I’ve spent 15 years deploying on-premises versions of Microsoft Unified Communications, namely OCS, Lync & Skype for Business. During that period I did a lot of installations, but never had I done a full removal of the product. I guess that speaks to the usability of Microsoft Voice solutions. Once your in, the years just roll by like a good marriage. All good things must come to an end, now with Teams being purely cloud based no schema objects need to remain in Active Directory.
When attempting to do the final cleanup steps of the environment I was getting the following output when attempting Disable-CSAdDomain:
Disable-CsAdDomain : DomainUnprepareTask execution failed on an unrecoverable error.
At line:1 char:1
+ Disable-CsAdDomain
+ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
+ CategoryInfo : InvalidOperation: (:SourceCollection) [Disable-CsAdDomain], DeploymentException
+ FullyQualifiedErrorId : TaskFailed,Microsoft.Rtc.Management.Deployment.UnprepareDomainCmdlet
WARNING: Disable-CsAdDomain encountered errors. Consult the log file for a detailed analysis, and ensure all errors (2)
and warnings (0) are addressed before continuing.
The HTML report presented me with some red:
Error: Cannot remove the Active Directory settings for the domain due to “FE” still being activated.
I had a few hours of scratching my head. I’d fully un-installed the Skype for Business Server software (minus the administrative tools) from the last Front End in the environment. Even the CMS had been deleted, so why did it think it was still active?! No CMS, means no jersey for a Front End server. I waited for domain replication but still no change.
Solution
The secret is to remove the last Front End server computer object from the domain. Install the tools on something else and re-run the cmdlet. Simple, but not obvious.
Thanks to Michael for the bright idea on this one.
Sometimes provisioning users into Office 365 services requires custom settings to be executed with PowerShell. This can present a problem when the teams responsible for managing the ongoing process have varying levels of understanding. How do you provide a front end user interface for my custom code without the need for the operators to need or know PowerShell?
This is the case for Microsoft Teams. Microsoft Phone System ‘Direct Routing’ feature lets you connect your telephony gateway (SBC) to Microsoft Phone System. With this capability you can configure on-premises telephone numbers with Microsoft Teams client. A subtle difference using Direct Routing for your PSTN connectivity over Microsoft Calling (Telstra Calling in AU) is the inability to assign phone numbers to users via the Teams Admin Portal. The only way to assign the phone number is through a PowerShell cmdlet with parameter ‘OnPremLineURI‘:
Microsoft Forms – The front end UI with required input fields.
Logic App – The glue and manages the process.
Azure Runbook – where my code lives to perform the steps against Office 365 API’s.
Microsoft Forms
This is a pretty basic form. I just need enough information as inputs to execute my PowerShell. The great thing about Microsoft Forms is that it has to be authenticated, the fact that it’s built into Office 365 is that it’s all done by Azure Active Directory.
Mobile Preview of the Form
Note: Unfortunately the simplicity of this form is also its short coming. I would love if we can do some form validation on the input string before it was submitted. Especially on the phone number format and length.
Create the Logic App
Open a new Blank Template in the Logic App Designer and search for Microsoft Forms and use the option ‘When a new response is submitted‘.
Start by getting the form data into the Logic App.
Assign all of the form inputs as variables in your Logic App to then be passed to our Runbook.
Azure Runbook
Create a Runbook, make sure you have defined the parameters (highlighted in lines 1-5). The Logic App will reference these automatically for you when working in the designer.
Note: All the settings we need are part of the Skype for Business PowerShell module which isn’t available in the Azure Automation Gallery. If you install Microsoft Teams module version 1.1.6 you will have the ability to execute New-CsOnlineSession and pull down all the cmdlets into the PS session. At the time of writing I don’t know a way of using a managed identity or client secret for New-CSOnlineSession, so it’s just a standard user account with bypass MFA (yuck).
Param (
[Parameter (Mandatory = $true)][string]$upn,
[Parameter (Mandatory = $true)][string]$lineURI,
[Parameter (Mandatory = $true)][string]$dialPlan
)
$debug = $false
import-module MicrosoftTeams
if($debug -like $true){
Write-Output "Connecting to Skype Online..."
}
$creds = Get-AutomationPSCredential -Name "SkypeCreds"
try{
$sfboSession = New-CsOnlineSession -Credential $creds -OverrideAdminDomain "domain.onmicrosoft.com"
}
Catch{
$errOutput = [PSCustomObject]@{
status = "failed"
error = $_.Exception.Message
step = "Connecting to Skype Online"
cmdlet = "New-CsOnlineSession"
}
Write-Output ( $errOutput | ConvertTo-Json)
exit
}
if($debug -like $true){
Write-Output "Importing PS Session..."
}
try{
Import-PSSession $sfboSession -AllowClobber
}
Catch{
$errOutput = [PSCustomObject]@{
status = "failed"
error = $_.Exception.Message
step = "Importing PS Session"
cmdlet = "Import-PSSession"
}
Write-Output ( $errOutput | ConvertTo-Json)
exit
}
if($debug -like $true){
Write-Output "Processing line: $($upn) "
}
#Correct User
if($upn -like $null){
$sip = (Get-CsOnlineUser -Identity $($user.displayname)).SipAddress
$upn = $sip.TrimStart('sip:')
}
#Correct Number
if($lineURI -notlike "tel:*"){
if($lineURI.Length -eq 12){
$lineURI = "tel:"+$lineURI
}
elseif($lineURI.Length -eq 11){
$lineURI = "tel:+"+$lineURI
}
}
if($debug -like $true){
Write-Output " INFO: Using values - $($upn) with $($lineURI)"
Write-Output " INFO: Attempting to remove Skype for Business Online settings: VoiceRoutingPolicy"
}
try{
Grant-CsVoiceRoutingPolicy -PolicyName $NULL -Identity $upn
}
Catch{
$errOutput = [PSCustomObject]@{
status = "failed"
error = $_.Exception.Message
step = "VoiceRoutingPolicy"
cmdlet = "Grant-CsVoiceRoutingPolicy"
}
Write-Output ( $errOutput | ConvertTo-Json)
exit
}
if($debug -like $true){
Write-Output " INFO: Attempting to remove Skype for Business Online settings: UserPstnSettings"
}
try{
Set-CsUserPstnSettings -Identity $upn -AllowInternationalCalls $false -HybridPSTNSite $null | out-null
}
Catch{
$errOutput = [PSCustomObject]@{
status = "failed"
error = $_.Exception.Message
step = "UserPstnSettings"
cmdlet = "Set-CsUserPstnSettings"
}
Write-Output ( $errOutput | ConvertTo-Json)
exit
}
# https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/powershell/module/skype/grant-csteamsupgradepolicy?view=skype-ps
if($debug -like $true){
Write-Output " INFO: Attempting to grant Teams settings: user to UpgradeToTeams (TeamsOnly)." #Upgrades the user to Teams and prevents chat, calling, and meeting scheduling in Skype for Business
}
try{
Grant-CsTeamsUpgradePolicy -PolicyName UpgradeToTeams -Identity $upn
}
Catch{
$errOutput = [PSCustomObject]@{
status = "failed"
error = $_.Exception.Message
step = "UpgradeToTeams"
cmdlet = "Grant-CsTeamsUpgradePolicy"
}
Write-Output ( $errOutput | ConvertTo-Json)
exit
}
if($debug -like $true){
Write-Output " INFO: Attempting to set Teams settings: Enabling Telephony Features & Configure Phone Number"
}
try{
Set-CsUser -Identity $UPN -EnterpriseVoiceEnabled $true -HostedVoiceMail $true -OnPremLineURI $lineURI
}
Catch{
$errOutput = [PSCustomObject]@{
status = "failed"
error = $_.Exception.Message
step = "SetUser"
cmdlet = "Set-CsUser"
}
Write-Output ( $errOutput | ConvertTo-Json)
exit
}
if($debug -like $true){
Write-Output " INFO: Attempting to grant Teams settings: TeamsCallingPolicy" #Policies designate which users are able to use calling functionality within teams and determine the interoperability state with Skype for Business
}
try{
Grant-CsTeamsCallingPolicy -PolicyName Tag:AllowCalling -Identity $upn
}
Catch{
$errOutput = [PSCustomObject]@{
status = "failed"
error = $_.Exception.Message
step = "TeamsCallingPolicy"
cmdlet = "Grant-CsTeamsCallingPolicy"
}
Write-Output ( $errOutput | ConvertTo-Json)
exit
}
if($debug -like $true){
Write-Output " INFO: Attempting to grant Teams settings: Assign the Online Voice Routing Policy"
}
try{
Grant-CsOnlineVoiceRoutingPolicy -Identity $upn -PolicyName Australia
}
Catch{
$errOutput = [PSCustomObject]@{
status = "failed"
error = $_.Exception.Message
step = "VoiceRoutingPolicy"
cmdlet = "Grant-CsOnlineVoiceRoutingPolicy"
}
Write-Output ( $errOutput | ConvertTo-Json)
exit
}
if($debug -like $true){
Write-Output " INFO: Set Dial"
}
try{
if($dialPlan -eq "National"){
Grant-CsTenantDialPlan -PolicyName $null -Identity $upn
}else{
Grant-CsTenantDialPlan -PolicyName $dialPlan -Identity $upn
}
}
Catch{
$errOutput = [PSCustomObject]@{
status = "failed"
error = $_.Exception.Message
step = "DialPlan"
cmdlet = "Get-CsEffectiveTenantDialPlan"
}
Write-Output ( $errOutput | ConvertTo-Json)
exit
}
#Completion Output
$errOutput = [PSCustomObject]@{
status = "Completed"
error = "None"
step = "endOfJob"
cmdlet = "None"
}
Write-Output ( $errOutput | ConvertTo-Json)
Link the Runbook to your Logic App
Now we can update the Logic App with our Runbook information.
Output the details via Email
I found the best way to get consistent structured results is to have error handling in your Runbook, and parse this back to the Logic App as outputted JSON with a known schema/structure. A sample output of the JSON can be used to generate a schema, like the example below.
{
"status": "failed",
"error": "One or more errors occurred.: Unable to find an entry point named \u0027GetPerAdapterInfo\u0027 in DLL \u0027iphlpapi.dll\u0027.",
"step": "Connecting to Skype Online",
"cmdlet": "New-CsOnlineSession"
}
This enables you to have sufficient levels of diagnostics logs as part of the output. In this case I’m using a email.
The example workflow is below.
Additions
Additional functionality you could include might be:
Check for licenses
AAD Module in PowerShell, or
AAD Group Membership in Logic App
License the user via PowerShell or Graph
Send the response in a Teams Notification, rather than email or teams channel.
Email the user on successful completion detailing they have a new phone number.
More error handling
Smaller more specific Runbooks that are executed rather than a large script block, allowing for more conditions to considered per step.
Lets Talk Teams!
We have years of experience deploying unified communication in the Microsoft stack. Reach out, we have a rapid deployment solution for Teams Direct Routing leveraging the public cloud and we have tried and tested a number of flavours of SIP Providers. Trial or PoC a voice solution with minimal effort leveraging public cloud deployments
I’ve been asked by many customers over my years implementing Skype for Business or Microsoft Teams voice solutions:
“Which video conferencing equipment should we look into?”
This can be a hard decision for organisations and IF you find that you didn’t do your homework, you can be left in a situation where you have to sweat an expensive asset for a few years, which becomes the ugly child that is unloved and no one wants to play with gathering dust in the corner. Now the current state of Microsoft Teams Room’s (MTR) means that all packaged solutions have the same software, so the experience during a meeting on-screen is consistent. Thanks Microsoft. Where it will differ, is what the capability of the hardware it’s getting peddled on.
The state of the VC market has gone gang busters lately. Microsoft Teams has really pushed the device catalogue forward and now we have multiple vendors continuously pushing their new products out into Microsoft’s certified list of Teams Meeting Room devices. In theory, from a workflow prospective, all of them will look the same during the meeting experience from the touch device and on-screen. Microsoft publish the MTR software and all things being equal, they should all get the updates. No favourites, no bias. So if we remove the software feature list, what do I look for when creating my short list as of 2020? Here are some key physical features that are more hardware specific and do vary amongst solutions that I believe enable a positive experience when using the device. I will generalise an MTR with having common components of a video camera, a table top touch device, with the addition of possibly a sound bar and additional microphones. Here’s a summary of my ‘hot-tips’ to look out for:
Minimal cabling required to touch device on table.
Ability to have 2x HDMI outputs on the ‘CODEC’/NUC to support duel screen workflows.
Ability for table microphone expansion.
Ease of HDMI/USB-C input on the table tap device for screen sharing.
Some other notable mentions:
Double check for auto-focus/human tracking, this should be on most devices now.
Options for additional noise cancelling features to turn on/off never hurts. Vendors talk about AI or ML to remove unwanted sounds that reduce the quality of the audio i.e. keyboard typing, table tapping or air-conditioner static.
Cabling matters
Reducing the cabling required to get to your table top device is just common sense. Nothing is more annoying than trying to run multiple cables (HDMI, ethernet, audio and power) through floor space from the front of room up inside whatever cable management you have at the table. Also, with only a single cable connecting to the table top device it becomes much more flexible and has the ability to be swung round between seating positions to accomodate musical chairs. This cable is usually done with ethernet, a nice and flexible medium that can carry all data and power needs.
HDMI outputs
Not everyone needs dual screens in their meeting rooms, especially if it’s a small huddle room or space. BUT the price of TV screens is by far the easiest and cheapest component to splash on this new rig. Make sure the new rig lists the number of HDMI outputs and ask yourself the question “will this fit within my room?“. Many vendors will offer setups at two price points with the lower seemingly looking like a good investment, but will only give you one screen. This to me, in the year 2020, ‘the year of video conferencing‘, seems to be a bit old school. I’d even go as far to say, rather than buying one Godzilla screen (that Teams will never do native resolution on, think 1080p), look to buy two slightly smaller screens and get more capability in your meeting experience i.e. two screens, one with screen share + one with video feed simultaneously.
Microphones
“MICROPHONES!” or “microphones” (the lack of), can turn a crystal clear, high definition video experience into a ‘bl ub be ri ng’ mess. Acoustics in a room are hard to judge, I’ll admit that I can’t walk into a room and say that “this is going to be your problem, just tweak that before you install”. I don’t know the science behind removing sound echo, just be careful of hard floors, high ceilings, loud air conditioning and busy streets. If you don’t want to change these things or can’t, sometimes more microphone pickups can be away to eliminate the problem somewhat, especially when attendees further away from the microphone have decent call volume (can be herd) but sound distorted or choppy. This is generally a tale tell sign of a room with too much sound bouncing around. The ability to extend your setup with additional microphones on offer in its solution are a good ‘safety-net’ to have. Something that is modular gives you a ‘get out of jail free card’, if it sounds like your meeting is being held in a basketball stadium or toilet (for some reason that is a very distinct sound in a phone call and we all pick it when it’s presented to us…strange).
‘Legacy’ screen sharing
Not to be overlooked. Let’s set the scene, you’re in the heat of the video conferencing battle, 10 minutes passed the meeting start time and your ring-in (visitor) presenter suddenly can’t get the USB wireless dongle thingy to load with the software on their laptop because of reason ‘X’ (i’ll let you imagine one, there’s many). Nothing can beat a quick physical cable to screen share inside the meeting room. Nothing. Modern laptops are ready to have things plugged in for second monitors and this is just that. You wont kill the aesthetics of a room if there is a 1m HDMI or USB-C cable hanging out the back of the table top device. Words like ‘wireless‘, ‘proximity join‘ and ‘dongle’ sound attractive to our tech heads, but no one likes to be the ad-hoc end user support, while the Brady Bunch video tiles of Teams look over you. Secretly muttering disapprovals of how you’re wasting their time, while on mute. If you’re using Teams meetings to communication with your customers and clients, don’t be the latest episode of ‘amateur hour’ live from your very own video feed. Catering for hard-wire means you catch the 10% that don’t have Teams or can’t control the installation of software on their devices. Plus it’s just fast.
cloudstep.io meeting tiles. Not always smiling this much about being in another video conference.
Oh, there’s also cost. For most of us we need to stretch the money and do more with less, the lesser of organisations have a long standing history of video conferencing and the budget is ripe for the picking. Lucky. As the allocation of dollars from 5 years ago got you a lot less for a lot more. Anything from $3k-$8k gets you a decent kit these days that even your director could probably setup…probably.
What do I suggest?
Okay so take all my considerations for a good piece of kit and who does it end up with? Noting, that I don’t get paid or partner with vendors, nor will some of them talk to me after spreading my opinion over the internet. That being said, I really like them all. But if you made me choose, this is what I’d come back with for a standard meeting room ranging anywhere from 4-15 (ish) people.
Yealink….yes, Yealink. I’ve seen my fair share of Yealink IP phones implemented over my years, they do there duty of making phone calls, the same as the other IP phone brands. So I was never really bothered about what the customers preference was with phones. Make a call, does it ring and could they answer? Microsoft video solutions is a new feather in Yealink’s cap, and I’m happy to say that they meet my demands. While much later to the Microsoft Video Solutions then other VC vendors, they have hit it out the proverbial ‘Arran Peterson Teams Device‘ Park in regards to features I want at a good price point. The ‘MVC II’ range of systems will have me covered, purchase units on the sliding scale based on size of your attendees space. All of which offer you the capability of dual screen workflow.
Cabling – The MTouch II Touch Panel is connected via a single ethernet cable. Look at cable guides for each model, they are easy to follow and help you visualise your setup in the room prior to purchase.
HDMI Out – The MCore Mini-PC has 2x HDMI video output wih CEC Support. (CEC gets you the ability to start a meeting and wake the TV’s up to the correct channel etc). Just like your AppleTV does magically at home.
External Mics – All but the MVCII 400, which has an external mic port on the camera, but i’m not sure what can be used. Maybe anything, maybe nothing…
Screen Sharing – The MTouch II Touch Panel offers both HDMI and USB-C inputs (I like USB-C for all the latest MacBooks we have in our office with a single glorious port).
Icing on the cake
Because we like cake, and if there is more slices to eat let’s know about it now. Or maybe, If you going to make cake, put the icing on it, it makes it extra special. My point is “If your going to buy a solution, go to the effort to make it the best you can“.
Content Camera
I like the idea of Content Camera’s in Teams Meetings. Whiteboards are a way of life in consulting. Explain a complex problem through circles, squares, lines and arrows (rather than hacking about the english language) is a method I use often to convey a complex problem. You need a certified MTR to enable the Content Camera. While it isn’t hard to find a certified webcam to use (theres a few and they aren’t expensive), its much trickier to cable and mount. I have seen little in the way of mounting brackets and extension arms until just recently. Prior, I’d done lots of google searches for keywords like ‘project/camera arm mount’, ‘camera mount thingy’ and so on. Amazon returned nothing great, that didn’t require extensive ‘tinkering‘ which wasn’t enterprise grade and I can’t tell customers go buy this and get your cordless drill out and add more holes etc. I was pleased to see my new favourite child Yealink have tried to make our lives easier with the UVC30 Content Camera Kit. Problem solved! I think a MTR + Content Camera is probably the best solution available and is more useful than an expensive all-in-one Surface Hub.
UVC30 Content Camera kit
Wireless sharing dongle thingy
If the Content Camera is the icing, then perhaps a wireless sharing dongle thingy is the sprinkles. If you do want to play with wireless dongles, Yealink have one that will work with all the MVC II range and is included in most bundles. While I haven’t played with the WPP20 at all, the fact its ‘kinda’ thrown in, is a big plus. If your familiar with ClickShare by Barco which is the common standard equipment in this department, you will be happy to know they cost money, and a reasonable amount. Possibly more than one of your TV’s. This is more than I’m willing to part with, so an affordable alternative that keeps the solution all within one vendor support is a positive.
Lets Talk Teams!
We have years of experience deploying unified communication in the Microsoft stack. Reach out, we have a rapid deployment solution for Teams Direct Routing leveraging the public cloud and we have tried and tested a number of flavours of SIP Providers. Trial or PoC a voice solution with minimal effort leveraging public cloud deployments
At cloudstep.io® HQ Microsoft Teams is a big part of how we organise digital asset structure in the business. We are a consulting firm by trade, as new prospects become paying customers we add them as a team. The default General channel is used for administration and accounts, additional channels are created per project name or scope of works. We find ourselves no longer needing to going into dark corners of SharePoint administration (commonly referred to in the office as ‘SwearPoint!’). We have adopted Microsoft Teams as our preferred web, audio and video conferencing platform for internal and external meetings. Our board room video conferencing unit runs a full version of Windows 10 and Microsoft Teams that we setup as a ‘do it yourself‘ versus the off the shelf room systems. The VC unit requirements we had were:
cloudstep.io®, our web application uses a full desktop browser experience.
Mouse and keyboard are preferred for web navigation inside the app.
VC to have full OS is preferred to eliminate employees having to BYOD and connect either physically or wirelessly for screen presentation.
We can connect to third party conferencing platforms by installing the addons for guest access (zoom, webex, gotomeeting, chime etc) with our partner lead meetings direct onto the machine.
Wirelessly present our Macs, iPads, iPhones, Androids and Windows laptops.
We are all ‘power users‘ and can handle the meeting join experience in Microsoft Teams client without the need for a single ‘click-to-join’ button on the table which the Microsoft Teams Room (MTR) system provides via a touch device.
We have a boardroom account that has a 365 license to be able to leverage the desktop tools. Windows 10 automatically logs in each morning and the Microsoft Teams client is started automatically. The bill of materials is notably:
Intel NUC
Windows 10
Teams Client
Office 365 Pro Plus (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote)
Windows 10 Calendar (Connect to Office 365 Mailbox)
The VC mailbox type is set to ‘room‘ with the following to enhance the experience for scheduled meetings in the board room:
#Add tips when searching in Outlook
Set-Mailbox -Identity $VC -MailTip "This room is equipped to support native Teams & Skype for Business Meetings remember to add meeting invite details via the Teams outlook button in the ribbon."
#Auto Accept
Set-CalendarProcessing -Identity $VC -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 Meeting will be available from the conference room client."
This has worked well in the last 12 months, the only user experience problem we have had is when running a meeting from the VC unit, the account isn’t a member of the team where the data attempting to be presented is stored and therefor cannot see/open the content. A simple solution for this is automation. We looked to investigated two automation solutions available in the Microsoft services offering we have available.
Flow (Office 365 Suite)
Azure Automation (Azure Subscription)
Unfortunately option 1 didn’t have any native integration for triggers based on Office 365 groups or teams creation. So we resorted to a quick Azure Powershell Runbook that executes on a simple schedule. The steps needed to run were:
Get a list of all the teams.
Query them against the UnifiedGroup properties to get…
AccessType equals ‘Public‘
CreationDate within 2 days
Check the newly created teams group membership for the VC unit username.
If it doesn’t exist add the VC unit as the role ‘member‘.
Next day the board room account is logged in, the Microsoft Teams client will have access to all the teams channels, files, OneNote and apps. This is great for native Teams meetings, but also when we have customers in the board room without the need for an online meeting. The VC account has access to see the required teams and channel data to present to the physical display.
This solution doesn’t have to be for a video conferencing units, you may have some standardised members you want on all groups, or it could be certain owner enforcement or member list.
Hello Microsoft Teams! Bye bye SwearPoint, may you remain in the background forever.
