This article revisits the topic of creating accounts which are used by Microsoft Teams Rooms (MTR), formerly known as the Skype Room System (SRS) v2 platform.  The guidance in this article is applicable to creating online accounts for any natively supported device, from Polycom VVX and Trio phones, to the various Skype Room System offerings from Logitech, Crestron, Polycom, HP, and others.

The directions in this article are performed with an Office 365 tenant utilizing Exchange Online, Skype for Business Online, and Microsoft Teams.  For Server or Hybrid scenarios where the account and/or mailbox is stored on-premises a slightly different process will need to be utilized which is essentially the same as what has been used since the advent of the original Lync Room System platform.

Account Configuration

The majority of the configuration is performed in PowerShell in order to create and modify the account.  While the account configuration for meeting room devices is unique, these are still at the core an Active Directory User Object which has been mailbox-enabled in Exchange as a Room type of resource mailbox.  These are not new concepts and the underlying configuration has followed this arrangement for a long time.

Connect PowerShell

For more details on using Windows PowerShell to connect to and manage the various Office 365 services online refer to this previous article.  The installation steps in that article must be first be to prepare a Windows workstation with the proper software and modules to connect to each online service remotely via PowerShell.  Once that installation has been completed, or if it has previously been taken care of on the workstation then continue on with the following steps.

• Search for and launch the previously installed Microsoft Exchange Online Powershell Module.

• Execute each of the following cmdlets to connect to each service required to complete the account configuration.  Enter the credentials of an account with administrative rights to the Office 365 tenant when prompted by each service.  (Note that all five lines below can be copied and pasted into the PowerShell window at once.)

Connect-EXOPSSession
Connect-MsolService
Import-Module SkypeOnlineConnector
$skype = New-CsOnlineSession
Import-PSSession $skype

Select Account License

When creating a new account via PowerShell the desired location and licensing information will need to be provided.  If this information is already known then this step can be skipped.

• Execute the following Get-MsolAccountSku cmdlet to list all available licenses in the current tenant.

Get-MsolAccountSku

Record the desired AccountSkuId parameter value (e.g. jschertz:ENTERPRISEPREMIUM) for the desired primary license to be assigned to the room system account.  As discussed in past articles the license assigned to this account will need to include at minimum Skype for Business Online Plan 2 and/or Microsoft Teams, but often Business Premium or Enterprise plans are used.  In December 2018 Microsoft introduced a new Meeting Room Office 365 license subscription specifically for devices, so these licenses are ideal for devices like Microsoft Teams Rooms.

In this article the Meeting Room license (e.g. jschertz:MEETING_ROOM) will be used.  Also take note that this tenant includes Calling Plan add-on licenses (jschertz:MCOPSTN2) which will be assigned to the account.  This is an optional step but provides additional functionality to the room systems by allowing PSTN calls to and from the room.  Because the new Meeting Room license

Define Variables

In order to streamline this process by allowing for a simple copy/paste of most cmdlets then the next step is to define a host of variables which will be used throughout the various steps.  Enter the following lines to set the variables to the desired value for each item.

• Set the desired identity (User Principal Name (UPN), SMTP address, SIP URI, etc.) of the new account as the $newRoom variable.

• Select an appropriate display name for the account as the $name variable.

• Define a new, valid password as the $pwd variable.

• Enter the desired license name which was discovered in the previous section as the $license variable.

• Enter the valid 2-letter country code for the appropriate location where this account will be used as the $location variable.

$newRoom="mtr@msteams.net"
$name="Microsoft Teams Room"
$pwd="Password!23"
$license="jschertz:MEETING_ROOM"
$location="US"

Create New Account

This step will create a new account in Azure Active Directory and simultaneously mailbox-enable the account in Exchange Online as a Room resource mailbox.  It also sets the password defined in the previous section and then enables the account for authentication.

• Run the following New-Mailbox cmdlet to create the new account.

New-Mailbox -MicrosoftOnlineServicesID $newRoom -Name $name -Room -RoomMailboxPassword (ConvertTo-SecureString -String $pwd -AsPlainText -Force) -EnableRoomMailboxAccount $true

It is recommended to wait about 30 seconds after the mailbox has successfully been created before attempting to run the commands in the next section, otherwise errors may occur.

Configure Account

The following steps will be used to configure the additional requisite and recommended options on the account and mailbox.

• After waiting 30 seconds run the following Set-MsolUser cmdlet to disable password expiration and set the UsageLocation.

Set-MsolUser -UserPrincipalName $newRoom -PasswordNeverExpires $true -UsageLocation $location

• Run the following Set-MsolUserLicense cmdlet to assign the appropriate Office 365 license to the new account.

Set-MsolUserLicense -UserPrincipalName $newRoom -AddLicenses $license

• Run the following Set-Mailbox cmdlet to set the Outlook MailTip which appears when sending meeting invitations to the room mailbox.

Set-Mailbox -Identity $newRoom -MailTip “This room is equipped to support Teams and Skype Meetings”

• Run the following Set-CalendarProcessing cmdlet to configure how meeting invitations are processed by Exchange for this mailbox.

Set-CalendarProcessing -Identity $newRoom -AutomateProcessing AutoAccept -AddOrganizerToSubject $false -RemovePrivateProperty $false -DeleteComments $false -DeleteSubject $false -AddAdditionalResponse $true -AdditionalResponse “Your meeting is now scheduled and if it was enabled as a Teams or Skype Meeting will provide a seamless click-to-join experience from the conference room.”

It is especially important that the -DeleteComments and -DeleteSubject settings are applied correctly, otherwise invitations may appear on the meeting room device but without the “Join” button needed to connect to the meeting.  These two parameters are set to $true by default when creating a room mailbox through normal methods, thus they must be manually set to $false as shown here.

Enable Meeting Room

These steps are required to enable the account for use with Skype for Business and/or Microsoft Teams.  It is recommended to wait at least 5 minutes after initially creating the account before attempting to enable the account as a meeting room in Skype for Business Online, due to replication intervals.  Sometimes it can take even longer (have seen up to 15 minutes) before this step will successfully complete.

• Run the following Get-CsOnlineUser cmdlet to list the assigned SIP registrar(s) for all Skype-enabled accounts in the tenant.

Get-CsOnlineUser |ft RegistrarPool

The results above indicate that all accounts in the tenant are in the same pool (e.g. sippoolblu2a05.infra.lync.com).

• After waiting several minutes run the following Enable-CsMeetingRoom cmdlet, replacing the RegistrarPool value with the FQDN returned in the previous step to enable the new room account.

Enable-CsMeetingRoom -Identity $newRoom -SipAddressType “EmailAddress” -RegistrarPool “sippoolblu2a05.infra.lync.com“

If the previous cmdlet returns an error of “Management object not found for identity” then the account enablement has not yet been completed in the cloud.  Wait a few more minutes before attempting to run this cmdlet again.

Configure Enterprise Voice

If the room account will also require PBX and PSTN capabilities then the following steps can be used to enable the account appropriately.  For Microsoft Teams either Direct Routing or Calling Plans can be utilized to provide PSTN services to the account.  The tenant in this example currently has an available Calling Plan license which will be used for this purpose.

• Run the following Set-CsMeetingRoom cmdlet to enable the account for Enterprise Voice

Set-CsMeetingRoom -Identity $newRoom -EnterpriseVoiceEnabled $true

• Assign the appropriate Microsoft Calling Plan license (.e.g MCOPSTN2) to the room account using the following cmdlet.

Set-MsolUserLicense -UserPrincipalName $newRoom –AddLicenses “jschertz:MCOPSTN2“

At this point the account configuration is complete and can be used with a meeting room device.

Device Configuration

For the purposes of this article the Polycom + HP SRS Microsoft Teams Room solution will be used to test the account configuration, but these instructions are identical for any of they qualified solutions available today from various Microsoft partners.

The account information can be added to a Microsoft Teams Room device either during the initial setup process by simply booting up the device and following the setup screens, or by selecting the Settings icon in the lower-right corner of the control interface’s default screen.

• If performing first-time setup then accept the Microsoft Software License Terms and select Next.

After accepting the license, or if performing the configuration on a previously configured system, then the User Account screen will appear.

• In the Skype sign-in address field enter the identity selected for the room account which was created (e.g. mtr@msteams.net) and then complete the Password fields.

The Exchange address field will have automatically populated with the same value entered above and should not be changed given the account configured for this unit has the same value for its account name, SIP URI, and SMTP address.

The Domain\username (optional) field should be left blank.  This field is only needed in the event that the account’s SIP URI does not match the account’s UPN and/or legacy account name.  In those situations this field should be used to provide UPN (username@domain.com) or the legacy account name (DOMAIN\username).

• In the Supported meeting mode menu select the Skype for Business and Microsoft Teams (default) option.

The Supported meeting mode setting is a newer setting which was added last year once support for Microsoft Teams was introduced to the product.  This setting essentially controls which meeting platform(s) can be used as well as which will be used as the default.  The available options are:

1. Skype for Business only
2. Skype for Business and Microsoft Teams (default)
3. Skype for Business (default) and Microsoft Teams

This platform currently defaults to the Skype for Business only option which means that calls and meetings with Microsoft Teams users will not work and the interface will not provide a “Join” button for any Microsoft Teams meetings seen on the device’s calendar.  To enable support for Microsoft Teams meetings then either of the other two settings must be selected.  The difference in the other two options is that while they both support joining Skype and Teams meeting invitations the “(default)” portion in the name indicates which platform will be used when the New Meeting and Dial Pad options on the home interface.

The Bluetooth Beaconing setting is also enabled by default, although at the time of posting this article that capability has not yet been made generally available to Microsoft Teams users.  While the beaconing setting and functionality has been appearing in the Microsoft Teams Room software for several release at the point the pairing functionally is not yet available in the desktop or mobile Microsoft Teams clients.  This capability is due to be available soon though so it can be left in the default On state.

• Once the User Account configuration is correct then select Next and advance through the remaining screens by modifying any desired Features or Theming options, or select Save and Exit if simply reconfiguring the account on an existing system.

The system will return to its ready state and the interface should appear similar to the following image.  Note that until the new account is invited to a meeting the interface will not show any calendaring information along the left-hand side.

This new account was immediately invited to both a scheduled Skype Meeting as a Teams Meeting as indicated by the small Skype and Teams icons on associated calendar entry.

Also, because the account in this example was enabled with a base license which includes a Phone System add-on license as well as the proper Enterprise Voice configuration then the Dial Pad option is shown.  The New Meeting option will trigger the creation of a new Microsoft Teams meeting when inviting another participant based on the previous selection of Skype for Business and Microsoft Teams (default) as the Supported Meeting mode setting.