Microsoft Teams Phones – 2021 Update 1

April 5, 2021 by · 50 Comments 

This article is the first in a series which will focus on each new release of the Microsoft Teams IP Phone client by highlighting any new or changed functionality in each release.  Depending on the depth of a specific new feature or functionality a separate, dedicated article may be posted to cover that topic in […]

Provisioning Microsoft Teams Android Devices

March 31, 2021 by · 20 Comments 

The purpose of this article is two-fold.  Primarily it introduces and explains a new provisioning capability in Microsoft Teams which is applicable to Teams-certified devices across all Android-based categories: Teams Phones, Teams Displays, Teams Panels, and Teams Rooms on Android.  Secondly the overall concept of device provisioning in Teams is explained along with real-world scenarios […]

Device Pairing in Microsoft Teams

January 13, 2021 by · 16 Comments 

The purpose of this article is to demystify a common misconception with how Microsoft Teams allows various types of clients and devices to communicate between each other when leveraging several different native features. The most important concept to understand in this article is that there is actually no direct pairing happening between the Teams clients […]

Meeting Lobby Behavior in Microsoft Teams

December 28, 2020 by · 21 Comments 

This article explains how the meeting lobby is applied to different participant types joining a Microsoft Teams meeting from various clients and devices as well as how to control this behavior using various options provided at the tenant, user, and meeting levels.  Also covered is newer behavior available in Microsoft’s Cloud Video Interop (CVI) partner-offered […]

Upgrading Microsoft Teams Desk Phones

May 21, 2020 by · 76 Comments 

This article outlines the currently available options to upgrade a certified Microsoft Teams IP Phone device to the latest firmware version as provided by Microsoft.  The concepts and processes are generally the same for all certified IP phones provided by the various Microsoft partners.  The example screen captures and documented upgrade process in this article […]

Common Area Phones in Microsoft Teams

April 29, 2020 by · 157 Comments 

The deployment and administrative experience for a Common Area Phone (CAP) across Microsoft’s UC platform has changed over the years as it has matured from an on-premises software release with Lync to hybrid offerings of Skype for Business only to eventually be replaced by the cloud-only Microsoft Teams solution.  Generally the ideal of a common […]

Managing Microsoft Teams Phone Policies

November 2, 2019 by · 43 Comments 

As Microsoft and their certified device partners gear up to bring more native Microsoft Teams IP Phones to the market the management and customization of the device experience is also being expanded upon.  This article introduces the current capabilities of a new PowerShell cmdlet created specifically to manage the user experience of these devices. For […]

Exchange Resource Mailbox Configuration for Meeting Rooms

August 12, 2019 by · 8 Comments 

Several previous articles on this blog have outlined the required configuration of Exchange mailboxes for use with native Microsoft meeting room solutions for Microsoft Teams and Skype.  There are also some articles which cover the configuration for mailboxes for use with standards-based video conferencing solutions from Poly and Cisco which support Microsoft Exchange to display […]

Creating Microsoft Teams Rooms Accounts

February 3, 2019 by · 120 Comments 

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 […]