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Using Skype for Business certified IP Phones with Microsoft Teams

9/30/2018

5 Comments

 
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Microsoft Teams continues its strong momentum of market adoption not just among enterprise customers but also with hardware vendors as evident from the many announcements made at Microsoft Ignite that just ended 2 days ago. There are now various personal and shared audio and video devices that customers can use natively with Microsoft Teams and the list can be found at this website http://office.com/teamsdevices. At the same time, many organizations that are moving from Skype for Business Enterprise voice and who have deployed 3PIP certified Skype for Business IP phones may be asking if these devices can still be used after moving to Teams. Thankfully, the answer is yes because of a SFB-Teams interop service that Microsoft provides which allows these 3PIP devices to interop with Teams; thereby protecting customer's investment while migrating from Skype for Business. This blog post explains how this interop works and what configurations are necessary to leverage this interop service
For starters, its important to understand the concept of 'coexistence modes' that Microsoft has defined in the journey from Skype for Business to Teams. These coexistence modes are set using the TeamsUpgradePolicy powershell cmdlets and govern the routing of incoming calls and chats and whether user can schedule meetings in Teams or Skype for Business. Soon, in conjunction with the upcoming TeamsAppPermissionsPolicy, modes will also govern in which client the user can initiate chats and calls. The full details of these can be found at the official Microsoft website https://docs.microsoft.com/en-sg/MicrosoftTeams/migration-interop-guidance-for-teams-with-skype. In this blog post we only cover the important highlights. There are 5 coexistence modes available today and these and be assigned by the administrator to users depending on their specific requirements. These modes are shown in the diagram below along with the journey from Skype for Business to Teams:
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Its worthwhile noting that these coexistence modes are pre-defined by Microsoft and cannot be modified nor can new ones be created at this time. Since these modes govern the routing of incoming calls and chats, there's a useful interop matrix that administrators can use to determine on which client a user's incoming call or chat will land depending on what mode has been assigned to the sender and recipient:
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The above matrix is built on the principle that except for Islands mode, a given modality (Chat, Calling or Meetings) will only available in either Skype for Business or Teams, but not both. For Islands mode, a user has both SFB and Teams running at the same time, and therefore has access to all modalities in both clients, but there will be no interop between the two. So chats, calls and meetings between these users will stay within either SFB or Teams. Take for example a sender 'Helen' who is Islands mode and a recipient 'Susan' in TeamsOnly mode. In this scenario, Helen can initiate the call from either the PC running Teams or from her 3PIP Polycom VVX phone registered to her SFBO account, but Susan will only receive the call in the PC running Teams, even though Susan has a VVX device that is registered with the associated SFBOnline account. This is shown in the diagram below:
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From this example, we can see that Islands mode is not ideal for 3PIP devices to work with Teams. To leverage fully the interop capabilities offered by the Microsoft SFB-Teams interop service, both users should be in TeamsOnly mode. With this mode, the sender can initiate calls from either the PC running Teams or the 3PIP device, and the recipient can receive and answer the call from either as well. This is shown in the diagram below:
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Its also important to note that while most basic call functions will work on the 3PIP device, there are some limitations at this time. Based on my tests, the capabilities that will work on the 3PIP device include:
  • Presence of Teams User
  • P2P Call to/from Teams User
  • P2P Hold/Resume & Transfer call with Teams User
  • Display/Join Teams meeting in Calendar
  • Conference call Hold/Resume and Mute all
  • Conference call Invite additional SFB participants

However, the following are not working on the 3PIP device:
  • BTOE with Teams Client
  • Conference call Invite additional Teams participants
  • Conference call remove participants
  • P2P call escalate to conference

Now that we've got the concepts covered, lets move on to the powershell cmdlets that need to be run to get this working as discussed. To see the coexistence mode available, we can just login to SFBOnline remote powershell and run the get-CsTeamsUpgradePolicy as shown below:
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We want to grant the TeamsOnly coexistence mode to our users and we can do so using the grant-csteamsupgrade cmdlet with the "UpgradeToTeams" policy as shown below:
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Finally, in order for the 3PIP devices to work properly, remember to ensure that the users are enbled for enterprise voice:
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In conclusion, the Microsoft SFB-Teams interop service allows customers to move to Teams and still use existing SFB 3PIP certified phones such as the Polycom VVX family of devices thereby protecting customer's investment in these solutions. TeamsOnly is the coexistence mode that will allow these devices to work properly with most basic call functions. On the 3PIP devices, users will just login using their regular SFB online account on these phones using either their username/password or via Web Sign-in feature.
5 Comments
Martin link
10/12/2018 05:46:53 am

Thanks for the summary, very well explained and documented!
The company i work for is already using this kind of setup on our productive environment. (we are a very small company so it covers most of our needs) however, there are some things which seem different to your experiences. E.g. we have one user which is in Islands mode, has both VVX and Teams Client and both VVX and Client can initiate and receive calls, very weird. We are making use of the new Direct Routing Feature, since calling plans are not available in our country though.
The biggest issue we have with the 3PIPs/VVX is that, if a call gets placed to a Call Queue in Phone System, the VVX + Teams Clients of the Agents ring all correctly, and we are able to pickup the call in the Teams Client. When we try to Pickup the call on the VVX, it places another call to the number which initially tried to call inbound… the caller then get's a new incoming call while still on the phone with the Call Queue.. very weird. I am in contact with MS Support since like 3 weeks but they have not been able to provide support or any useful information/explanation.
Can you confirm this issue in your Lab? (only if you have the time and resources, of course. it would be greatly appreciated.)

Reply
Brennon Kwok link
10/14/2018 07:31:54 pm

Hi Martin

A user in Islands mode can initiate calls from both VVX and Teams Client but the recipient will only receive the call on Teams. If you want the recipient to receive the call on both VVX and Teams, then the caller needs to be in TeamsOnly mode. I'll test out the Call Queues issue that you mentioned and see if I get the same behavior. Will revert soon.

Reply
Danie
5/9/2019 04:55:21 am

Hi Martin. Im using a Audiocodes 450HD phone on the latest firmware. The user in the tenant i'm using is teams only mode for all the users. I can sign into the Audiocodes 450HD phone with the cloud login, but can't receive or make any calls. I can join meetings and the presence does change etc. The Teams client works 100% and we have direct routing setup. I'm not sure where i'm missing something. In the meantime we have asked MS to move the tenant to their next generation core platform as I'm unable to setup auto attendant or calling queues. I hope the move will sort it out, but my main reason to test with the 450hd is to see that 3pip phones that are certified for SFBO will work with Teams as stated in the vendors articles. Any pointers will be appreciated. I the tenant move work I'll let you know as well.

Reply
Evoipstore link
9/26/2019 03:20:29 am

You have explain really well. If customers have IP phones certified for Skype for Business, and are preparing for an upgrade to Microsoft Teams, the Skype for Business phones will continue to sign into the Skype for Business service and support a limited number of core functionalities.

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Ben Swaby link
10/7/2020 07:32:58 pm

This article nailed it for it. Was having issues with AudioCodes 440HD phones.. The phones would do everything from calling out, directly lookup, etc... but would not receive calls. As soon as we enabled the enterprise, everything started working. Great article and thanks for taking the timeout to put it togehter!!!

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