Overview

This article outlines all of the prerequisites and requirements, which will help you plan your Teams Direct Routing deployment in your Office 365 tenant.  For a smooth implementation of direct routing, we strongly suggest you review everything on this page before moving forward.

Microsoft's Licensing Requirements

The licenses listed here are for each user that will be enabled for Teams Direct Routing:

• Required for all user accounts, a Microsoft Online Plan/Bundle that includes Microsoft Teams:

  • Microsoft 365 Basic, Standard, or Premium

  • Office 365 F3, E1, E3, or E5

  • Microsoft 365 F1, F3, E3, or E5

  • Office 365 Nonprofit E1, E3, or E5

  • Office 365 Education A1, A3, or A5

• Required for Microsoft Enterprise plans, a Microsoft 365 Phone System add-on license (already included with the A5 & E5 plans).

• Required for Microsoft 365 Small/Medium Business plans, a Microsoft 365 Business Voice without a Calling Plan add-on license:
  • Includes both Microsoft 365 Phone System & Microsoft 365 Audio Conferencing licenses.
  • Can only be purchased from Microsoft Cloud Solution Program (CSP) partners.  Cannot be purchased directly from Microsoft in the Office 365 Admin Center.
  • Maximum 300 licenses per Office 365 tenant.

• Optional for Microsoft Enterprise plans, a Microsoft Audio Conferencing add-on license (already included with the A5 & E5 plans).

Teams Direct Routing Domains

Evolve IP will provide you with 2 domains that will need to be added & verified in your Office 365 tenant.  The domains are used for routing your voice traffic to Evolve IP's voice gateways, and is a Microsoft requirement for Teams Direct Routing to work.  Additionally, Evolve IP is responsible for managing the DNS zones & records associated with the domains.  Therefore, we will need to work together to get your domains added and verified.

Here's an example for a US configuration:

^{*Note: you will receive unique routing domains for your configuration from our delivery team.} 

Voice Routing from Office 365 to Evolve IP

In the US, Evolve IP has two primary datacenters for its voice infrastructure.  One in Las Vegas for users located in the west, and one in Philadelphia for users located in the east.  When configuring your voice routes in Office 365, you will want to make one of the two locations is set as a primary route and the other as a secondary route.  For example:

• Users located on the east coast would use the Philadelphia (east) voice infrastructure for their primary route, and the Las Vegas (west) voice infrastructure for their secondary route.
• Users located on the west coast would use the Las Vegas (west) voice infrastructure for their primary route, and the Philadelphia (east) voice infrastructure for their secondary route.
• For users located in the middle of the US, you will need to choose a primary/secondary combination that best works for their location.  We recommend using the Mississippi River as a dividing line.

For our EU locations, Evolve IP has datacenters available in Amsterdam and Delft in the Netherlands. These datacenters offer the same redundant infrastructure and we will advise you on the optimal primary route upon delivery of your unique routing domains.

When you configure your Office 365 tenant for Teams Direct Routing, you will create a route for each location, and then create two routing policies that makes one of the routes primary and the other secondary.  All of this gives you redundancy regardless of where your users are physically located.

Additionally, when you start bulk-provisioning users for direct routing, you will want to identify which users should be provisioned in the east, and which should be provisioned in the west.  Later in this article we show you how you can create a CSV report of your user accounts that can be used for bulk-provisioning.  Once you have this, you can add a location column to the CSV and assign each user a primary location.

Naming Conventions

Every organization has its own naming conventions, and Evolve IP is no different.  The steps in this getting started guide use our naming conventions, and we strongly suggest you use them for two important reasons:

• If you need to get support from Evolve IP, our support teams will have no problem identifying, verifying, and if needed, troubleshooting your direct routing configuration.
• If sometime in the future you decide to use Evolve IP for managing your direct routing configuration and user provisioning, we can easily accommodate that role.

If you choose to use your own naming conventions, that's totally fine.  We understand.

Office 365 User Accounts & Roles

Teams Direct Routing User/Service Accounts

• As stated above, Microsoft requires a user/service account be permanently assigned to each routing domain added to your Office 365 tenant.  These accounts do not need any special permissions or assigned any roles.
• During the back-end direct routing configuration, these accounts have to be assigned an Office 365 license that includes MS Teams (e.g. Office 365 E1, E3, E5, etc.).  This turns on the Microsoft enterprise voice services for the domains added to your Office 365 tenant. 
• After the configuration has been completed, the licenses can be removed and repurposed to other user accounts. 
• The accounts can also be disabled (sign-in blocked), but they can never be deleted – this will break the direct routing back-end configuration.

User Accounts for Managing Teams Direct Routing

If you require tight control over over the permissions assigned to users managing your Office 365 environment, or you would like to assign permissions to users in your support/helpdesk staff, you can use the below list of roles for guidance.  Detailed information about all roles and their associated permissions can be found in Microsoft's Admin Role article.

• Global Administrator:  Required role to add the routing domains to your Office 365 tenant.  After the routing domains have added and verified, this role is no longer required.

• Skype for Business Administrator:  Required role for enabling Teams users for enterprise voice, hosted voicemail, and setting their phone numbers.
• Teams Service Administrator:  Required role for creating, managing, and viewing the Teams direct routing configuration.  Note: you cannot create a direct routing configuration from the Teams admin center – you have to use PowerShell.

• Teams Communications Administrator:  When using PowerShell, this role can create and manage a direct routing configuration.  When using the Teams admin center this role cannot view the direct routing configuration.  However, it can be used to assign or change a Teams user's voice routing policy or dial plan.  This role does not have the permissions to manage a Skype for Business online configuration.

• Teams Devices Administrator:  Optional role to configure and manage Teams enabled devices (desk phones, conference room devices, etc.).

• User Administrator:  Optional role for creating users and assigning licenses.

PowerShell Requirements

Until Microsoft adds all of the necessary UI elements to the Teams Admin Center (TAC), PowerShell will be required to perform the direct routing back-end configuration and user provisioning.  Anyone performing the back-end configuration and user provisioning with PowerShell will need to meet the following requirements on their computers:

• PowerShell version 5.1 or newer (included in Windows 10 & Server 2016/2019).
• Depending on your environment, you may need to be a local administrator on your computer.
• Always run your PowerShell sessions as an Administrator.

• If you plan to run any custom PowerShell scripts, set the PowerShell Execution Policy to Unrestricted: Set-ExecutionPolicy Unrestricted

• Download and install the latest version of the Skype for Business PowerShell Module.  If already installed, uninstall the old version before installing a new version.

• Optionally, you can install the Microsoft Teams PowerShell Module & the Microsoft Azure AD PowerShell Module, but currently these modules are not required for a direct routing deployment.  Here are the PowerShell commands to install those modules:

  • Run this command to install the Teams module: Install-Module MicrosoftTeams

  • Run this command to install the Azure AD module:  Install-Module Az

; Hostname                TTL     Type  Target
lyncdiscover.contoso.com. 3600 IN CNAME webdir.online.lync.com.

Connect to the Skype for Business Online Services

Use the below PowerShell commands to sign into your Skype for Business Online services using a user account with the proper permissions.  Microsoft's MFA service is supported when enabled against the user account.

# Import the Skype for Business Online module
Import-Module SkypeOnlineConnector
       
# Connect to Skype for Business Online
$SkypeSession = New-CsOnlineSession username@yourdomain.com
Import-PSSession -Session $SkypeSession -AllowClobber
Enable-CsOnlineSessionForReconnection

Disconnect from the Skype for Business Online Services

Disconnecting is not a hard requirement.  If you just close the PowerShell window, the connected session will eventually time out on Microsoft's side.

Remove-PSSession $SkypeSession

PowerShell vs. Teams Admin Center

You have to use PowerShell to create a direct routing configuration to Evolve IP.  You also have to use PowerShell to provision/deprovision Teams user accounts for direct routing.  Recently, Microsoft added the ability to create a direct routing configuration in the Teams admin center.  However, this only works for organizations that purchase and manage their own SBCs (PSTN Gateways). 

Evolve IP uses Microsoft's multi-tenant (carrier) model for direct routing, and this type of configuration cannot be created in the Teams admin center.  However, after the configuration has been completed you will be able to view and manage the voice routes in the Teams admin center, but there will be no SBCs listed.

Teams Upgrade Policy & Coexistence Mode

Direct Routing is only supported with Microsoft Teams, and all Teams user accounts configured for direct routing must have an upgrade policy set to the Teams Only coexistence mode.  If your organization is only using Teams (no Skype for Business users), setting the coexistence mode to Teams Only in the Org-Wide Teams Upgrade settings is recommended. 

Teams Admin Center:  Org-Wide Settings > Teams Upgrade

Set the Coexistence Mode Per User

If you are migrating your users from Skype for Business Online to Teams, you will need to assign a Teams Only coexistence mode to each user individually.  Keep in mind there are some implications when going this route, and we strongly suggest you review Microsoft's documentation for coexistence and interoperability between Teams and Skype for Business Online.

Additionally, users with an explicit coexistence mode set against their account will override the above org-wide coexistence mode.  To check a user account:

Teams Admin Center:  Users > Click on a user's Display Name to view their settings.

• If you want the user to follow the above org-wide setting, edit Teams Upgrade, and set the Coexistence Mode to Use Org-Wide Settings.
• If you want to set the user to an explicit setting, edit Teams Upgrade, and set the Coexistence Mode to the desired state.  For example, Teams Only.
• When a user is provisioned for Teams Direct Routing, their Coexistence Mode should be checked first.  If it's not set to Teams Only, it should be changed during the provisioning process.

PowerShell commands to check and change the org-wide settings, and to check and change individual user settings.  Make sure you connect to your Skype for Business Online services before running the commands.

• Get-CsTeamsUpgradePolicy
• Grant-CsTeamsUpgradePolicy
• Get-CsOnlineUser

# Check the Org-Wide setting
Get-CsTeamsUpgradePolicy Global

# Change the Org-Wide setting to Teams Only
Grant-CsTeamsUpgradePolicy -PolicyName UpgradeToTeams -Global

# List all users along with their effective coexistence mode
Get-CsOnlineUser | FT DisplayName, TeamsUpgradePolicy, TeamsUpgradeEffectiveMode

# Export a list of all users along with their Teams upgrade settings to CSV
Get-CsOnlineUser | Select DisplayName, UserPrincipalName, TeamsUpgrade* | Export-Csv "C:\Path\to\TeamsUpgrade.csv" -nti

# Set a user to use the org-wide setting
Grant-CsTeamsUpgradePolicy -Identity user@domain.com -PolicyName $Null

# Set a user to ignore the org-wide setting and use Teams Only mode.
Grant-CsTeamsUpgradePolicy -Identity user@domain.com -PolicyName UpgradeToTeams

Teams Calling Policy

When a user is assigned a Phone System license and provisioned for direct routing, they are able to make private calls from the Teams client.  This capability is provided by two Teams Calling policies, Global & AllowCalling.  If a user is unable to make calls from the Teams client after being provisioned, check the user's settings, and make sure the Teams calling policies are properly configured.

Teams calling policies can be viewed in the Teams Admin Center or by using the below PowerShell.

Teams Admin Center: Voice > Calling Policies

Calling Policy PowerShell Commands:

• Get-CsTeamsCallingPolicy
• Set-CsTeamsCallingPolicy

# List the Teams calling policies
Get-CsTeamsCallingPolicy

# List the Teams calling policy assignment for a user account
Get-CsOnlineUser user@domain.com | FL DisplayName, SipAddress, TeamsCallingPolicy

# Define a local path to save your CSV file
$CsvFilePath = "C:\path\to\file.csv"

# Get all of the Teams/SfBO users
$CsOnlineUsers = Get-CsOnlineUser -ResultSize Unlimited | Select DisplayName, UserPrincipalName, Enabled, TeamsUpgradeEffectiveMode

# Display the list of users
$CsOnlineUsers | Sort DisplayName | FT

# Save the list of users to a CSV
$CsOnlineUsers | Sort DisplayName | Export-Csv $CsvFilePath -NoTypeInformation