Microsoft Teams Rooms December update
Published Dec 17 2019 08:00 AM 75.8K Views

Earlier this year we released content camera support that enables you to share an analog whiteboard into your Teams Meetings to create a more inclusive experience for remote participants. We’re pleased to announce that the content camera is now also available for Surface Pro-based systems (i.e. Logitech Smartdock, Crestron SR & Polycom MSR).

 

In addition to this, a content camera mounting kit for mounting the Logitech Brio content camera is available for purchase. Go to Brio Content Camera Kit on the Office.com Teams Devices showcase which includes all the accessories you need to install the camera (i.e. camera, mount, cabling, USB extenders).

 

Figure 1 Content Camera mount for intelligent captureFigure 1 Content Camera mount for intelligent capture

 

To provide an easy license model for conference rooms, our Office 365 Meeting Room subscription is also now available to our government customers in Office 365 US Government Community (GCC). The Microsoft Teams Room app now supports the GCC cloud as well.

Microsoft Teams Rooms & Intune best practices

Teams meeting room devices can be enrolled and managed by Intune to provide many of the device management and security capabilities available to endpoints managed by Intune. Find out more here

 

Microsoft Teams Rooms store app 4.3.23.0 is now available

We started releasing Microsoft Teams Room app version 4.3.21.0 earlier this week and the Store app will roll out to every Microsoft Teams Room in the next couple of weeks.

 

This release contains the following features:

 

Settings user interface refresh

We’ve refreshed our Settings UI on devices to reflect the new admin controls we’ve added for meeting room experiences. The new UI gives you a better organized view of your configuration options and adds a new About tab with useful information about device configuration.

 

Figure 2 New Admin Settings UIFigure 2 New Admin Settings UI

 

These changes have no impact on device configuration with an XML file, which will continue to work as before.

 

Auto-accept Proximity-based calls

You can now configure Microsoft Teams Rooms to automatically accept proximity-based meeting joins. This simplifies the join experience and gets users into meetings even faster and, of course, we give admins the option to configure this feature based on their preferences.

 

Figure 3 Admin settings for proximity joinFigure 3 Admin settings for proximity join

 

Get to Room Controls / OEM extension with ease

We’re bringing the Room Controls button back to the main screen of the Microsoft Teams console so that partner extensions are just one click away.

Figure 4 Room Controls / OEM extensionFigure 4 Room Controls / OEM extension

 

 

Microsoft Teams Rooms and peripheral additions

We have some great new additions for Microsoft Teams Rooms from our partners to give our customers even more choice for their conference rooms.

 

Figure 5 New devices for Microsoft Teams RoomsFigure 5 New devices for Microsoft Teams Rooms

 

Yealink MVC300

The right fit for focus rooms and small rooms, with its auto framing camera and Yealink CP900 speakerphone, the MVC300 system delivers a broad and vivid view while making it easier for everyone to be heard.

Figure 6 Yealink MVC300Figure 6 Yealink MVC300

 

Poly Studio

Combining the audio and video quality you expect from Poly with the simplicity you need for everyday use, Poly Studio is the USB video bar ideal for smaller rooms and huddle spaces. Its plug-and-play functionality works with Microsoft Teams Room and fits any budget.

Figure 7 Poly StudioFigure 7 Poly Studio

 

Yealink CP900

A premium portable USB speakerphone for personal use, in huddle rooms, and on-the-go. Wideband audio, HD voice and six-microphone beam-forming offer a premium full-duplex experience. Yealink’s distraction-free HD audio technology ensures crystal-clear sound. The CP900 speakerphone offers simple plug-and-play USB connections to Microsoft Teams Rooms.

Figure 8 Yealink CP900Figure 8 Yealink CP900

 

Sennheiser SP30T

A portable wireless speakerphone for today’s mobile workforce supporting both personal and small to medium sized conferencing for up to 8 people. A choice of Bluetooth or USB-C connectivity gives freedom and flexible connection options. Two long-range, noise and echo cancelling microphones and an ultra-low distortion speaker with clear voice reproduction allow a natural, conversational flow even in challenging environments.

Figure 9 Sennheiser SP30TFigure 9 Sennheiser SP30T

 

Yealink UVC30 Room

A premium USB camera designed for focus and small meeting rooms. Offering a sharp image and accurate color reproduction, it rewards you with a vivid face-to-face video meeting experience in ultra HD 4K resolution and high frame rates. A wide field of view ensures every participant can be seen. Based on the facial detection, it supports auto framing feature to accomplish a much more intelligent meeting experience. An included flexible clip gives many options to mount the camera.

Figure 10 Yealink UVC30 RoomFigure 10 Yealink UVC30 Room

 

Let´s get started today and modernize your meeting rooms and check out our certified bundles at office.com/teamsdevices

- Christian Schacht, Senior Product Marketing Manager, Microsoft Teams Rooms

228 Comments
Microsoft

@jschina , Please check to see if the room account shows in the Teams admin center under Users. This will confirm that license is correctly applied. Other than license, the only thing comes to mind would be your auth. topology. Teams is online only environment and uses OAuth over password resource grant to authenticate from the room system. If there is 2FA set up for this account, please disable it. If these do not resolve your issue, please open a support ticket with logs so we can take a look and get back to you. 

Another thing you can do is to log in to admin user account on the device and use a web browser to sign in to Teams using the same resource account to rule out any network/ proxy issues with the device. 

Brass Contributor

@Sohail Tariq  if someone does have account related issues what support at microsoft do they call for MTR?  Just to make sure i myself or others go to the right support group.  Definitely if it is something hardware related i go to the OEM but was not sure if it is Microsoft account related.

 

Please advise.  Thanks.

Brass Contributor

@Sohail Tariq - I will verify the licensing again, but we check that it is applied. Does it matter that I am able to log into the account via my Teams desktop application? 

Brass Contributor

@jschina 
When it says it can't sign into Teams how long have you left it going after that message?
In my experience, sometimes that first login to Teams can take a bit before it signs in. It will say it can't sign in, and then 10 mins later or more its signs in and then its fine. We experienced it a few times when we had to reset some devices - and one we left overnight, to find it resolved in the morning.

Brass Contributor

@yankeedoodlegandy , interesting, thanks for sharing, I'll give it a try. I know I've let it go for around 40 min with no luck. I'll try letting go overnight.

Brass Contributor

@Sohail Tariq  - few things I noticed.

 

When disabling MFA, I lose access to the meetings on the MTR that are booked and get an error ribbon saying "cannot fetch calendar", as soon as we enable MFA the meetings come back onto the MTR. 

 

I logged into the admin account on the MTR and went to teams.microsoft.com and was not able to access the site, though I could access other MS sites. Could this be a firewall issue? Does Teams access a different URL or IP than SfB? Again, SfB meeting work just fine. 

 

I'm opening a Premier ticket today so they can check the logs. Thanks for the help! 

Brass Contributor

@jschinaI've struggled with the same symptoms in the past.  There are two scenarios where I've had this happen.  SfB works fine but I get the message that it can't sign into teams when trying to use the Teams mode.  This happens even though I can sign into the desktop teams application with the account.

 

The first time the solution ended up being to delete the account and start over again ensuring I had followed the deployment instructions carefully.  I suspect I hadn't gotten something right with the mailbox the first time around.  For whatever reason, teams is sensitive to issues that SfB isn't.

 

The second time, it turned out I had an old room resource with the same name as the account I was using for the MTR.  Poor attention to detail on my part.  

 

Brass Contributor

@Glenn Chubak - thank you!

 

I'll keep that in mind. After some more troubleshooting and analyzing our FW logs, it looks like Teams was getting blocked. Hopefully allowing that connection out will resolve the issue. 

Copper Contributor

@Ilya Bukshteyn 

My 2 MTR devices (Lenovo and Logitech SmartDock) have not yet received this update.

What level is the gradual release process on now?

 

Microsoft

@Ulrik S. Andreassen , 4.3.33.0 is 100% store, so all devices should get the new app on nightly reboot. You can also log in to these device from admin account and get Windows updates, sometimes that triggers store app update as well. What app version are your 2 MTR devices right now? 

Copper Contributor

@Ulrik S. Andreassen some of mine still haven't gotten the update either. These are both Tap and Smartdock.

Copper Contributor

@Sohail Tariq 

my devices are both at v4.2.4 now.

Microsoft

@Ulrik S. Andreassen , please try manual Windows update from admin user on the device. 

@jschinaSo you have the unit in Skype only mode and the unit is not setup with Teams in the O365 tenant?

 

I think we would need to do a few things to get to the bottom of the issue:

1.  Collect the version information of the unit.  (This could be a version issue so we'd need to document for MS exactly what you are using)

2.  Reproduce at Crestron which shouldn't be hard if this is all the public versions and its as easy as this.

3.  Get a case opened with Crestron support.  (1-888-CRESTRON) or support@crestron.com can be used and they can start a case.

4.  Support can help troubleshoot sign in issues and if they can be replicated, then they can be escalated to the appropriate Microsoft department and ultimately even to Ilya's group if need be.

 

I don't have access to a unit right now, but I have seen Skype only installs work flawlessly and not give this error so my thought process is it could be your auto discovery or something in your environments DNS that might be causing the issue unless its a very old version of the software.

Brass Contributor

@James Vaughan - thanks for the response! 

 

I actually figured it out, our firewall was blocking all MS Teams traffic. I am now able to log in and join Teams meetings. 

 

I am running into a new issue though. If I join a Teams meeting from the MTR and another participant joins, after about 20-30 seconds the MTR app crashes. I have logs from Event Viewer showing me the app crash. MTR app is updated to the latest verison 4.3.33. I suspect this issue is related to our firewall again. 

 

Thanks. 

Copper Contributor

4.3.33.0 seemed to resolve the display issues that the prior update caused. 

Copper Contributor

@Christian Schacht  @Sohail Tariq Any update on the ability to record from Teams/Skype Room systems yet? We are rolling out 20 Teams Room Systems at our office this week and the lack of recording is really going to effect productivity. Is there any plans to implement this soon? I need something to deliver to the business about this.

Microsoft

@Adam Hobart  Will get done this quarter, for ability to start / stop cloud recording in Teams meetings on MTR. Note you can record today but someone just has to start the recording from a personal device. 

@jschinagreat that you figured out the first issue.  If you figure out the second one let me know.  Having info of what helped others is always something to have in your bag of tricks!

Copper Contributor

@Sohail TariqI have now tried Windows update (no more updates available) and several manual reboots during the last weekend - neither of my 2 systems are updated to v4.3.23. Is there a way to see in the eventlog when/if the MTR application is trying to update and fails? I know it is not possible to update the application manually in the Microsoft store.

@Ulrik S. Andreassen  If you have received updates before on the unit then this suggestion wouldn't apply, but if your site is using a proxy then you should make sure you are not blocking the store updates and you have added the URL's in this article to the allow your device to access these them through the proxy.  While many orgs allow the URL's for O365, I have seen some continue to block the URL's for the store.  Just a thought.

Prerequisites for Microsoft Store for Business and Education

Copper Contributor

@James Vaughan 

Thanks for tipping in.

Both units did auto-update to the v4.2 version without problem.

These are my demo-units, and the network is not using proxy or are limited in any way to internet.

I managed to do a manual update on my Lenovo device following the "Software updates" section here https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoftteams/room-systems/room-systems-v2-operations

Simply, it is just Remove-AppxPackage and then Add-AppxPackage command.

The "Add-AppxPackage -Update" does NOT work.

Copper Contributor

Hi, we were able to fix the issue. It was related to proxy exclusion settings that did not worked like before...

Michael

-------------------------------------------------------------

Hello,

It seems there is an issue with the 4.3.33 update and Skype for Business meetings.

We have Lenovo and Logitech devices and all of them have already received the 4.3.33 update. The devices are configured for on-premise Skype for Business 2015 and Exchange 2016. Since that or the prior update, Skype meetings (with a correct working meeting URL) are displayed on the device, but the "Join Now" button is missing. So we can't join the Skype meetings anymore on the devices.

 

How to fix this or is there a way to rollback the store app?

 

Michael

Brass Contributor

Hi All, we have noticed when the computer goes to sleep it will stop HDMI output to the TV, but the TV will sit there on "No Signal" for a while. Should CEC be sending a command to actually send the TV to sleep, or is that not possible? We are using the Logitech Tap + Rally bundle, with a Samsung 85" LCD.

 

We have tried the manual workaround where we turn off the TV via remote, but when we turn the TV back on it sometimes doesnt show the HDMI display anymore - just a black screen. Has anyone had this? I assume letting it sleep naturally is preferred but would like to hear more on why manually turning the screen off causes this issue. I understand this is more likely a hardware thing but our setup is similar to most (MTR running on an Intel NUC, connected via HDMI) so hopefully someone has ideas. Cheers

@Unearthwhile I do not know the specifics of the issue you are having, I do have some suggestions that might help you troubleshoot it a little bit.

 

  1.   Its important to know that the devices in the MTR lineup currently do not have CEC control on them.  Its just not there on the device which means it will not be able to send the signal needed to the display.
  2.   CEC control is tricky even when it is there.  There are so many manufacturers that interpret CEC in some strange ways.  As an example, the signal OFF on CEC can mean a few different things.  It could mean standby which would put the display into a state that could be turned back on, or for example there is a manufacturer that uses CEC OFF to power down every single aspect of the display including the 5v line for CEC meaning there is no way to turn it back on.
  3.   For MTR, many displays (mostly commercial) will have what is termed in the menus as a PC setting for power.  This would be that when it sees a signal (The MTR computer is on) it will turn the display on and when the display doesn't see a signal or video sync, the display automatically goes to a standby state and shuts off the backlight.  On many residential displays (bought from Best Buy) this setting does not exist and you may need something outside of the display settings itself.  There are hidden menus in some displays (usually you get into them through a sequence of keys on the remote control) and you might find a setting there, but not too many have this setting unless you are using a commercial display.
  4.  You can use something from Crestron (full disclosure, this is the company I currently work for) that will introduce CEC into the signal and take that video sync and inject CEC onto the wire to turn the display off and on.  If you need part numbers, let me know, but all Crestron dealers can help with this.

As far as not waking up using the remote, it sounds like you should contact Logitech or the disti where you purchased it from and hopefully they can help if its reproducible.  There is a nightly restart of the units and that might have something to do with it if your video signal chain or cable has an issue with no sync on startup.  (just a guess)

Brass Contributor

Thanks James.  Excellent information.  I've put most of this together by trial and error and hints here and there.  To have someone who is in-the-know lay it out is very useful.  The fact that commercial displays work is not clearly documented anywhere that I've been able to find.

Brass Contributor

@James Vaughan appreciate your comprehensive reply, thanks.


We are using the Logitech Tap with the Logitech Rally a/v gear. HDMI output from the Intel NUC passes through the Rally table/display hubs which I understand inject CEC controls into the feed.

 

However you make a good point regarding the TV model, in this case the customer had already procured their own Samsung 85” display but it was likely a consumer model. I will check to see if it has a engineer menu available with additional power controls, as the standard menu doesn’t seem to cover anything other than a standard sleep setting (minimum which is 4hr) and nothing related to the HDMI input.

 

cheers!

Steel Contributor

My experience is also that HDMI-CEC is unreliable in general, not just with MTR. Have some cases where Apple TV + LG 65” works perfect with HDMI-CEC but in another case with same Apple TV and cable but a LG 32” with same webOS - does not work. LG support just says ”we only support this functionality with other LG peripherals”. 

@Jonas Backthat is a very very common complaint about CEC.  Although it is an industry standard, the way it is interpreted by each manufacturer is different.  It is frustrating for the video industry as a whole as CEC was supposed to help make a standard of the control protocol.  At Crestron, we actually give our programmers the ability within our tools to just send the commands over the CEC bus for the simple reason that you might need to change from standard CEC to actually control that display.  You can see here what all the different manufacturers actually call their version of CEC.

 

I wish "Off" truly meant off and "On" meant on, but this is no different than even control in the days of RS-232.  "Off" on some of the displays in the early days meant turning off the RS-232 port which meant there was no way to turn it back on.  So its a battle that has been around for a very long time.

 

Just inserting CEC of on and off is going to be hit or miss for any combination of display and device.  If you find one that works, my suggestion is to stay with that model and even on that firmware if you can.  Firmware in displays will also change behavior sometimes so you need to be careful.

Steel Contributor

Couple questions.

 

Is there any plans of adding additional trigger points in the app for Crestron systems to trigger full system off / system on commands from the main screen, and potentially different inputs when presenting?  We have a room that is customized with shades, lights, 20+ mics, multiple cameras, 20+ cable boxes that have HDMI it, etc.  In today's world we have to flip back and forth between the room systems settings window to turn things on and off.

 

There was a comment at one point that screen layouts for duplicating screens in a call would be a future release.  Any updates?  What about wrapping a policy on the default of 'screen duplicating', and audio levels?

 

 

 

Microsoft
@Dustin Halvorson yes we are adding a read only notification API which partners like Crestron can / will use to trigger additional room control events. That is coming from us in at end of this quarter, and then Crestron will need to do work to integrate that. The setting to disable duplicate content should be shipping shortly. Adjustable default volume and ability to view video only even when content is being shared is coming later this quarter or early next.
Steel Contributor

@Ilya Bukshteyn  Tremendous, thanks for the information!

Copper Contributor

@Ilya Bukshteyn When you say cloud recording--do you mean this new feature would only work on Skype for Business/Team systems that are hosted in the cloud? Is there any solution for recording for on-prem deployments? 

Microsoft
@Adam Hobart I mean start / stop recording will only be available on MTR for Teams meetings. All Teams meeting recordings are in the cloud. We don't support any recording capabilities with MTR on SfB, although as you know there are 3p solutions for recording with SfB server. As of this point we are not investing in any new features / capabilities for SfB on MTR. In case its also not obvious, Teams is cloud only, no on-prem server deployment possible.
Brass Contributor

Any chance there will be an update to allow an option to stop the HDMI from sharing automatically?  Have a couple of customers testing using Mersive or Barco HDMI sharing devices but the issue is the unit picks up there is an active HDMI signal even before they are actually streaming something to the device.

 

Customers want it to only stream if they actually hit present.  Also it helps when they stop sharing say in Skype so that it goes back to the gallery view where right now when someone stops streaming to the device it goes back to a nice big logo from those companies.

 

If anyone has any thoughts or interesting ways they have used to get around this it would be great to know.

 

Thanks!

Microsoft
@ToddMethven yes that is now in our backlog, to have the same behavior in Teams meetings on MTR as in SfB meetings. Likely to be next quarter though.
Copper Contributor

Howdy, just wondering if there might be any news about Audio Conferencing with Direct Routing coming to 365 tenants on the horizon? :)

Microsoft
@GeoPry this is probably not the best place to ask that question as this post is focused on Microsoft Teams Rooms.
Brass Contributor

@Ilya Bukshteyn  i think that partially answers my question but please consider the following scenarios when customers wish to use devices that are active all the time to provide input to the MTR systems.

 

1) There should be a way to turn off auto-present.  Definitely understand the advantages of having auto present but when you are using another device so that customers can connect to device remotely (IE Airmedia, Barco, mersive) you do not necessarily want to see their splash screen up all the time.

 

2) There should be further settings to control meeting defaults.  Current complaint by customer is when they join the meeting it goes to gallery mode at first which they want.  Even if there is a device plugged in as long as the setting for auto-share is turned off it goes to galley (again what they want).  however if you share it defaults to content + gallery (which again they do want) however when you stop sharing it does not flip back to gallery for the people in that room.  It leaves it at content + gallery even though it is not shared anymore.  Customer wants it to go back to gallery like it was before it started sharing.  it is adding extra steps and not the way they want it.

 

i do understand that not everyone would like these behaviours but they change based on whether you have just plugged in a PC temporarily through the HDMI in or you are using an addon device.

 

I also see what you mean about Teams where when a device is plugged into the input there does not appear to be a way to get it back to gallery only.

 

Wondering if you have any thoughts or plans to make updates that would help these situations.

 

Please advise.  Thank you!

Microsoft
@ToddMethven I believe the items we have in our backlog address all of those points @Sohail Tariq
Iron Contributor

@ToddMethven We turn off the Welcome/Splash screen on the Barcos, so the room will always show the MTR screens unless someone connects to Clickshare which activates the Barco signal and turns the MTR into autopresent from this signal. Once disconnected from Clickshare, screens go back to MTR only pretty quick.

Brass Contributor

@ToddMethven@haraldrau We removed the Clickshares, Solstices, etc. and no longer deploy them eliminating the spend.  We instruct the users to take advantage of the feature built into the MTR with the bluetooth beaconing. Join the meeting with your own device and wireless present that way. With the bluetooth the users' mics and speakers are automatically muted. This method also allows the users to share audio from presentation material into the meeting which cannot be done on the HDMI ingress of the MTR. The one disadvantage is the latency between what one is doing on their own device and what is seen on the front of room display. We instruct the users to look at their devices display when they are manipulating or changing content. No major push back so far.

Brass Contributor

@johnwaldron  I agree with your method and that is my big push with multiple customers to simply use Teams to do their video sharing.  Using Teams you can share the desktop from pretty much any device now.  Also as you mentioned audio is starting to be supported too (but i believe only win10 units right now)  which is awesome.  

 

Unfortunately in this case it is a Skype for Business situation not Teams so i do not have some of these other options available.

 

@Harald Rau  I will go back and check when i was asked this question i did not have a Barco in my unit to test so i was not aware of the ability to turn off the splash screen.  Will go back and check that as it would solve some issues because the unit would go back to gallery like they want if the video signal was suddenly gone completely.  Thank you.

Microsoft

@jschina , a few things you should check. 1). License 2). Authentication setup 3). Proxy / Network issues
Please make sure the user configured on the device is visible under the Teams Admin Center under User. If it is, it means it is Teams licensed user. If you have Meeting Room SKU assigned, you probably don't have License issue. Next, you need to make sure that 2FA is off for the resource account, MTR doesn't support MFA like regular users accounts. To check if you have network issues, you should log into admin user from the device and use browser to log in to Teams web app to make sure it is successful and there are no authentication redirects in the process. 

Microsoft

@ToddMethven , We are adding "Gallery/ video only" layout and will make that default layout if auto sharing option is turned off when you start a meeting. We are working on it and expect to have this available in H1 CY2020. If you would like an early preview, please enroll in TAP program at http://aka.ms/tapmtr 

We are also going to release wireless casting for MTR devices and we recommend you to use that for wirelessly casting to devices outside of the meeting. 

We do not test/ support always on media with MTR yet so, at this point we are not going to add complexity of "do not project" to screen for out of meeting as it was an option in SfB. We are looking at support content sources and configuration options for those when out of meeting later this year and will have guidance available in 2nd half of this year.

CC: @Ilya Bukshteyn  

Brass Contributor

@Christian Schacht  or @Sohail Tariq -How do I get the rooms phone number to show up on the console under the Time and Room Name? Is the number pulled from the rooms account when you create it in the O365 admin console? 

 

Thanks! 

Brass Contributor

Hi, experts, this issue has been brought up again, how can Teams Room share a video(with audio) as the content sharing to the remote. I remembered there were some sound matrix settings on the windows date back to SRS, but it doesn't work in Teams Room, any instruction you can share? thanks. 

 

Copper Contributor

@Ricky_Deng I dont believe that this is supported.

>Microsoft SRS V2 does not support HDMI presentation content audio pass through to remote participants.

Microsoft
@Ricky_Deng you can share with system audio from a Teams desktop client (check the "share system audio" check box in the share tray when sharing), but we do not yet support that when sharing from MTR. That is in our backlog. @Sohail Tariq
Copper Contributor

Be aware that Logitech Brio 4K stream edition cannot be used for content camera. I, wrongly, assumed the camera hardware was the same for the normal edition and streaming edition, but it is not, and learned the lesson the hard way...

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