Introducing Microsoft Teams Rooms (Updated)
Published Jan 23 2019 08:09 AM 569K Views

[Update Note May 2019]
Adding an nearby Microsoft Teams Room is now available for your desktop and mobile clients May update (see more details bellow).


Two years ago we introduced the next generation of Skype Room Systems, a center of room control with one-touch join, to add the best audio and video to your meetings.  We started with one hardware partner and now work with six leading device manufacturers, to deliver the best quality experiences for both Skype for Business and Microsoft Teams meetings. To date, customers have conducted more than 130 million minutes of meetings through Skype Room Systems. In light of this momentum, and to mark our commitment to making Teams a complete meetings and calling solution, we are rebranding Skype Room Systems as Microsoft Teams Rooms.

 

This rebranding signifies the continued delivery of features being built to enhance Teams meetings experiences. Our goal is to extend Teams meetings into every space from small huddle rooms to large conference rooms.

We’ve recently announced and delivered several capabilities that enhance the Teams Meetings experience in meeting rooms:

  • Proximity detection (Update May Available NOW), makes it easy to discover and add nearby, available Microsoft Teams Rooms to any meeting.
  • Companion experiences with mobile, to join your devices in content-only mode.
  • Support for dual screen rooms.

And it’s important to note that Microsoft Teams Rooms still work with Skype for Business calls and meetings.

 

 

Meetings Simplified

Meetings are easy to schedule, simply use Microsoft Outlook or Microsoft Teams to invite your conference rooms to a meeting just as easily as inviting your colleagues.

 

Schedule Teams in OutlookSchedule Teams in Outlook

 

One touch-join

Instantly start your meeting from the center of the room control with one touch.

 

Microsoft Teams Rooms ConsoleMicrosoft Teams Rooms Console

Add nearby meeting room

Proximity based meeting join, for an available Microsoft Teams Room, the Microsoft Teams client on your PC and mobile has a proximity sensor that detects the room and you can add the room easily to the meeting from your pre-join screen on your client.

On your PC the pre-join screen of your meeting will highlight that an Teams Room is nearby. 

Add nearby room from your desktopAdd nearby room from your desktop
On your Teams mobile client you can add the room to your meeting and find nearby rooms quickly.

Add Conference Room from your MobileAdd Conference Room from your Mobile

Inside the meeting room, the front of the room display and console will show that you are trying to add the room, and simply accept the incoming invitation on the console to bring the room into the meeting.

 

Proximity join from Microsoft Teams RoomsProximity join from Microsoft Teams Rooms

 

Microsoft Teams will automatically join the meeting in content-only mode from your desktop, allowing the room to provide audio and video into the meeting without echo and feedback generated by the other clients in the room.  Also your mobile client will switch to content-only mode after adding the room.

If the Microsoft Teams Room is already in the meeting and you like join from your devices as well, Teams now detects this and recommends to join the meeting with audio off as well.

Pre-join screen when the room is already in the meetingPre-join screen when the room is already in the meeting

Learn more about how Microsoft has deployed Microsoft Teams and Microsoft Teams Rooms internally to more than 2,400 meeting rooms around the globe and how Microsoft is using the integrated meeting solution to reshape the collaborative environment into a simple, consistent, and reliable experience for thousands of employees.


Additionally in our phones business, we recently added our first native Teams Phones from Yealink, the T56A, T58A, and CP 960.  These desk and conference room phones all have a touch screen and existing customers can now instantly upgrade to Teams as they migrate their platform.    


Look for more exciting announcements from our partners at Integrated Systems Europe in February, and please visit aka.ms/teamsdevices to learn more about our portfolio of Teams certified devices.

 

Let us know what you think!

Try the new features on your Microsoft Teams Rooms and provide feedback via User Voice or vote for existing ideas to help us prioritize the requests. We read every piece of feedback that we receive to make sure that the Microsoft Teams Rooms experience meets your needs.

 

- Christian Schacht, senior product marketing manager Microsoft Teams Rooms

 

852 Comments
Microsoft

@Terence Tan @David Phillips we are on this now and actively investigating.  We have not been able to reproduce this yet, but the reports we are seeing indicate problems specifically singing into SfB Server (on-prem) with discovery.    Note that you can manage Windows Updates for these devices same as with any other WIndows PC, so using WSUS / Endpoint Manager (SCCM).  We are also working to include update management, via / integrated with Intune / Endpoint Manager, within the Teams Admin Center in the future.

We will get back to everyone here shortly once we have more info on root cause and/or workaround.  For now the workaround is to uninstall the KB in question.   @Sohail Tariq 

Steel Contributor

@Ilya Bukshteyn Yep - we are an on-prem shop.

Brass Contributor

@Ilya Bukshteyn We are on-prem SfB. All 45 of our MTR's are in Microsoft Teams Rooms Premium and showing as not signed into SfB. Do you know if the MTRP team will be removing the KB in question? I don't want to spend cycles on removing the KB if MTRP will address it.

Microsoft

@johnwaldron we are checking right now with the managed services team to see if this is something they can do @Irena Andonova 

Steel Contributor

Is there any kind of roadmap date on Intune / Teams console management?  This seems really preferable to on prem management.

Microsoft

@David Phillips we shipping Teams Admin Center support for MTR last month, but that does not currently include update management through Intune.  This is on our roadmap, but will likely be early next CY unfortunately. 

Brass Contributor

@Ilya Bukshteyn Thanks. In the meantime I'm making arrangements with our UCC team to remove the KB if needed. 

We are using MTR's in the Out of the Box configuration as recommended by MS. They update on MS MTR cadence. They are joined to our Azure AD/InTune using an device enrollment only account (demcra@sas.com) so that they can make SfB calls. We found they could not make on-prem SfB calls until joined to the domain. Once the KB is removed, is there anything we need to do to keep the MTR's from pulling the same KB again?
Microsoft

For customers enrolled in the managed service, the service operations team will roll back the KB article. 

Copper Contributor

@Ilya Bukshteyn @Irena Andonova we are an SFB shop with 250+ MTR devices with this sign in issue. We are also set up in a Out Of the Box configuration. All MTR rooms are currently INOP. How soon will this KB be rolled back?

Microsoft

@teamstothemoon we can only roll back for customer who are enrolled in the managed service part of Microsoft Teams Rooms Premium.  Our service engineering team is working on it. 

Copper Contributor

@Irena Andonova  thanks for letting me know. @Ilya Bukshteyn so if you are not enrolled in the managed service you are out of luck or is there a fix in the works as well?

Microsoft

@teamstothemoon we can't take remote actions for devices which are not enrolled in the managed service.  So our recommendation right now is for you to roll back the KB on those MTRs and to disable WU temporarily.  We are working with the Windows team to both establish a block on that KB for MTR for now, as well as to determine root cause and a fix. 

Copper Contributor

@Ilya Bukshteyn well that's unfortunate.... It's hard not to be very upset about this. This is the second time in 3 months that an update pushed out by Microsoft that has caused a widespread outage for us. We had a widespread issues when version 4.4.41.0 was released... had to go to hundreds of systems to fix auto start problems and now 3 months in I get to go back to hundreds of systems again and either uninstall as KB or disable WU. 

 

I get that you are doing your best, but it's extremely frustrating being an MTR customer in times like this. 

Microsoft

@teamstothemoon I absolutely hear you, and again I apologize for the issues with 4.4.41 which were due to an issue with MTR.  Right now we just don't know what the actual issue is in this new case, and we are working very actively with lots of folks in Windows to understand it.  We will post updates as soon as we can.  

Microsoft

@teamstothemoon @johnwaldron @David Phillips we have now identified the root cause of the issue as a change made in Windows which impacted some legacy SfB authentication code.  We are currently testing a new version, 4.5.37, of the MTR app which implements a workaround.  If all goes well, we hope to push this new app version to 100% deployment in the Windows store by EOD tomorrow, 8/14.

Bronze Contributor

@Ilya Bukshteyn 

I believe you do not need to ask apologizes of these latest problems on MTR (even we all hate these issues). As I do not believe you are personally responsible of them? :lol:

 

But somehow I feel this is kind of overall indication where Microsoft is today. There seems to be serious troubles on the development quality and testing the changes. E.g., I have asked simple error correction on Teams Admin center (incorrect details on call history). There has been now two or three ties to fix the issue, and still the values are wrong. A bit better now, but still work needed from developers.

 

So, I really wish your company takes some actions to start improving the quality on your services.

Microsoft

@Petri X I lead the Teams Devices team, so the previous issues with 4.4.41 are for sure on us, I do take personal responsibility, and we have taken multiple actions we hope will address app quality moving forward.  The issues with this last Windows update are something Microsoft should have caught before it impacted our customers, so as a leader at Microsoft I also take personal responsibility; we should have had the right processes in place to not create issues for you and others here.  We will again take actions to address this.

I hear your frustration, and I can say that we all take quality and reliability very seriously.  We monitor it, we discuss improvements regularly, and we work to connect with customers in channels such as Tech Community to make sure we are always listening.  I can't speak to the specific Teams Admin Center issues, but if you want to PM me about it, I can get the right people internally to take a look quickly. 

We are and will continue to take actions to make sure we get better and better.  Please keep getting us your feedback. 

Bronze Contributor

@Ilya Bukshteyn 

Ah, that I did not know. But then it is great to "see" you in here ! We have some hope then :D

 

 

ps. The Admin Center was just an example, I have case open, so you do not need to find anybody. That is definitely not an urgent case. 

Copper Contributor

@Ilya Bukshteyn - A few devices that got v4.5.35.0 last week have been rolled back to v4.4.41.0 or v4.4.63.0 automatically. As per this forum, I suspected if the AUG monthly patch was the cause but it's not. There are devices that got the AUG month patch but still on MTR version 4.5.35.0. Another strange thing is that we got Cisco webex enabled after 4.5.35.0 upgrade last week, but now on the rolled back devices (v4.4.41.0 or 4.4.63.0), we have got both Cisco and Zoom meeting options enabled. I couldn't mange to trace any log or event to find out the cause for the rollback of MTR version. 

Microsoft

@Raja_Boopathy , Can you please pm me links to the logs from one of the problem device that rolled back to previous version? Collecting logs: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/MicrosoftTeams/rooms/rooms-operations#collecting-logs-on-microsoft-... 

Microsoft

@Raja_Boopathy  Apps should not roll back "automatically".  Please don't roll back to 4.4.41.  There was a bug where we showed the Zoom logo but the actual capability is not there so it won't work.  @Sohail Tariq other thoughts?

I’ve seen it once before with a colleagues MTR, it was on 4.4.63.0 and then rolled back to 4.4.41.0.  The following night it went back to 4.4.63.0.  Unfortunately never got the logs off it.

Copper Contributor

@Ilya Bukshteyn -  No, we didn't rollback the app. It was done on its own. I could trace it through the event logs, however couldn't find the cause for it. It looks like it happened over the nightly reboot on 13th AUG 2020. Until 13-08-2020 02:28, the MTR version was 4.5.35.0 and then post reboot at 13-8-2020 02:35, the MTR was 4.4.41.0. Something has caused this during that window and I don't think it is due to Windows 10 1909 AUG monthly update, because most of our devices got that update and they didn't report this problem.

@Sohail Tariq  - Will do, thank you.

Bronze Contributor

@Ilya Bukshteyn 

So, the problem is solved now?

4.5.37.0 (08/14/2020) is released.

Copper Contributor

@Sohail Tariq  - FYI - The Rooms that rolled back from v4.5.35.0 to v4.4.41.0 have again been upgraded back to v4.5.35.0 over the weekend. Did you manage to find anything through the logs I shared yet?

Microsoft

@Petri X yes that app releases addresses the issue with Skype for Business server login

Copper Contributor

Is there a reason the Teams Room device cannot participate in Chat and File sharing?  Both are sorely needed.

Brass Contributor

@jcreedon From my understanding MTR's are not meant to be "active" participants of the meeting - ie they simply smooth the process of starting & controlling meeting functions. It is designed so that content, chat etc is shared by meeting participants from their own devices (this way it also comes from a specific user rather than a generic room account).

 

MTR is also designed to use a touch screen so this would also make chat pretty unwieldly to use - better to do so from your own device keyboard.

Brass Contributor

@Unearth, I understand that.  However, I think that the chat function and the ability to open and view files is a broader tool than what you are limiting it too.  For example, you have 10 people in a meeting and 4 attending remotely.  One of those 4 drops helpful information into the Chat window.  None of the 10 people would know anything about it.  Or another example, having a meeting with 10 people in the conference room and no one joined remotely, there has been an Agenda file shared.  That agenda can't be pulled up on the screen for everyone to see.

 

I've had a MTR device for less than a week and these scenarios have already come up a dozen times.  There is certainly a business case for this functionality.  The only workaround is to have a second device in the room to screen share and that presents its own issues especially for the technically challenged.  

Microsoft

@TypicalUser @Unearth we are looking at ways to bring viewing of meeting chat to MTR (similar to what we have on Surface Hub).  This would be in CY21.  We are also looking at ways to bring sharing of Office 365 files, starting with PowerPoint, directly from our cloud to MTR; so any linked or attached file / PPT in the meeting could be shared and controlled from MTR.  Again, something we are looking at in CY21. 

Brass Contributor

@Ilya Bukshteyn Thanks for that info.  That will really be helpful.  Also I really appreciate that you as the Product Owner are so engaged on these boards.

Copper Contributor

@Sohail Tariq - Did you manage to find anything from the logs shared yet please?

Bronze Contributor

@Ilya Bukshteyn 

New version has arrived (4.5.37.0), but looks like with some unwanted "improvements".

 

Teams Room - Four partner.png

Above describes the case where me + four other attendees. Two videos, two without video. All good.

 

The problem start when one attendee more joins to the call with video:

 

Teams Room - Three videos.png

Two issues appears:

1) These two without video disappears, they are in a meeting, but are not visible on screen anymore.

2) The video on left is cropped. This can be fixed by users using the zoom on camera, but it is not so good user experience as we already have preset home positions.

 

Is there undocumented configuration parameter to fix these, or how do you see this?

Steel Contributor

Maybe a dumb question - is there a way to see if Teams is actually connecting to the store and updating on MTR, perhaps in the event log?  I'm testing tomorrow and need to be sure the devices can connect to the store to update the app.

Copper Contributor

Hey. I have a little query. I hope somebody would help. Is this necessary to have Microsoft Teams Rooms setup for both the organizer and the attendees? 

Microsoft

@hamza1670 MTR is not a traditional VTC, where you need to do VTC-to-VTC meetings.  It’s a Microsoft Teams client.  So any one or more participants in a Teams meeting can be MTRs, but other participants can be any other Teams client, desktop, mobile, dial in, etc. 

@David Phillips I've seen the the MTR app update with 5 minutes of the system being online, or in other cases up to five hours or even overnight.  You can also see in the Event Viewer the Script Launch events and see what version of the app it is getting.  For example at 0201 this morning, it has the 4.6.63.0 script and at 0232, it had the 4.5.37.0 script.  

 

You could run the task scheduler a few times to see if the app updates.  In terms of access to the Store, just open it on the desktop and it should connect and update some built in Windows apps.  That way you know the store isn't blocked.

Copper Contributor

Running MTR 4.5.37.

Sign-in to SfB and Exchange is OK (according to Teams admin portal), BUT login to Teams fails?

Anybody else seeing this issue?

Bronze Contributor

@ullerdk 

Do you have SfB in on-premises solution or pure O365 setup? Is this a new problem or it has never been working?

Copper Contributor

@Petri X 

Pure O365 setup.

New problem, started 4-7 days ago (before automatically upgrade to 4.5.37 happened).

Tried removing recent installed Windows 10 updates, but no dice.

Tried with and without modern auth, still no dice.

Verified that MTR-user can login to teams.microsoft.com in MS Edge in the Administrator console.

 

Furthermore: Azure AD sign-ins does NOT show sign-ins from MTR devices/users, when modern authentication is enabled on the MTR device?!

This is true for both MTR devices where login works, and MTR device where login does not work (different tenants though).

Brass Contributor

Hi @ullerdk,

 

Are you able to check to make sure that the UPN (username) is the same as the email address and SIP address.

 

I have seen issues where these have not matched causing these issues.

 

Also it might be worth resetting the password for the account as I've seen this fix the issue also.

 

Thanks,

Dan

Copper Contributor

@Dan Byne 

UPN is matching primary smtp address and SIP-address. Also, according to logs, sign-in to Exchange and SfB is successful, but nothing shows up for Teams.

 

ullerdk_0-1598974867217.png

 

ullerdk_0-1598976395487.png

 

As I wrote, known password is correct, because login to Teams works in a web-browser (in the Administrator console). If password is not correct, login to Exchange and Sfb would not work.

I am surprised, that NOTHING shows up in the Azure AD sign-in logs, when using modern auth in MTR (also not on a tenant where a MTR device works fine with modern auth).

Brass Contributor

Hi @ullerdk,

 

It might be worth taking a look at the Teams log file located here:

 

C:\users\skype\appdata\local\packages\Microsoft.SkypeRoomSystem_8wekyb3d8bbwe\localcache\roaming\teams\logs.txt

 

That should hopefully give a better indication of the issue. 

 

Normally when a user fails to sign into Teams it's because of conditional access. It can be MFA or O365 is classing the login as not from a trusted application.

 

I've seen it recently where signings were not appearing for a client where all was working until Friday when an update went out to the devices. This was down to the mismatch of addresses.

 

The update has seemed to have triggered or tightened the authentication sequence so anything on the accounts that worked before may not now.

 

Thanks,

Dan

Copper Contributor

@Dan Byne 

Thanks for your inputs.

I'm trawling through log-files, as I writing this.

Normally, with this kind of problem, I also start looking into conditional access flow/log.

But still - login to Exchange and SfB works - and login to Teams works in a browser on the MTR device, so it doesn't make sence to me, and CA does not reveal any issues with logins.

I have found this in the logs.txt, can't figure out the root cause from it:

 

Tue Sep 01 2020 19:53:19 GMT+0200 <9664> -- warning -- SSO: ssoerr - (status) Unable to get errCode. Err:Error: 0xCAA10001
Tue Sep 01 2020 19:53:19 GMT+0200 <9664> -- info -- Login failed - status: caa10001 diag:1
Tue Sep 01 2020 19:53:19 GMT+0200 <9664> -- warning -- ADAL: SSO: ssoerr - Could not login user - status: caa10001

 

Bronze Contributor

@ullerdk 

Is this device the only one who have the problem, or do you have troubles on other devices as well?

Sometimes I have success to find information from AzureAD sign-in logs, have you check from there?

But it is very strange that Skype is working, but Teams is not.

 

As we know, one of the most common solution for Teams issues is clearing the cache. Personally I hate that as the system should be able to survive without clearing the cache. But perhaps you could try that. Go to device, sign-in as admin. Sign-out the Skype user (you could do this e.g. task manager's "users" tab). Then remove the Teams folders under the RoomSystem and then reboot the device. 

Copper Contributor

@Petri X 

Thank you so much! :)

Removing the Teams folder solved the problem!

My customer only have this single MTR device - haven't seen the issue on any other MTR devices including my own.

And I certainly also use the AzureAD sign-in logs to troubleshoot issues like this.

 

Bronze Contributor

@ullerdk 

Kind of sad to hear. But that underlines how the Teams is still working. But good to hear that it is working now. :smile:

 

Many people are wishing to see a "clear cache" buttons or similar on Teams clients to make cache clearing easier. But in my mind that is not solution to the problem, that is workaround. Or who is missing the days when the solution was: "reboot fix the problem"?

 

Some time ago I made into user voice a request to Microsoft to fix the Teams so that clearing cache is not be required:

Can we get Teams client which could survives without clearing cache by user 

But looks like it is not so popular idea yet :lol:

 

I have no doubts that Microsoft have no developing skills to get this issue solved properly. But to get their attention is not always so easy.

Brass Contributor

Hi @ullerdk,

 

That was my next call, clearing the cache. We have seen this a few times when the caa10001 error appears in the logs. We wrote a script that does a checkup that checks and fixes a few of these niggly issues including those caused by the dreaded 4.4.41 update.

 

It seems like its a stuck token within the Teams client part itself that causes these issues.  As @Petri X suggested it has been requested in uservoice but at least we have a known workaround for when it happens.

 

Thanks,

Dan 

Copper Contributor

@Petri X 

I could not have said it better myself...

 

@Dan Byne 

I will definitely note this case as "one to remember" in my OneNote. There is a first time for everything, and this issue was the first time for me....

Surprisingly, Google does not know much about CAA10001 error.

Brass Contributor

Hi All,

 

I am planning to make use of configuring email alerts via Azure Monitor for MTR issues. I could see some steps described in the below link. 

 

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoftteams/rooms/azure-monitor-deploy 

 

It's only high-level though. May I kindly ask if anyone has been using this feature in your environment successfully? If yes, could you please share me with some steps on how to do it effectively along with prerequisites and best practices if any. Thanks in advance.

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