find this again in Azure under Azure Active Directory > App registrations, clicking on the app registration, and then clicking Redirect URIs.

    You will need to enter this as the OAuth redirect URI when configuring the VMR scheduling for Exchange integration.

You will also need to know the OAuth Endpoints to use. To find this information:

  1. In the Azure Portal, select Overview > Endpoints.

  2. Copy the URL of the OAuth 2.0 authorization endpoint (v1).

    Ensure that you use the URL for ... endpoint (v1), not ... endpoint (v2).

    You will need to enter this as the OAuth authorization endpoint when configuring the VMR scheduling for Exchange integration.

  3. Copy the URL of the OAuth 2.0 token endpoint (v1)

    Ensure that you use the URL for ... endpoint (v1), not ... endpoint (v2).

    You will need to enter this as the OAuth token endpoint when configuring the VMR scheduling for Exchange integration.

Viewing the equipment resource's mailbox

There may be occasions, such as when troubleshooting, that you want to view the equipment resource's mailbox or calendar. To do this, you first need to assign full access to the equipment resource's mailbox to a delegate account, and then view the mailbox or calendar using the delegate account. (The delegate account could be the service account, or it could be, for example, an administrator's account.)

Next steps

  1. Configuring Pexip Infinity to integrate with your Microsoft Exchange deployment and create the VMR Scheduling for Exchange add-in.
  2. Making the add-in available to users within your Microsoft Exchange deployment.