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Monday, December 16, 2019

Ignite 2019 - BRK3226 - Every team, connected: Develop Microsoft Teams apps with Microsoft Graph

Presented by: Bill Bliss

Session summary:

The Microsoft Teams Graph APIs have grown considerably over the past year with many new APIs and types for Teams.  With team channel chat APIs, integrate Teams conversation experiences into your apps. Find out how to provision focused Teams experiences to every team in your organization, including managing the set of apps deployed to Teams.  Connect to the backing information behind every team, including files, plans, notes, and more.  This session shows how you can tightly connect to every facet of a team, and with several updates, see new ways for managing Teams applications that make it easier to distribute your apps and get them used.

My notes:

What should you use Graph API for?
  • Team and Teams user lifecycle automation
  • Analytics, compliance, announcements and flow integration
  • In Teams apps

Automating the Teams lifecycle

(If you would like to see this live in action, check out Vesa Nopanens great session from the European Teams User Group Virtual Summit - Making Teams the Hub for Work: The Graph API in Practice)

Analytics, compliance, announcements and flow integration

The questions: Which are the active teams and channels, what is the message volume, who are the active users? can be answered with Graph API.

Coming features
  • Sending chat messages with embedded images
  • Notification/webhook for all chats for a single user
  • Add/remove members to 1:1 and group chats

Webhooks in Graph API - register for notifications (per-channel) and get metadata about the event. The Subscription authorization must be periodically refreshed since it expires every 60 minutes, more info here: Change notifications for Teams messages, including message properties (preview)

If you are building a Teams App that uses Graph API, you would need Admin consent when customer deploys your App. This is addressed with Resource Specific Consent. Apps asks and gets permission only to resources in specific O365 Groups, not the entire tenant. Resource-Specific Consent (RSC) is a new consent model which can serve as the bridge between Graph API and Microsoft Teams apps. An app should only be allowed to work in one Team not in all.

The Group.ReadWrite.All permission is to wide - RSC can narrow the scope.

Only Teams owners can add consent to use Team data in this model, Admins can decide to allow this capability in the first place, and team owners can consent. The setting in the Azure Portal is called "Users can consent to apps accessing company data for the groups they own", where "Group" is the same as "Team".

Sunday, December 15, 2019

Ignite 2019 - MTG20 - What's New for Microsoft Teams Meetings

Presented by: James Skay and Jigar Dani

Session summary:
Microsoft Teams meetings are transformative for Contoso.  In this session we'll highlight the latest improvements in meetings quality and showcase what's new in the meeting experience.

My notes:

Better understand of what's new in meetings, when it is coming and get to know what Microsoft is doing from a quality and reliability perspective.

Features Shipped since January 1, 2019
  • Meeting options
  • Audio Conference: PSTN join option on pre-join
  • Audio Conference: active PSTN speakers
  • Mobile 1-click screenshare
  • Mobile 1-click join via lock screen and Outlook mobile
  • Mobile PSTN dialin and Call Me Back
  • Live Events with live captions
  • Background blur
  • Share whiteboard (preview)
  • Meeting start and missed meeting nudge
  • Meeting recording with PPT and share recording

Features Shipped in the last quarter
  • Meetings first mode for Teams
  • Screen sharing with content zoom in/out
  • Web meeting: Plug-in free video in Chrome (Web RTC support)
  • Web meeting: outbound screen sharing in Chrome
  • Meet now
  • Pin participant
  • Screen sharing with system audio
  • Intelligent join: MTR proximity join and content join
  • Share whiteboard

Features coming soon
  • Multi-window for meeting
  • Live captions (English preview)
  • Citrix VDI support for Teams meetings
  • Presenter and Attendee Roles

Demos of Meet now, pre-meeting join stage with auto-mute background blur or custom background, pin participant(s), live captions in English (other languages to be added during next year), Presenter and Attendee Roles, meeting options, multi-window, mobile join with background blur (nice for iPads), add this device to meeting or transfer to mobile device, cloud recording, meeting join from Google Chrome, sharing from Chrome (screen, window, tab), meeting join from Mozilla Firefox.

Quality Demos
  • PSTN Call back at audio device issues
  • Clear audio quality in networks with 50% packet loss
  • Hand of from WiFi to Mobile data to PSTN dialin
  • Quick echo detection and suppression

Wednesday, December 11, 2019

Ignite 2019 - MTG10 - Get the most out of meetings with Microsoft Teams

Presented by: James Skay and Pauli Kongas from Kone

Session summary:
Meeting needs are changing and the way we work has evolved. Learn how Teams meetings can help Contoso be more productive.  We’ll highlight the various meeting capabilities in Teams and showcase best practices.

My notes:

Objectives for this session: Learn about different types of meetings in Teams, understand the meeting lifecycle and get some best practices and tips.

Meetings should not be a series of chaos.

Meetings could be
  • Scheduled - with an invitation
  • Ad Hoc - Meet now
  • Channel - Small group collaboration
  • Live Event - Town hall, webinar, all hands

The meeting lifecycle: Before, During and After.

Every Teams meeting gives you
  • Chat
  • Files
  • Meeting Notes
  • Whiteboard

To upload a file to the meeting before it starts, go to the Calendar in Teams, right click the meeting and select "Chat with participants". On the "pre-join meeting stage you can chose if the camera should be on, what background to use, what devices to use and make a test call. Cloud recording will record the meeting right into Stream. Live Captions in English is rolling out soon. Also, a meeting in Teams mobile was shown, turn the screen to change the view, start cloud recording, call me back, screen sharing from mobile and sharing a PowerPoint from OneDrive. Searching for a word or a phrase in the meeting recording after the meeting was held.

Microsoft Whiteboard - a freeform, intelligent canvas for people to ideate, iterate, and work together in person and remotely, across multiple devices. Ink grab (AI-enhanced) will make your analogue drawings digital and ink beautification increases the readability of quickly-jotted notes in the Whiteboard canvas, it analyses the handwriting and automatically replaces it with more legible strokes.

Customer Showcase Kone - 57,000 employees in total, during the ignite week Kone switched all 55,000 IT users to Teams only. They moved 2,000 users first and received 10 support tickets from these users. Were in a pilot / testing phase for about a year, and in hindsight they could have done the move earlier. During a normal day at Kone they consume over
  • 150,000 messages
  • 4,000 meetings (close to 1 million meetings per year)
  • 4,000 calls
using Teams from over 60 countries.

Audio Conferencing for Teams meetings is available in 72 countries, with dial in numbers in 90 countries.

Why Teams meetings?

Tuesday, December 10, 2019

Ignite 2019 - BRK3267 - Bridge the gap between HR, IT and business with the Azure Active Directory identity provisioning platform

Presented by: Nitika Gupta, Chetan Desai and Erdim Tanyeri (Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation (SMBC)), Jason Revill (Avanade UK), Tommy Bergens (Atea Sverige AB)

Session summary:
In the new cloud era, where software is a critical asset and technology innovation fuels growth, HR, IT and business teams are increasingly relying on accurate and consistent identity data to drive business processes and outcomes. When your company goes through re-orgs, mergers, acquisitions and divestitures, is there a painful delta between the identity data that business expects and what IT delivers? Does IT still rely on legacy or home-grown tools to manage identities in the cloud? Is IT struggling with onboarding and offboarding cloud app identities? Join us to learn how the Azure AD identity provisioning platform enables HR, IT and business teams to address these challenges with new capabilities and deliver experiences that boost productivity, simplify collaboration and improve compliance.

My notes:

According to Gartner 60% of all organizations will use Cloud HR by 2025.

Azure AD Identity can help you bridge the gaps between HR, IT and business.

Demo of provisioning Azure AD from a "SuccessFactors" system, with attribute mapping and provisioning logs. Demo of provisioning Azure AD using Azure AD connect (SMBC customer case.)

Scenario with an intermediate forest connecting disconnected AD forests to Azure AD

SCIM (System for Cross-domain Identity Management) is a Standards-based information exchange across domains.

At 38:20 in the recording Mr Tommy Bergens from Atea Sverige AB and Jason Revill from Avanade UK entered the stage. Tommy sees a shift from on-prem to cloud provisioning solutions, also more and more application developers build on SCIM making implementations of provisioning much easier and faster than in the past.

Azure AD provisioning will enable
  • Simplified Cloud HR integration
  • Quick integration with multiple on-premises AD forests
  • Cloud-scale app provisioning

Azure AD - all the provisioning you'll ever need.

Monday, December 9, 2019

Ignite 2019 - BRK1066 - Collaboration on the go with the Microsoft Teams mobile app

Presented by: Marissa Salazar and Arvind Muthukrishnan

Session summary:
With apps for both iOS and Android, Microsoft Teams offers you a truly mobile-first way of working and collaborating with your team. Whether you use mobile as a companion experience or as your primary communications app, Teams offers all the features you need to stay on top of your work, keep in touch with your team and be productive. Join us to learn about what’s new and coming soon as we look beyond the basics to light up uniquely mobile scenarios. We will show mobile-first and cross-device features and talk about how to get the most out of the mobile app.

My notes:

Mobile devices make up 42% of total time spent online.

The mobile Teams client

Some features of Teams, such as pinned channels, are actually coming to the mobile client first and to the desktop client later

A Demo of Teams mobile followed showing share location, reply to specific message in thread, pinning channels, marking a chat as unread, fast tenant swapping, picture with annotations, audio messages, search, quiet hours, screen sharing, message extensions (poll), SMS-sign in (for an AAD account).

Threaded conversations, notifications across accounts and custom backgrounds are coming in the future.

Blurred backgrounds from Teams mobile was demoed as well.

With OLED screens (iPhoneX and higher) screen brightness is the biggest culprit for battery usage, this is why "dark mode" is a good idea on Teams mobile.


Captive Portal Detection, when connecting to a network where you have to accept some terms or similar before gaining internet access (e.g. hotel, cafe) the Teams client will display a "Wi-Fi Connected, no internet" message.

Smart functions and messages to keep your meeting going.

Saturday, December 7, 2019

Ignite 2019 - BRK2243 - Drive digital transformation using apps in Microsoft Teams

Presented by: Zakiullah Khan Mohammed

Session summary:
Apps in Microsoft Teams allows you to connect information, processes, people, and conversations as a single thread to drive business outcomes faster and with confidence. Today over 300 ready-to-use applications are available for Microsoft Teams, most of which are already being used within your organization. Join us to discover what collaborative workflows using apps in Teams you can enable for your organization, how you can leverage security and compliance information available for you to make informed decisions around apps in Teams and learn best practices employed by other customers around app governance and adoption.

My notes:

Apps can take Teams beyond calling, meetings and chat. Apps will allow you to
  • Accelerate digital transformation
  • Drive individual and group productivity
  • Champion your line of business processes
  • Build as Citizen or Professional developer
  • Manage at scale with confidence

Routine tasks and Context switching are problems that Apps in Teams can solve.

An example of an IT Service Desk ticketing solution using a bot, tab, task module, message extension and an adaptive card, as an app in Teams was demoed.

A demo of Smartsheet (in Teams) followed.

An App in Teams is a collection of capabilities (tabs, bots, message actions, messaging extensions, task modules, notifications) connecting to any number of back-end services (Azure, Graph, SharePoint, Flow, Line of business systems.)


42 of the 315 organizations that already have an app in Teams.

Friday, December 6, 2019

Ignite 2019 - THR4004 - Microsoft Teams: Real-world troubleshooting

Presented by: Tom Arbuthnot

Session summary:
In this session, he shares tips for troubleshooting your Microsoft Teams deployment. We go from tenant configuration to networks to config files giving you real-world approaches to dealing with Microsoft Teams technical challenges.

My notes:
 

Thursday, December 5, 2019

SUCK - Svenska UC Klubben - meeting 2019-12-04

(Post in Swedish about a meeting in our local UC user group in Sweden.)

Ungefär 20 personer samlades hos Microsoft i Stockholms city och ca 10 var med remote över Teams. Det var mingel, tilltugg och prata med Tendfor - kvällens sponsor, från 17:00 till 18:00 då webbsändningen började.

Här är en länk till inspelningen av mötet, och vill ni enbart kolla på min del om CQD kan ni klicka här.

18:00 - 18:15 Inledning + Microsoft berättar om sin flytt och nya lokaler

Med hjälp av en mobil Teams klient i en smartphone togs en rundtur i Microsofts nya lokaler tillsammans med Robert Carlsson från Microsoft. Det är nu två veckor sedan MS lämnade Akalla efter 28 år. Kontoret ligger på Regeringsgatan 25 och består till en tredjedel av ytor för Microsofts personal och till två tredjedelar av öppna ytor dit Microsofts kunder och partners är välkomna till möten eller för att sitta och jobba tillsammans med Microsoft personal. Vi fick se MTC - Mircosoft Technology Center - där miljöer byggs upp för kunder att sitta och testa ny teknik som t.ex. mötesrum med Mircosoft Teams Rooms och Hololens. Utsikten mot NKs julskyltning och ner mot WeWork beundrades. I lokalerna har det arbetats mycket med ljuddämpning och materialval just för att man ska kunna hålla distansmöten via Teams med god ljudkvalité, och detta märktes faktiskt i livesändningen under rundvandringen.

18:15 - 18:40 Tendfor visar och berättar

Mårten Ekblad som är utvecklingschef hos Tendfor berättade om telefonimarknaden och skiftet från on-premises till molnbaserade lösningar för telefoni. Teams är globalt, billigare, enklare och bättre så det borde vara ett enkelt val för företag att ta steget till molnet även när det gäller telefoni. Tendfor, Teams och en (mobil)operatörsplatform i samverkan kan erbjuda bra lösningar för telefonister och contact centers. Vi fick se telefonistklienten, Teams appen och mobilklienten (iOS / Android) som Tendfor utvecklat. Även en konfigurerbar wallboard och statistikportal med inspelning visades. Hänvisning lever kvar i Tendfors system.

Tendfors system kan ta emot samtal utifrÃ¥n PSTN och koppla dessa mot interna "anknytningar" i Teams, men kan inte i dagsläget koppla ut samtal tillbaka till PSTN.  En workaround för att fÃ¥ till telefonistfunktionen har dÃ¥ varit att använda simring pÃ¥ interna användare sÃ¥ att de även fÃ¥r samtal till t.ex. mobilen. Detta var möjligt att göra i Skype for business med verktyget SEFAutil, det är svÃ¥rare i Teams men fullt möjligt som det demonstrerades i Ignite sessionen THR2102 - Microsoft Teams: Personal call routing.

Det Tendfor väntar på i Calling API för Teams är framför allt
  • UtgÃ¥ende samtal mot PSTN
  • Presence (finns i preview nu för läsning av presence)
  • Call Recording

Dessa funktioner är planerade att bli tillgängliga under nästa år.

Triangeldramat för telefonist i Teams

För managering av Tendfor används både REST API och PowerShell förutom de grafiska gränssnitten. Det går att få test tenants från Tendfor som fungerar under 60 dagar. Tendfor är tekniskt en operatörsoberoende lösning, men ingår i vissa paketeringar hos operatörer.

18:40 - 19:20 Samtalskvalitetsinstrumentbrädan

Mattias Kressmark från Microsoft startade med att berätta om samtalskvalitet och hur Teams klienten samlar in sådan data och spar den för presentation i Samtalskvalitetsinstrumentbrädan. Även definitionerna av Good, Poor och unclassified (unknown) gicks igenom. Innan det blev demo i Samtalskvalitetsinstrumentbrädan visades Call Analytics, Office 365 usage reports och PowerShell. Demonstrationen visade drillthrough i HelpDesk rapporten, hur man ser meddelandena som användarna kan skriva in tillsammans med Rate my call informationen samt de nya PowerBI rapporterna. Nyheter i Advanced CQD (version 3) gicks igenom samt framtida uppdateringar. Även vikten av building datafilen och hur man skapar och laddar upp den visades.

En frÃ¥ga kom kring GDPR och vad som händer med personliga data dÃ¥ nÃ¥gon slutar? Den frÃ¥gan besvarades inte pÃ¥ plats, men svaret är att det är löst i CQD pÃ¥ sÃ¥ sätt att all EUII (End-user Identifiable Information) raderas ur CQD datat efter 30 dagar. “PII or EUII data only comes from the v3 pipeline. Due to compliance reasons, PII/EUII data is only kept for 30 days.”

Vad gör man om man har samma subnät på flera olika orter?
Byt IP range på några av orterna så att de blir unika.

Det kommer komma mer i Samtalskvalitetsinstrumentbrädan framöver

19:20 - 19:40 Privata kanaler samt frågestund

Mårten Hellebro från Cloudway tog en grundare dykning ner i privata kanaler som är en ny funktion som just kommit i Teams. Detta har varit den mest efterfrågade funktionen i Teams uservoice under en lång tid.

I ett vanligt Team kan man nu skapa en kanal som enbart kan accessas av de som är medlemmar i just denna kanal, även en separat site collection i SharePoint skapas för denna kanal för att även filer som delas enbart ska få accessas av medlemmarna i kanalen. Antalet site collections i en tenant har ökats till max 2 millioner, då detta kommer driva upp antalet något. Det går att skapa max 30 privata kanaler i ett Team. Ägaren av Teamet blir inte automatiskt medlem i en privat kanal, men han kan se att den finns, ta bort den eller göra restore på den. Det går att ha möten i en privat kanal men dessa går inte att spela då Stream inte kan begränsas på samma sätt som filer till enbart kanalens medlemmar. Externa användare kan ingå i Privata kanaler. Det går inte att göra om publika kanaler till privata.

Varför skulle någon använda Slack istället för Teams? Kanske kunder som inte har Office 365 och redan har börjat med Slack är den största målgruppen. Teams innehåller numera fler funktioner än Slack. Slack finns även för Linux och snart kommer även Teams på Linux.

Det har vart en liten debatt i media kring hur många användare som egentligen använder Teams driven av medarbetare på Slack. Microsoft räknar någon som användare som loggat in och gjort något i Teams som en användare i den månatliga, vecko eller dags statistiken.

När kommer den nya management portalen för Teams Rooms i Teams Admin Portalen?
Snart, och den nya "managed rooms" tjänsten har varit i drift i preview i 1700 rooms innan den nu kommer släppas officiellt.

Kolla gärna in https://preview.rooms.microsoft.com för mer information.

Tack till Tendfor, Microsoft, Linus och MÃ¥rten!

Tuesday, December 3, 2019

Ignite 2019 - BRK3217 - Optimizing coexistence on your path to Teams

Presented by: László Somi and Bryan Nyce

Session summary:
Determine the most suitable approach based on your current Skype for Business implementation and business goals with Teams. This session will review options for coexistence between Skype for Business and Teams, including scenario based considerations.

My notes:

The starting point includes Skype for business and the end point is all users in Teams Only mode. The key considerations are
  • Feature requirements and overlapping functionality
  • Moving all users at once or in cohorts
    (cohort - a group of people banded together or treated as a group)
  • The velocity to move users to Teams Only

In an upgrade the user will chat, call and hold meetings in Teams and all data about future meetings are upgraded as well. The Skype for business client will remain on the computer in a "meetings only" mode to join future SfB meetings.

In a side-by-side Islands mode scenario, calling and incoming federated messages will go to the Skype for Business client. There will be two buttons to schedule meetings in Outlook.

Phone system features (Calling plans and/or Direct Routing) will not be available until the user is in Teams Only mode.

Considerations

In Islands mode presence is shared and there is interoperability between SfB and Teams clients, but it is not a "native" experience it is a text only chat. There will be graphical elements in both clients showing which system the user you are chatting with is using. Make sure that you have the latest versions of both clients, this especially important for desktop sharing from SfB to Teams to work. Desktop sharing in interoperability mode is realized by starting a meeting - either in SfB (if that is where the initiating user is located) or in Teams. If you want the native experience - get to Teams.

Consider the meeting rooms - if you have SRS you can keep using these rooms, LRS rooms must be upgraded. Think about which audio devices are in use, will they work with Teams?

Voice Migration Options

In Skype for business voice could be enabled via
  • SfB On-premises Enterprise Voice
  • SfB On-premises Configuration Hybrid (OPCH)
  • SfB Online Calling Plans
  • SfB Onlie Cloud Connector Edition (CCE)
In Teams there are Calling Plans and/or Direct Routing.

Questions and Answers

There is a function to automatically update SfB meetings to Teams, is it working?
Yes, the Meeting Migration Service has been used by many customers already, and it works with Exchange Online.

Is there and option to use Teams for chat only?
Yes, by turning off features one-by-one by policies.

Can we use a number in our own PBX as the dial-in conferencing number in Teams?
No, Teams dial-in services are only provided by the Audio conferencing services from Microsoft in the cloud. It is possible to migrate the number to Office 365, purchase communications credits and make that number show up in Teams meeting invitations.

Can we migrate SfB Response Groups to Teams?
SfB Response Groups can be moved to Teams Org auto attendants and call queues, but this would be a manual process.

Sunday, December 1, 2019

Ignite 2019 - TMS50 - Streamline business processes with the Microsoft Teams development platform

Presented by: Karan Nigam and Zakiullah Khan Mohammed

Session summary:
Join us to learn how Microsoft Teams can integrate applications and streamline business processes at Contoso. Teams can become your productivity hub by embedding the apps you are already using or deploying custom-built solutions using the latest dev tools. We show you how to leverage the Microsoft Power Platform to automate routine tasks like approvals and create low code apps for your Teams users.

My notes:

  • You can integrate your processes right in Teams.
  • What capabilities in Teams should you use?
  • How can you manage your solutions?

For a sales scenario, dynamics and power automate can be integrated and used right within Teams.

A video about how the American Red Cross is using Teams with Power Apps was played. Next the American Red Cross was showing a live demo of how they use apps in Teams.

When considering building an app - ask
  • Does it solve a real problem?
  • How often will it be used?
  • What’s the collaboration need?
  • What ROI does it provide?

Today there are more than 315 apps available in the Teams store.

Different capabilities of Teams

You can build your own...
  • Tabs
  • Bots
  • Adaptive cards
  • Messaging extensions
  • Task modules
  • Notifications
...and there are many options to use as a back-end to the app
  • Azure
  • Graph
  • SharePoint
  • PowerApps
  • Flow
  • Power BI
  • Forms

With Message Actions it is possible to save a conversation as notes or to create a task with the conversation as background information

Message Actions in Action

You can publish an app to the store to be available for all tenants worldwide, or to your tenant only using the company store, or to your team only by sideloading. App Self attestation and certification are available to build trust in your app.

Tuesday, November 26, 2019

Ignite 2019 - TMS40 - Managing Microsoft Teams effectively

Presented by: Anne Michels

Session summary:
With simple and granular management capabilities, Microsoft Teams empowers Contoso administrators with the controls they need to provide the best experience possible to users while protecting company data and meeting business requirements. Join us to learn more about the latest security and administration capabilities of Microsoft Teams.

My notes:

This session is for IT administrators to understand Teams in the areas of
  • Architecture
  • Security and compliance
  • Manageability

A "team" is an Office 365 Group and a SharePoint Team site. The Teams client will be a part of Office 365 pro-plus and will be part of the Semi-annual channel.

Each private channel will have its own SharePoint site collection, and the number of site collections in a tenant is raised to two million.

Information barriers in Microsoft Teams are available for chats and channels and are soon coming to files and SharePoint.

A demo of how create a Data Loss Prevention Policy and how it looks like when it is activated in the client.

Office 365 ATP Safe Links are soon coming to Teams.

Teams can be managed by
  • Microsoft Teams Admin Center
  • Microsoft 365 Compliance Center
  • Microsoft 365 Security Center
  • Azure Active Directory Admin Center
  • PowerShell

Advisor for Teams is part of the Teams admin center that will help you in a roll out of Microsoft Teams. It configures a Team for the deployment, provides plans and step-by-step guidance as planner tasks included in the Team.

The difference between settings and policies are that settings applies to the tenant, while policies can be applied on a per-user basis.

Management of Teams Rooms Devices is coming to the admin portal and a demo with scheduled restarts of devices and download of logs was shown. Usage analytics is now available both in the Microsoft Teams admin center and in the Teams client itself.

Security and Compliance in Teams are growing

Monday, November 25, 2019

Ignite 2019 - TMS20 - Intelligent communications in Microsoft Teams

Presented by: James Skay and Paul Cannon

Session summary:
Microsoft Teams solves the communication needs of a diverse workforce. Calling and meeting experiences in Teams support more productive collaboration and foster teamwork across Contoso. Join us to learn more about the latest intelligent communications features along with the most recent additions to our device portfolio.

My notes:

There are five main parts of Microsoft Teams.
  • Meetings / Live Events
  • Chat
  • Calling
  • Files
  • Teams as a platform, apps and workflows

Meetings
 
There are four main types of meetings that run in Microsoft Teams.
  • Scheduled - structured, planned of time with internal or external participants.
  • Ad Hoc - click "Meet now" to start sharing screen, work on documents.
  • Channel - A scheduled meeting inviting everyone part of a channel
  • Live Events - meetings for up to 10,000 people (or even more with eCDN providers.)

Teams helps these meetings being efficient before, during and after the meeting.
  • Before - context, history, chat in the channel, files beforehand, pre-join stage
  • During - cloud recording, live captions, whiteboard (with content camera), sharing (with system audio), reconnecting
  • After - notes, actions, view recording, search transcript

Recent Innovation in Teams Meetings

Audio Conferencing dial-in is available in 72 countries, interactive voice response in 44 languages - Swedish included.

Calling
 
Calling Plans are available in 12 countries and Direct Routing is now used in more than 80 countries and it is possible to mix and match both types. A demo of voicemail, delegates, consultative call using chat was shown, followed by a video about Microsoft Teams Rooms.

Sunday, November 24, 2019

Ignite 2019 - THR2130 - Raising Visibility and Trust in Apps on Teams

Presented by: Bill Bliss

Session summary:
We, at Microsoft, aim to expedite adoption of Teams apps within enterprises through improved transparency and trust between Teams app developers and Enterprises. Come learn about our programs that provide visibility into security and data handling postures of apps built on Teams.

My notes:

A lot of large enterprises turned off all apps in Teams to start with since they did not know if they could trust the apps. They need to trust the apps that are being run in their organization.

Understanding this Microsoft now announces a new Microsoft 365 Certification Program (for apps.) and the goal of this program is to raise visibility and trust in Apps on Teams.

At the Microsoft 365 Publisher Attestation page information about apps are in a single location, in a consistent manner. The Certification program takes this a step further.

In the list of apps, you can click any app and see four information areas for the app, General, Data Handling, Security and Compliance, CSA STAR.

In the future the Teams Admin center will show information about all apps, and indicate if they are certified or not.

Apps in the Teams Admin portal

The same type of app certification exists for other Office programs as well such as Word, Outlook, etc.

Resources:
Overview and app info: https://aka.ms/AppCertification
For developers: https://aka.ms/AppCertificationDevInfo

Saturday, November 23, 2019

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 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!

Friday, November 22, 2019

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

Thursday, November 21, 2019

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?

Tuesday, November 19, 2019

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

Sunday, November 17, 2019

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

Friday, November 15, 2019

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.

Thursday, November 14, 2019

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)

Wednesday, November 13, 2019

Ignite 2019 - BRK3261 - Learn about new, innovative and intelligent devices for Microsoft Teams


Presented by: Sandhya Rao (personal devices) and Greg Baribault (shared room devices)

Session summary:
Learn what’s new with Microsoft Teams Devices that will bring the modern workplace experiences to life across all spaces and conference rooms in your organization.

My Notes:

There is a certified devices program where devices are tested to work well with Teams, please use these devices.

New Teams-certified Speaker phones with a "Teams button" which indicates missed calls, and quick meeting join.

  • Poly - Calisto 3200
  • Jabra - Speak 750
  • Sennheiser - Expand SP 30T
  • Yealink - CP700 / CP900

Last year there were 20 million desk phones sold globally, and this number is growing.

Hotdesking is a new feature to be used with the Teams desk phones. The phone is logged in, but a user can come and login on the phone with his credentials, use it for a while, and at logoff the phone will revert to the original number. It will be possible to dial 911 straight from the lock screen (how about 112?)

New Collaboration Bars hardware are coming from Poly and Yealink in early 2020. The Collaboration Bar will contain a camera, speaker and compute so no additional computer needed to run a meeting.

Console / compute systems are available from Crestron, HP, Lenovo which have the audio built in the console, and Logitech, Yealink which have the compute section separate, so it could be hidden under the table for example. Crestron and Logitech also have content cameras (white board cameras) available.

With Proximity based meetings you simply walk into the room with a meeting running on your device - mobile phone or tablet or PC - and the room will be added to the meeting automatically and your device will be muted and silent to avoid howling.

Whiteboard and Content capture camera, makes it easier to whiteboard and include remote users. The front of room displays can be configured with custom images and branding on the console itself will soon be available.

Direct guest join for third party meetings will allow a MTR to connect to Zoom and/or Webex meetings using WebRTC. A demo of joining a Webex meeting with video was shown. Cisco and Zoom devices will be able to join Teams meetings as well.

Management of MTRs is coming to the Teams Admin portal showing the usage and health of the rooms.

A "Managed meeting rooms" service will be offered from Microsoft for $50 per month per room, see the "Managed Meeting Rooms Service Overview" session for more information.

A closer integration between Surface Hub and Teams Rooms is being worked on. These two devices will be aware of each other and cooperate when they are in the same room. They will also join the meeting together by inviting each other.

QnA

Is the MTR a separate license?
Yes, it has a separate license (Meetingroom SKU) which is like an E5 without the office apps and is about $15 per room per month.

Will the 3rd party join work if the device is in SfB only mode?
Maybe (should not be any technical blockers.)