Ignite 2019 - VCE20 - Updates for Direct Routing

Presented by: Nikolay Muravlyannikov

Session summary:
Direct Routing allows Microsoft 365 customers to use their telecom provider and phone numbers in Teams. In this session you will learn about the latest updates such as the new SIP Tester, troubleshooting with the latest Usage Reporting, Dynamic Emergency Calling (e911), new SBC vendors going through certification, choosing your media server by region, and more. Attendees who are new to Direct Routing are encouraged to review the video at https://aka.ms/dr-training

My notes:

• Direct Routing overview
  A brief description of the Direct Routing service. Check out the "Direct Routing in Microsoft Teams" video for more information.
  

Direct Routing for Teams

• SIP Tester
  A PowerShell tool to validate the call flow end-to-end after pairing the Session Border Controller. Two bots are configured TeamsIn and TeamsOut and is used to make a call. Download the tool and documentation here:
  PowerShell script to test Direct Routing Session Border Controller connections
  
• Health Dashboard and Call Details Records
  A view in the Teams Admin center which helps you to monitor and troubleshoot reliability issues in interconnection between an SBC and the Microsoft service. The information shown in the Health Dashboard is:
• Network Effectiveness Ratio
  Microsoft guarantees 99.9% of availability of Direct Routing service. If a call reached Direct Routing, the call will be accepted from or delivered to an SBC. To notify about issues with SBC Microsoft provides a NER metric to the customers via the Health Dashboard.
• Average Call Duration.
  On average a PSTN call lasts 4 to 5 minutes, values below 4-5 mins can indicate issues.
• TLS Connectivity Status.
  Shows the status of TLS connections between the Direct Routing and the SBC. Health Dashboard also analyses the certificate expiration date and warns if certificate expires within 30 days so administrators can renew the certificate before the service disrupted.
• SIP Options status.
  By default, an SBC sends SIP Options messages every minute. This configuration can vary for different SBC vendors. This field will show the status of these messages. Direct Routing warns if SIP options are not received or not configured.
• Concurrent Calls Capacity.
  When an SBC is paired to Direct Routing, you can specify the limit of concurrent calls that SBC can handle. The parameter calculates how many calls were sent and received by Direct Routing using specific SBC and compare with the limit set. Note that is this SBC also handles calls to different PBXs this number will not show the actual concurrent calls over the SBC.
• Network Parameters.
  Packet Loss, Jitter, Latency
  
• Call Details Records
  In the usage report PSTN usage / Direct Routing all calls made to or from any client in the tenant will be listed. This data can be downloaded as an excel file, and analytics of this data is coming to the portal in the future.
  
• E911 with Direct Routing overview
  You can pair your SBC and route emergency calls and send location information to a Public Safety Answer Point in the US.

Updates on partnership and more features

What’s New for Calling in Microsoft Teams (Ignite 2019 Edition)

Direct Routing allows the routing of calls to 3rd party systems such as mobile network, this also known as "Dual Forking". Occasionally this would generate a "false positive" missed call indication in Teams when the call was picked up at the other fork. Teams can now suppress this unwanted missed call message which provides a better experience. In order for this to work the SBC must be configured to send a Cancel on the other Fork as follows: REASON: SIP; cause=200;text"Call completed elsewhere" See the article Manage call notifications for more information.

Some great new SBC partners being added!

Ignite 2019 - BRK3204 - Troubleshooting Microsoft Teams

Presented by: Carolyn Blanding and Bryan Wofford

Session summary:
During this session we dive deep into how to troubleshoot Microsoft Teams. We review many common areas of misconfiguration and the corresponding errors that you might see in these deployments. This session covers end-user scenarios and deep dives into the nuts and bolts of these scenarios through the tools of troubleshooting.

My notes:

"An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure." - Benjamin Franklin

How can a user tell if they have connectivity problems in Teams?
User Facing Diagnostics will let the user know if connectivity to the service is lost.

What should Administrators do to be sure that the Teams client can connect to our services and provide good call quality?

• Make sure firewalls are open for traffic to Teams.

• 13.107.64.0/18 - TCP 443
• 52.112.0.0/14 - UDP 3478-3481

• Configure QoS (DSCP markings and port ranges will be used)
• Bypass VPN for media
• Use local breakouts

How can Administrators investigate connectivity issues?
By using the Network Testing Companion

How can administrator’s stay informed of changes to Office 365 IP’s and URL’s and keep their network perimeter equipment up to date?
By using the "Office 365 IP Address and URL web service".

Guest Access must be turned on by an Administrator and can take up the 24 hours before it kicks in. It is possible to set which teams should be able to invite guests and which teams that should not. If errors occur, check the audit log.

Guest or External - who is who?

Allow time for user provisioning which can take some time in Office 365. When migrated a user can get into a stage where the Skype for business client is not working, and the chat and calls tabs are missing in Teams. This is because it takes some time for the client to be informed about these changes. Use Ctrl + Shift + Alt + 1 to download the client logs, and open the main "MSTeams Diagnostics Log.txt" and search for "OfficeIntegrationFirstRun" to see which policy the client is getting from the service. For example: "OfficeIntegrationFirstRun: sfbTeamsUpgradeService returned policy.mode=TeamsOnly". This is also why it is always a good idea to do migrations on Friday nights, so that everything can be set to go for Monday morning.

How can Administrators see the actual policy in use in the Teams client?
Use the debugger of a web browser such as Edge (F12), look at network and search for "TenantSettingsv2".

How can Administrators be sure that users enabled for Public Switch Telephone Network (PSTN) calling have a dial pad in Teams?
The requirements for a dialpad to show up are

• 1:1 Calling Enabled
• SfB Account is Online
• Enterprise Voice Enabled Online
• Business Voice Policy, or Hybrid Voice Policy and Online Voice Routing Policy

Next, download logs with Ctrl + Shift + Alt + 1, open the file and search for "CallingSupportService", check the parameters:

• isCallingAllowed
• isSkypeCloud
• isEVEnabled
• isBusinessVoicePath
• isByotEnabled

What do Administrators need to do to prepare for external communication with other organizations in Teams?
In the Teams admin center check Org-wide settings / External Access and check the SRV records for the domains in your tenant.

• _sip._tls.domain.com:443 should got to sipdir.online.lync.com
• _sipfederationtls._tcp.domain.com:5061 should got to sipfed.online.lync.com

Ignite 2019 - THR2102 - Microsoft Teams: Personal call routing

Presented by: Habib Mankal (@habibmankal) from WaveCore IT

Session summary:
In this session come learn how a Microsoft Teams user can manage their own call routing.  These key features in Microsoft Teams voice puts the user base in the drivers seat by providing them the control to enable:

Call Park - Answer and Park a call for another user to pick up
Group Call Pickup - Ring multiple Teams members
Shared Line Appearance - delegate to answer or handle calls on their behalf

My notes:

Personal call routing - the ability to manipulate a phone call as it goes through your Microsoft Teams environment.

• Requirements
  Enterprise Voice Licensing (Phone System) and Configuration settings (Number assigned + Teams Only mode)
• Shared line appearance (delegates)
  Boss-Admin and vacation scenarios. This is enabled default with Teams Enterprise Voice.
• Group call pickup
  Send my incoming call to a group of people. This is enabled default with Teams Enterprise Voice. Limit of 32,000 groups.
• Call park - needs to be enabled by an admin in the Teams Admin portal.
  Scenarios: Reception - park the call, shout out (intercom) someone else can pick it up. Transfer from mobile to desktop. Support from channel, park the call let the channel know. Does not work with devices (desk phones)
• IT Pro (Administrators)
  The Group call pickup and the Call delegation the user have configured is visible in the Teams Admin center and can be modified by an administrator.

Who is missing SEFAutil?

Ignite 2019 - VCE10 - Calling in Microsoft Teams

Presented by: Paul Cannon

Session summary:
Learn about the basics of Calling in Teams and also get an update on the latest such as Reverse Number lookup, Delegation, and more.

My notes:

Calling is a native part of the Teams architecture. Direct Routing is currently being used in 80 countries. Use Calling Plans for initial tests / PoC and use Direct Routing for larger rollouts. It is possible to mix Calling Plans and Direct Routing

Dynamic Emergency Calling is coming to Calling Plans.

Many SBCs are certified for Direct Routing and the number is growing. Here is the List of Session Border Controllers certified for Direct Routing

A video on the new packaging "Business Voice" was shown. This is designed for customers with up to 300 seats and Audio Conferencing is included in Business Voice, and is currently available in the UK and Canada.

Calling Plans or Direct Routing will get a dial tone to your Teams clients.

QnA

Can we use Express route for Teams voice?
It is generally not recommended but could be appropriate in some situations.

How is branch survivability being addressed in Teams?
Microsoft is looking into SD-WAN to solve this. Some customers still want appliance devices and this is also being investigated.

Will Microsoft build an Attendant console for Teams?
Right now, there are several partners doing that.

Past, present and future innovation in Teams calling

Ignite 2019 - BRK3216 - Optimizing the Microsoft Teams experience with data and analytics

Presented by: Jamie Stark

Session summary:
Are your users taking full advantage of Microsoft Teams? Is your environment set up to deliver the best experience possible? Does your management know the business value provided by Teams and M365? Come out to this session and get a strong "YES!" to each of these questions as we discuss in depth the data and analytics capabilities of Microsoft Teams. Learn how data driven insights can accelerate adoption, improve service quality, and help optimize your network.

My notes:

Call Analytics - Quality from a media perspective.
After being in preview for a long time, CA have now moved into the Teams Admin portal in the user and devices detail page. Two admin roles exist to give access to Call Analytics. A demo of Call Analytics showing how to filter the call hitory, gantt chart of a conference call, response code, information on devices and exporting reports.

Usage reporting - shows usage across Office 365 workloads.
Basic information is in the Office 365 admin center and deeper information about Teams is in the Teams Admin center. A demo showing the Teams usage and Teams user activity, full screen report, getting to Call Analytics from the usage reports, Teams device usage (operating systems), spark lines on Teams activity, live events, PSTN usage and export to excel. The "information cards" in the admin portal will become customizable in the future.

Reporting via APIs - using Graph to go beyond canned reports.
Working with o365 usage reports in MS graph. A demo using PowerShell to get data from the last 180 days, creating an AzureAD app with a client secret, Teams activity data compared to email activity

Graph can be used from PowerShell

 
Roadmap

• More Call Quality Reporting in the Teams Admin center
• Per channel analytics for Teams
• Additional metrics & reporting through Graph

Resources

• Quantifying the value of collaboration with Microsoft Teams
• Overview of people and workplace intelligence in Microsoft Graph
• Microsoft Teams device usage reports (Graph)

Ignite 2019 - THR1094 - Learn how to use Shifts in Microsoft Teams

Presented by: Keara James

Session summary:
Discover how to create and manage shift schedules and learn about the latest mobile features in Teams.

My Notes:

Firstline worker - anyone who clocks in and clocks out, for example a nurse, teacher, construction worker, police officer.

A schedule can be created in the GUI or by uploading an excel file, a schedule can be created first and when done shared with the team. Schedules can be exported to excel or as a pdf for easy printing. Team members can easily swap shifts with each other. Schedules can be populated from Chronos or JDE.

With an F1 license you see the Shifts app in the mobile Teams client. A user can be part of multiple Teams / multiple schedules. Employees clock in and out and take breaks, and they can request time off using the mobile client

The mobile Shifts experience

Off-shift access can be enabled by administrators to provide a notification to Firstline Workers when they access the Teams app on their personal device outside of their payable hours. When the user acknowledges this message they can still access the mobile Teams app.

Delegated User Management allows Firstline managers to manage user credentials (phone numbers) via the My Staff portal.

SMS Sign-in will allow a Firstline Worker to sign-in with only the phone number and a one-time passcode received via SMS.

Global sign-out will sign out from Teams and any other LOB application the Firstline Worker might be signed in to.

QnA

What do we need to start using Shifts?
The Teams app installed on the mobile phone, and an F1, E3 or E5 license.

Is the Outlook calendar integrated with Shifts?
No, but the product group is considering this.

What is the maximum number of users in Shifts?
Same limits as for Microsoft Teams.

Is it possible to clock in and out with the desktop app?
No, but the product group is considering this.

Ignite 2019 - THR3044 - Top five things you need to know to optimize your network for Microsoft Teams

Presented by: Johan Delimon

Session summary:
Avoid the pitfalls that will break your intelligent communications experience for Microsoft Teams. Learn how you can optimize your internal and external network in order to deliver high quality communications in Microsoft Teams.

My Notes:

Johan took us on a history tour to the time before the Internet, then came firewalls and proxies. These devices were used for security, control and compliance. Next VPNs became popular to use from home or from other sites. When cloud services came we just accessed these through the firewalls and proxies in place. This might have been ok from a security standpoint, but not from a quality or media optimization view.

The issues were

• Proxy servers (TCP 80 & 443)
• Firewalls only allow Proxy Servers to Internet
• VPN used for Internet access
• Remote sites using a central internet breakout
• Office 365 not a trusted destination

Fixing the Issues

• Proxies
  Bypass the Proxy for Office 365 traffic and open the firewall for this traffic. Get a proxy that can use the "Office 365 IP Address and URL web service" to open for all the "Office 365 URLs and IP address ranges" in this list.
• Firewalls
  Allow all Office 365 IPs and Ports (TCP 443 & UDP 3478-3481 for Teams for example.) Also check if any internal firewalls or firewalls between sites are blocking media (TCP/UDP 50000-50059) between clients. In this case calls will still work since the clients can use the external Transport Relays to send media, but it is not optimal of course.  
• VPN
  Bypass the tunnel for Office 365 traffic by using split tunnelling
• Delay
  Connect to a Transport Relay as close as possible by using local Internet breakouts.
• QoS
  Use Windows Group Policy Objects to define QoS for the client.
  
  

 The road to happiness (or at least to good quality in Teams media)