Integrating Microsoft Teams with Pexip Infinity

Pexip Cloud Video Interoperability (CVI) enables professional SIP and H.323 video conferencing systems to join Microsoft Teams as if they were native Microsoft clients.

It enables any video conferencing system to join Microsoft Teams meetings and allows authenticated systems to join as trusted participants without additional user interaction (i.e. lobby by-pass), including:

• H.323 & SIP room-based videoconferencing systems, including Cisco, Polycom, LifeSize, and others
• Browser-based video (WebRTC / RTMP)

Third-party systems can connect to Teams meetings via the Infinity Gateway either via a Virtual Reception (IVR) or by dialing the conference directly.

Integration features

Pexip Infinity is a Microsoft-certified video interoperability platform for Microsoft Teams. The Pexip Teams Connector is a Pexip application that is deployed in Microsoft Azure and is used to enable Teams interoperability. It handles all Teams communications and meeting requests from the Pexip Infinity platform and passes them on to the Microsoft Teams environment.

The key features of Pexip's CVI integration with Microsoft Teams are:

• Call in from any standards-based VTC system on SIP and H.323
• Lobby bypass for trusted endpoints, and customizable waiting screen for untrusted VTC endpoints that are held in the lobby
• Audio-only participants are represented by their avatar from Exchange Online
• Recording and transcription indicators
• Control and ownership of data
• Native VTC network resiliency
• Bi-directional content sharing between VTCs and Microsoft Teams via Video-based Screen Sharing (VbSS)
• Native scheduling via Outlook and Microsoft Teams client; join information is automatically added
• Tailored meeting invites with a customer-specific domain
• Firewall traversal between private and public networks
• Full lobby and roster list control in the Teams client

Note that Microsoft Teams is inherently a dial-in service i.e. you can only dial from a third-party video system into Teams. You cannot dial out from Teams to a SIP, H.323 device etc — instead, you have to send the relevant joining instructions/invitation to the user of that device.

Migrating to Microsoft Teams from Skype for Business

Pexip Infinity works simultaneously with both Microsoft Teams and Skype for Business. This means that users can be enabled to use both platforms and they can be migrated from one platform to the other at your own pace. Interoperability into either platform is handled by the same single Pexip Infinity installation, and the same Conferencing Nodes.

For example you could provide a dial-in lobby address of:

• skype@example.com for interoperability into Skype for Business meetings

and

• teams@example.com for interoperability into Teams meetings

and then in each case the user would be directed to the appropriate Pexip Virtual Reception and would enter the appropriate conference ID for the relevant Microsoft meeting platform.

Microsoft Teams interoperability with Skype for Business

Microsoft Teams supports some level of interoperability with Skype for Business. This includes the ability to do a point-to-point voice and video call between Microsoft Teams and Skype for Business (depending on SfB/Teams setup, see https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoftteams/teams-and-skypeforbusiness-coexistence-and-interoperability#native-interop-experiences).

As Pexip supports native Skype for Business federation, it is technically possible to place a call between a Teams client (if the tenant is set up in a supported mode for SfB federation) and Pexip. However due to the limitations of this interoperability, in particular the lack of support for screen sharing / app sharing between Microsoft Teams and Skype for Business, this is not a use case that Pexip recommends or provides support for.

The certified interoperability for Microsoft Teams is for a Teams meeting to be scheduled (by an organization enabled for Pexip interoperability), and non-Teams compatible systems to dial in to the Teams meeting (see user experience below). This type of integration allows dual stream content sharing.

User experience when joining a Teams conference

All VTC-based participants (SIP and H.323 devices) can either access the Teams conference via a customizable Virtual Reception service which prompts them to enter the Conference ID of the conference they want to join, or they may also be able to dial an address that takes them directly into a specific conference. Other software-based clients such as Skype for Business or Pexip's own Infinity Connect clients can also join via direct dial or via a Virtual Reception.

Pexip Infinity’s deployment model allows the use of a customer-specific domain such as teams@example.com for dialing the Teams Virtual Reception.

Alternative VTC dialing instructions can be provided that are customized to the company network and workflow such as:

• 123958530@vc.example.com
• 123958530@104.215.95.187
• 104.215.95.187##123958530

Participants using a Teams client join a Teams meeting as usual, and any gatewayed third-party participants can be seen and heard in the same way as any other directly-connected Teams clients in that meeting. Authenticated, trusted VTCs that are located within the organization can join the conference directly, without any additional user interaction, whereas unauthenticated, untrusted external VTCs are admitted via the Teams lobby.

Join workflow from a Microsoft Teams client into a Teams meeting

Join workflow from a third-party VTC system into a Microsoft Teams meeting (Pexip's standard 1+7 layout)

Holding screen for unauthenticated, untrusted external VTCs while they are waiting to be admitted from the Microsoft Teams lobby

Audio participant avatars

Any audio-only participants are represented by an avatar within the VTC's conference layout. It displays the user's avatar from Exchange Online if available, otherwise a substitute graphic is generated based on the initials of the participant's name.

Recording or transcribing a Teams conference

If a Microsoft Teams conference is recorded or transcribed, relevant audio prompts indicating that recording/transcribing has been started/stopped are played to callers who are gatewayed via Pexip Infinity into the conference, and a recording/transcribing indicator is displayed.

Streaming to Teams live events

You can use Pexip Infinity as an external RTMP encoder for your Teams live events, which means that you can stream video, audio and presentation content from your videoconferencing meeting room systems directly into the event.

See Using Pexip Infinity to stream from VTC systems into Microsoft Teams live events for more information.