Pexip Ad Hoc Join for Teams on Cisco endpoints

Ad Hoc Join for Teams allows you to join Microsoft Teams conferences that are being hosted by an external third-party organization, from a Cisco endpoint's touch panel (even if the host’s organization has not enabled Pexip interoperability themselves).

Ad Hoc Join for Teams is useful for scenarios in which the meeting room's endpoint has not been invited to the meeting so it does not display a join button. The Ad Hoc Join capabilities are enabled via a macro which adds a button for Microsoft Teams conferences to the endpoint's touch panel home screen, for joining the meeting manually.

Pressing the join button prompts you to enter the meeting ID which you can find in the invite email or calendar event. A Microsoft Teams meeting ID is normally 11 or 12 digits. In the example below, the meeting ID is 366124178110. You do not need to enter the spaces between numbers. After you enter the meeting ID, you might need to enter a passcode of 6 or 8 characters. Passcodes contain both numbers and letters and are case sensitive. One might look like Pj7Sh7k7.

On this page:

Supported endpoints and conferences

Ad Hoc Join for Teams is supported:

  • on Cisco Room Devices MX, SX, DX and Room Kit Series, but not SX10. Firmware CE9.13 or newer required for all.
  • for Microsoft Teams conferences.

Prerequisites

  • A license plan that includes support for SIP Guest Join. Contact your Pexip account manager for more information about suitable licenses.
  • Admin user access to the Cisco endpoint for configuration.
  • If the Cisco endpoint has not already been provisioned by the Pexip Service, it requires the ISRG Root X1 certificate to be added manually as a Custom CA. Instructions on how to do this are in Troubleshooting.

Downloads and settings

Ad Hoc Join for Teams works via a macro that is uploaded to the Cisco endpoint, and an associated settings file. For endpoints registered to the Pexip Service, you can use the default settings file provided below, and leave the <CUSTOMER ID> text in place, as the customer ID will be extracted from the company it is registered to. For endpoints that are not registered to the Pexip Service, populate the settings file with your Pexip customer ID. If you are unsure what your customer ID is, contact your Pexip authorized support representative.

Ad Hoc Join for Teams

Macro: https://cisco-macros.pexip.io/msteams-macro/latest/msteams-macro.js

(you may need to right-click and select Save link as...)

Settings file: https://cisco-macros.pexip.io/msteams-macro/latest/msteams-macro-settings.js

Proceed to install Ad Hoc Join for Teams manually as shown below or via Enhanced Room Management (ERM) installation.

If you have a Webex-connected endpoint with existing Google and/or Teams join buttons, for Direct Guest Join or similar, they can be disabled on the Cisco web interface to avoid confusion for the end users. Go to Settings > User Interface and set JoinGoogleMeet, JoinMicrosoftTeamsCVI and JoinMicrosoftTeamsDirectGuestJoin to Hidden. Zoom and WebEx join buttons can remain enabled if desired, as they will place regular Webex or SIP calls.

Manual installation of Ad Hoc Join

The following instructions explain how to install the Ad Hoc Join macro and settings manually on a single endpoint. If you use Enhanced Room Management (ERM) and want to provision the macro on multiple endpoints simultaneously, proceed to ERM installation of Ad Hoc Join.

  1. Log into the web interface of your Cisco endpoint in your browser.

  2. Go to Macro Editor.

  3. Select Enable Macros. This prompt only appears if you have never used a macro before.
  4. In the Macro Editor, select Import from file and select the settings file (e.g. settings.js) that you downloaded earlier.

  5. Select the Save to video system icon:

  6. Select Import from file again, and select the macro file (e.g. macro.js) that you downloaded earlier.

  7. Select the Save to video system icon.

  8. Toggle the macro switch from off to on.
  9. Refresh the web page.

With immediate effect, the touch panel of the endpoint shows the new join button on the home screen.

Troubleshooting

General

If you need to troubleshoot the Ad Hoc Join macro at any point, you can download logs from the web interface in

System Maintenance > Issues and Diagnostics > Systems logs > Download logs...

SSL key / Certificate issues

If the Ad Hoc Join log entries are referencing SSL key issues, the endpoint may not have the correct CA certificate. This can happen if the endpoint was not provisioned by the Pexip Service. You must manually add the certificate to the endpoint together with the macro to ensure that the trust chain is complete.

To add the CA certificate:

  1. Go to the Let's Encrypt repository to obtain the ISRG Root X1 certificate: https://letsencrypt.org/certs/isrgrootx1.pem (you may need to right-click and select Save link as...).
  2. Follow the prompts to save the file as a .pem file.
    • If you choose to open the file first, be sure to use a text editor such as Notepad or Vi.
  3. To install the certificate, sign in to the unit's configuration interface and from the side menu select Security.
  4. Then from the horizontal tabs, switch to the Custom tab .

  5. Then select Browse and find the saved the .pem file on your computer. Follow the prompts to complete installation of the .pem file.

After installing the certificate, check that it was successful by viewing the device's status in the web interface. It should be registered.

ERM installation of Ad Hoc Join

If you use Enhanced Room Management (ERM), you can enable Ad Hoc Join on multiple endpoints simultaneously.

Installing Ad Hoc Join in ERM

  1. Go to Enhanced Room Management > Panels and macros.

  2. On the Room Controls tab, select the + button.

  3. Enter a title and description for the settings.
  4. Attach the settings.js file that you downloaded earlier and select Add.
  5. Again, select the + button.
  6. Enter a title and description for the macro.
  7. Attach the macro.js file that you downloaded earlier and select Add.

The Ad Hoc Join macro and settings are now installed in ERM.

Provisioning Ad Hoc Join on multiple endpoints in ERM

The following instructions explain how to provision one or more endpoints in ERM with Ad Hoc Join.

  1. Go to Enhanced Room Management > Systems.
  2. On the Search tab, select all room systems that you want to deploy Ad Hoc Join to.
  3. Select Provisioning.
  4. Select Apply macros/panels and from the Controls options select Ad hoc join macro.

  5. To enable the macro on the endpoints with immediate effect select Apply, otherwise select Schedule for the night.

Change log

Version Release date Description
v1.0.1 25 November 2024 Support for 8-character passcodes when joining Microsoft Teams meetings. Existing 6-character passcodes are still supported.
v1.0.0 1 October 2024 Initial release.