The Complete Guide To Pexip Microsoft Teams

Want to install and implement the Pexip Cloud Video Interop (CVI) service within your organization?

Then you’re in the right place.

Because today I’m going to show you the solution will bridge the gap and permit legacy video conferencing systems, as well as 3rd party guest video conferencing systems, the ability to join Microsoft Teams meetings hosted within a Microsoft 365 tenant.

Pexip Microsoft Teams — 7-Layers of Service Availability

• LAYER 1 — Microsoft 365 Service Overall / Microsoft Hosting
• LAYER 2 — Microsoft Teams Online Service / Microsoft Hosting
• LAYER 3 — Microsoft Exchange Online Service / Microsoft Hosting
• LAYER 4 — Pexip CVI Hosting Provider
• LAYER 5 — Pexip Management Node / Conference Node
• LAYER 6 — Corporate Network & SIP Signaling Service
• LAYER 7 — Video Conference (VC) Endpoint — Office 365 status and Pexip status

Teams Environment with Pexip CVI

Administrative Activities

Enable a Video Conferencing (VC) endpoint for the Pexip Cloud Video Interop (CVI) service.

• Add VC to Pexip Microsoft 365 VC Endpoint Distribution Group:

Example: Add-DistributionGroupMember -Identity “PEXIP Join” -Member “ITTestEquipment1@techieberry.com” -Confirm:$False

• Confirm VC Endpoint Impersonation:

Example:

Get-ManagementRoleAssignment -Role ApplicationImpersonation -WritableRecipient “ITTestEquipment4@techieberry.com” | Format-List Name, Role, RoleAssignee, CustomRecipientWriteScope

NOTE: If the endpoint does not have the PEXIP OTJ Impersonation role assignment this indicates the resource in question is not a member of the PEXIP Join distribution group. See the previous solution for fix.

• Set/Customize VC Endpoint Calendar Processing settings:

Example:

Get-CalendarProcessing -Identity “Test-123” | Select DeleteComments

Set-CalendarProcessing -Identity “Test-123” -DeleteComments $False

NOTE: The “DeleteComments” is synonymous with the meeting body containing the Teams Meeting invite. If the OTJ prompt is not appearing on the endpoint, most likely it is because the invite has had the message body removed. Updating “DeleteComments” to False will correct this.

Grant PexipVC Policy to a user who will make use of the VC endpoint:

Grant-CsTeamsVideoInteropServicePolicy -PolicyName PexipServiceProviderEnabled -Identity admin@techieberry.com

Check the policy status of a user:

Get-CSOnlineUser -Identity admin@techieberry.com | Select TeamsVideoInteropServicePolicy

Revoke the Pexip VC policy to a user:

Grant-CsTeamsVideoInteropServicePolicy -PolicyName $null -Identity admin@techieberry.com

Grant the Pexip VC Policy to all users in an organization:

Grant-CsTeamsVideoInteropServicePolicy -PolicyName PexipServiceProviderEnabled -Global

Check the Pexip VC policy enabled users in an organization:

Get-CSOnlineUser -resultsize unlimited -Filter ‘(TeamsVideoInteropServicePolicy -eq “PexipServiceProviderEnabled”)’ | Select UserPrincipalName,TeamsVideoInteropServicePolicy | Format-Table -Wrap -AutoSize > C:\policyenabledusers.csv

Check the Pexip VC policy not enabled users in an organization:

Get-CSOnlineUser -resultsize unlimited -Filter {(TeamsVideoInteropServicePolicy -ne ‘*’)} | Select UserPrincipalName | Format-Table -Wrap -AutoSize > C:\users\notenabledusers.csv

Note: Only user level policy assignment is visible in the powershell cmdlet result. A powershell command will show as blank if a user is assigned to the global policy. The global policy command also applies to new users in the future. Refer this document with more example and explanation of the policy.

How to access and use these commands?

Connect to Skype for Business Online module and after you enter your password to connect, you will now have access to all the commands and many other items with Skype/Teams.

NOTE: This policy requires +8 hours to completely apply users. If a user still doesn’t see the Teams Meeting invite altered advise them to close Outlook and restart. This updates the Outlook cache that controls this capability.

Routine Maintenance & Monitoring

Here is a list of tasks that you should perform on a regular basis to ensure that your Pexip Infinity deployment is running optimally.

Check live status

The Live View page gives a real-time overview of your deployment and should be viewed regularly. In particular, check for the following:

• Whether there are any alarms on the Management Node or Conferencing Nodes. Any alarms are listed in the top right of the Live View page, and any Conferencing Nodes that have an alarm is shown on the graph with an orange or red outline.
• The current usage and capacity of your deployment.
• Any conferences or conference participants that are experiencing call quality issues.

Check alarm history

Active alarms are cleared as soon as the issue is resolved, so you may not always be aware of temporary issues such as lack of capacity or licenses. However, the History & Logs > Alarm History page shows the details of all alarms that have been raised, so it is useful to review this information to see if there are any trends that need to be addressed.

Check usage history

For each location, go to the historical usage graph and review the level of usage. If usage is nearing existing capacity, you may need to consider adding more capacity.

Check for upcoming software releases

Make sure you are aware of the features that are coming in future releases of the Pexip Infinity software and ensure you have a plan in place for upgrading your current deployment.

• Sign up for the Pexip newsletter (enter your address in the subscription section at the bottom of the page).
• Review what’s in the current release at here.
• Review whether any fixes and new features are relevant for your environment at here.

Perform regular backups

You should take regular backups of the configuration data on your Management Node. Conferencing Nodes do not generally require backups, as they receive all their configuration information from the Management Node.

Advanced checks

The following checks require an in-depth understanding of the Pexip Infinity platform. We recommend that you attend an appropriate training course — for more information, see here.

• Query participant history and filter on tx_packet_loss__gte=4 and rx_packet_loss__gte=4 to see any calls that have more than 4% packet loss. If so, investigate the cause and consider whether further action is required.
• Search administrator and support logs for irregular_pulse. This is usually indicative of over-committed hardware.
• Search administrator and support logs for the incident. If there are any, contact Pexip authorized support representative.
• Search administrator logs for error and warning.

How to join Teams meeting from existing virtual conference systems?

A reminder that if you are joining a Teams meeting from a PC, Mac or mobile app client, nothing has changed for you. Simply click ‘Join Microsoft Teams Meeting’ or dial into the telephone number as indicated by the blue callout box as you do today. The red callout box does not apply.​​

If you are the host of the meeting, first click on the link in blue on your laptop\desktop, Mac or mobile and then connect your VC room.

Best practices for Pexip Microsoft Teams VC Meetings

• If you have the opportunity, please connect your VC system 10 minutes ahead of time to adjust the room camera to your liking.
• The best practice for sharing a presentation in a Teams VC call is to join the meeting from your Teams client on your laptop or Mac and share the client.
• When participating in a Teams meeting from a VC room, remember to mute the microphone and speakers to any device connected to the meeting in addition to the room system.
• As with all Teams meetings, hosts should monitor the participant list to ensure internal and external attendees is accurate.
• Mute your site when not speaking.

Getting help and support

There are two types of help integrated into the Pexip Infinity Administrator interface:

• Field-level help: by default, most configuration fields show an explanation of the field underneath the input area. You can turn these explanations on or off by clicking on the icon on the bottom right of the page.
• Context-sensitive help: from any page, clicking on the Help link at the top right of the page opens a new browser window showing relevant information from the Pexip Infinity Administrator Guide. From there you can use the table of contents on the left-hand side of the help window to navigate and view the entire guide. There is also a search box at the top right of the browser window which you can use to search for individual words or phrases.

More deployment information and PDF downloads of all documentation are available on the Pexip Infinity technical documentation website.

If you cannot find the information you require, contact your Pexip authorized support representative. Technical support for software issues is available while under a valid support contract and running a Pexip Infinity version no more than 2 software releases behind the current release. Software bug fixes will only be provided in either the current or the next major release of the software.