About Pexip's Microsoft Teams CVI integration

Pexip's Cloud Video Interoperability (CVI) Service enables professional SIP and H.323 video conferencing systems to join Microsoft Teams as if they were native Microsoft clients.

  • Pexip natively integrates with the Microsoft Teams workflow — scheduling meetings from Teams or Outlook automatically inserts video conferencing dial-in details.
  • When joining a Teams meeting from a third-party endpoint, everyone benefits from the full Teams experience with HD video, audio, and content sharing.
  • Customers with the Enterprise Room Connector Premium for Microsoft package can also order an add-on package that provides Full HD (1080p) video and content.
  • If you have Microsoft Teams Room devices with Pro licensing you can make and receive 1:1 (also referred to as point-to-point) SIP/H.323 video calls with VTCs.
  • You can also join Microsoft Teams meetings where that meeting is being hosted by an external third-party organization (even if the host’s organization has not enabled Pexip interoperability themselves) — this is referred to as "SIP Guest Join".

This article covers:

Domain hosting and dial strings / Virtual Reception (IVR)

Domain hosting, or a custom *.onpexip.com subdomain, is mandatory for the Teams gateway service to be set up. (This is how the Pexip Service distinguishes between each customer's Teams gateway service on the multitenant Cloud Service.)

For example, if customdomain.com is the video domain chosen, the Microsoft Teams Virtual Receptionist for 2-stage dialing is at teams@customdomain.com and direct dialing into the Teams meeting is via <ConferenceID>@customdomain.com.

If you also have Google Meet integration you must use a different domain for your Teams CVI integration.

Note that the Pexip apps cannot join meetings via the Virtual Reception (but they can be used to call directly into the meeting).

Trusted devices for lobby bypass

Soft clients and video endpoints can be considered "trusted parties" and can enter a Teams meeting without the need for a meeting manager to manually admit/deny entry through the Teams lobby if:

  • They are registered on the Pexip Service under the same company as the CVI Service for MS Teams, or
  • They are configured as Trusted Devices on the Pexip Service.

One company, multiple Teams tenants

The Pexip Service also supports multiple Teams tenants under one company. This means that...

  • all registered VTCs (with Pexip's Endpoint subscription), or
  • any VTCs that are not registered, but supported by the Trusted Devices feature

...under one company can bypass the lobby into multiple Teams tenants. Each Teams tenant must be set up according to the instructions described here.

Note that all tenants require separate domains, i.e. one Teams tenant per single custom domain.

Join workflow, layouts and notifications for Teams meetings

Participants using a Teams client join a Teams meeting as usual, and any gatewayed third-party participants can be seen and heard in the same way as any other directly-connected Teams clients in that meeting.

Authenticated, trusted VTCs that are located within the organization can join the conference directly, without any additional user interaction, whereas unauthenticated, untrusted external VTCs are admitted via the Teams lobby.

Layouts

By default, the 1+7 layout is used for VTCs connecting to Teams meetings. However, you can choose to use any one of the following alternative layouts as your default layout:

  • 1+7 (1 large main speaker and up to 7 other participants) — the default
  • 1+0 (full-screen main speaker only)
  • Equal 2x2 (4 speakers)
  • Equal 3x3 (9 speakers)

Also see Using endpoints to control the layout and manage meetings for information about dynamically changing the layout during a meeting. Note that the 1+0 layout is not included in the dynamic layout cycling feature, even if it is configured as the initial/default layout.

Here's a demonstration video showing some of the layouts in use:

Please contact your account manager at your local certified Pexip Partner if you would like to request a different default layout (instead of 1+7).

1+7 layout

1+0 layout: full-screen main video

Equal 2x2

Equal 3x3

Admitting guest participants from the lobby

When an untrusted guest enters the MS Teams lobby, VTC users hear the usual Teams lobby notification and see an onscreen message with an indication of how many guests are waiting in the lobby. They can then go to the Teams client and admit the waiting guests. If only some guests are admitted, the endpoint's display refreshes the count of waiting users.

If all guests are admitted, the endpoint's display briefly shows a confirmation message.

Mute/unmute control and status for VTCs

An indicator is displayed to an individual participant as a conference overlay when the endpoint has been administratively muted from the Teams conference.

The VTC can unmute itself by sending a DTMF command (*6) to the conference.

Raised hand indicators

A notification is shown to any VTC participants if a Teams participant raises their hand.

Localization of welcome screens and audio messages

Pexip can enable some localized welcome screens and audio messages for CVI participants joining a Teams conference, for example:

English and French Canadian dual language Virtual Reception screen

Latin American Spanish welcome screen

The following language options are available:

  • English and French Canadian dual language
  • French
  • Japanese
  • Spanish (Castilian)
  • Spanish (Latin American)

To request a localized override please contact your account manager at your local certified Pexip Partner.

Note that you cannot currently combine localized screens with any other customized branding.

Integration features (including content sharing, display names and audio participants)

When using Pexip's integration with Teams:

  • Bi-directional content sharing is supported between VTCs and Teams clients via VbSS:

    • A Teams client can only share its screen or a window with a VTC system; Excel Live, PowerPoint Live, OneDrive and whiteboard sharing is not currently supported.

    • If a VTC starts sharing content while it is held in the Teams lobby, when the VTC is admitted to the meeting the presentation will not be visible to the other participants in the meeting. The VTC participant would need to restart content sharing after being admitted into the meeting.

  • A CVI participant's ability to share content in a Teams meeting depends on their role (Presenter or Attendee) in the meeting, and the "Who can present" setting in the meeting options:

    • A trusted CVI participant is always given a Presenter role in the Teams meeting (and thus can present). However, you can subsequently change that specific participant's role if required.
    • An untrusted CVI participant joins the meeting with the Presenter role only if the "Who can present" meeting setting is Everyone, otherwise it joins as an Attendee and cannot present.
    • If a CVI participant is an Attendee and attempts to share content from their endpoint, the sharing request is denied and the attendee is informed via a message on their endpoint such as "Sharing failed" (the exact message depends on the endpoint, and some endpoints may not display a message at all).
  • Pexip provides the participant's display name if it is provided by the participant's device. This is independent of whether the device is trusted or not. If a display name is not provided, Pexip uses the device's SIP URI. Note that many devices use the system name as its display name. However, some older systems might choose, for example, to only provide the first part of the SIP URI (the part before the '@') as the display name.
  • If a participant in a Teams meeting is spotlighted by a Teams client, that participant is also spotlighted in the layout presented to any gatewayed VTC system.
  • VTC endpoints that are gatewayed into a Teams meeting may sometimes be asked to send lower quality video (such as 180p). In these scenarios, even though the Pexip Service can support higher resolutions (and offers the higher resolutions to Teams), the video resolution requested by Teams can be lower — hence the Pexip Service sends the video format that Teams has requested. This is an operational behavior aspect of Teams and is beyond the control of Pexip software.

  • Teams users who are logged in and have joined via audio-only are represented by an avatar (supplied by Exchange Online) within the VTC's conference layout. If no avatar is available, or it is a guest user from another organization, a substitute graphic is generated based on the participant’s initials.

  • Teams users joining with PSTN audio (callback and manual dial-in):

    • If a Teams user chooses to get a callback from the meeting to their PSTN device (instead of using computer audio) the user appears in the Pexip layout as a video participant and also as an audio-only participant with the avatar of that user. However, the video participant does not get voice-switched into main view when they speak.
    • If a Teams user selects "manual dial-in" they appear in the Pexip layout as an audio-only participant without that user's avatar as that audio participant has no association with the Teams user (and is also separate from any video connection).
  • If the Teams conference is recorded or transcribed, audio prompts indicating that recording/transcribing has been started/stopped are played, and indicators are included in the video stream sent to gatewayed participants.

More information

For more information on setting up your integration, see:

For more information about joining Microsoft Teams meetings, see: