30-04-2021

Microsoft Teams Webex Teams



Part of what makes Microsoft and Webex Teams so powerful in my eyes is the jump beyond standard Unified Communications, into what we could consider Enterprise Unified Communications and Collaboration. There is a distinct difference emerging between what we could call standard UC&C tools, and more advanced Enterprise focused solutions. Over the last year 2020, we’ve taken a close look at two of the most popular emerging Enterprise unified communication solutions — Microsoft Teams and Webex Teams. I noted that Microsoft Teams in particular is quickly taking the world by storm, and has even started to gain ground on Slack. On the other side, the Cisco Webex Teams rebranding from Cisco Spark has brought with it both a new. We have created a Webex tab within Microsoft Teams that is super user friendly. You can schedule a meeting for the channel by selecting ‘Schedule’, then you can fill in all the details in the dialog pop-up. You can even schedule recurring meetings with daily, weekly, monthly and yearly frequency.

Microsoft Teams Versus Webex Teams

Using Microsoft Teams Room for Webex Meetings

8/31/2020

In the July update for Microsoft Teams Room version 4.5.35.0, a new feature known as Direct Guest Join was released that allows MTR devices to join Cisco Webex meetings directly without any gateway or cloud interop service. This feature expands the capabilities of Teams Room Devices and allows interoperability with Cisco Webex meetings with one-click join functionality. In this blog post we explore the required steps to enable Direct Guest Join on MTR and the overall meeting experience and current limitations. In the future, we can expect MTR to support additional meeting ecosystems in the same way as well. Direct Guest Join leverages WebRTC technologies to allow MTR to join meetings hosted in CIsco Webex and other future meeting platforms.
In order to enable the Direct Guest Join feature on MTR we need to make sure the MTR us running the latest version which at the time of this writing is actually 4.5.37.0. As mentioned in a previous article, there are several ways to update the version and the easiest is via the Microsoft Store. Simply login as administrator on the MTR system and launch the Microsoft Store app and check for updates. Any newer version of the Teams app, a.k.a. 'Skype Room System' will be displayed allowing you to start an update after which you should reboot the system. The picture below shows the recently updated apps which includes the 4.5.37 version of the Teams Room app:
Once the system is rebooted and logged in as the regular room account, we can go to the settings page and navigate to the About section to verify the MTR version as shown below:
Next we navigate to the 'Meetings' section and under the 'Third party meetings' section, we note that Cisco Webex is available for us to switch on as shown below:
As a side discussion, there's also a page called 'Coordinated meetings' which allows the MTR system to work well with other room devices such as the Microsoft Surface Hub 2, so that when users start a meeting on the MTR, it will also give the opportunity to add a nearby Surface Hub2 device for collaboration. We can turn this feature on and select whether this device's microphone, camera and whiteboarding are turned off or on during the coordinated join as shown in the diagram below:
Before we can get the MTR system to recognize and display Webex meeting invitations that are sent to it, we have to configure the Exchange tenant as mentioned in the Microsoft documentation. This is simply an Exchange online powershell cmdlet:
Set-CalendarProcessing -Identity polymtr01 -ProcessExternalMeetingMessages $true
Which will enable the MTR's Exchange mailbox account to process external meeting messages and display a Join button on the home screen as shown below:
Now we're ready to the Webex meeting from the MTR. Simply hit the 'Join' button and the MTR will connect to Cisco Webex to join the meeting. The MTR controller will show that the system is in the Webex Meeting along with the meeting subject. Meeting controls such as volume control, mute/unmuate, camera on/off and Leave are all available. However, its notable that content sharing from MTR is not available at this time. Other than that, the audio quality and video resolution seen on both the MTR and the Webex client are great:
We can also initiate content sharing from the Webex client in which case the content will be displayed in the main area and videos of participants will be moved to to the right and resized to be smaller as shown below:
Finally, an interesting capability that can be used during the meeting is to turn on the button on the botton left of the MTR controller labled as 'Show meeting on this device'. This will mirror the MTR's main display onto the MTR's touch controller as shown below:
One example of using this feature is that it allows the content to be displayed closer to for participants that may be further away from the main display. in conclusion, Microsoft keeps adding new capabilities to the MTR system and we have now the ability to join Cisco Webex meetings directly from the MTR without any interop service. One may expect that there will be other meeting platforms that will be added in the future as well. Until then, enjoy the MTR and rest easy in the fact the MTR is a safe investment that will serve your meeting rooms well into the foreseeable future.

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Arraya Insights | November 19, 2020

Are you a Cisco shop or a Microsoft shop? When it comes to collaboration, many organizations – Arraya included – reside somewhere in the middle. The appeal of a diversified, multi-vendor collaboration footprint isn’t lost on Cisco and Microsoft. Even though they are competitors at heart, the tech giants have a history of making their solutions play nicely together in order to help keep their customers connected and productive. That partnership was on full display earlier this year, although it may have gone overlooked due to coronavirus-necessitated lockdowns.

Late last year, Cisco and Microsoft pledged to move toward a new era of interoperability between their Webex and Teams solutions. Specifically, that idea would materialize in a couple of different forms. The companies planned to release a Microsoft Cloud Video Interop (CVI) certified solution that would allow Cisco Webex Room and SIP video conferencing devices to join Microsoft Teams meetings. Additionally, they also proposed creating a direct guest join pathway connecting their respective video conferencing devices with their meeting web apps. This pledge of greater interoperability has started coming to fruition with the release of a pair of solutions: the aforementioned CVI offering and another option called WebRTC.

Let’s take a closer look at these offerings and what they could mean for organizations pursuing reopening their facilities.

Microsoft CVI

Compare Microsoft Teams Vs Webex Teams

Microsoft teams vs webex teams market share

First up is the Cloud Video Gateway (CVI-enabled) option. Those looking to connect to a Microsoft Teams meeting hosted internally, by their own company could do so using this pathway. It delivers a Cisco Webex-based experience to those making the connection, including multi-screen capabilities, flexible layouts, and wired/wireless bi-directional content sharing. In terms of devices supported, this route is travelable by all Cisco and SIP-capable video devices, registered either on premises or in the cloud. Users can connect via this path through one-button-to-push (OBTP) join which includes calendar service, direct dial-in complete with an interactive voice response (IVR) experience. Lastly, it is worth noting that this service will require additional licensing to make it operable.

WebRTC

Then, there’s the WebRTC application. This allows users to connect to any other type of Microsoft Teams meeting. Connecting via this method delivers a Microsoft Teams-oriented meeting experience, including a single-screen Teams layout with only the ability to be on the receiving end of shares. This pathway is accessible from Cisco Room Kits, Room series, Boards, and Desk Pro devices. These devices can be cloud connected. Once again, this method offers OBTP join with calendar service. Webex Room registration, which is part of Flex licensing, is required. As of right now, WebRTC is one way only as Microsoft Teams doesn’t support any browsers compatible with the tool. User can, however, add the Webex bot to their Teams client, which, in turn, will enable them to access a Webex Meeting.

VersusTeams

Next Steps: Put the joint power of Microsoft and Cisco together for you

Webex teams microsoft teams integration

Hopefully, we’ll all be able to dust off our Cisco Room devices sooner rather than later and start putting these new abilities to work. In the meantime, if you’d like to learn more about how your organization can benefit from the above advances or from Cisco and Microsoft’s ongoing partnership in general, our collaboration experts can help. Reach out any time to get the conversation started.

Visithttps://www.arrayasolutions.com/contact-us/ to connect with our team now.

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Microsoft Teams Versus Webex Teams

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