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 Plan/Bundle that includes Microsoft Teams:

  • Small Business Plans (Each plan has a max of 300 licenses per Office 365 tenant)
    
    • Microsoft 365 Basic
    • Microsoft 365 Standard
    • Microsoft 365 Premium
  • Commercial Enterprise Plans
    • Office 365 F3, E1, E3, or E5
    • Microsoft 365 F1, F3, E3, or E5
  • Non-Profit Enterprise Plans (verify this list with your reseller)
    • Office 365 Nonprofit E1, E3, or E5
    • Microsoft 365 Nonprofit E3 or E5
  • Education Enterprise Plans (verify this list with your reseller)
    • Office 365 Education A1, A3, or A5
    • Microsoft 365 Education 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 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 a Microsoft CSP (Cloud Solution Provider) partner.  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 365 Audio Conferencing add-on license (already included with the A5 & E5 plans).

Microsoft 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 (more info on the routing domains are in the Teams Direct Routing Domains section below). 

These accounts do not need any special permissions or assigned any roles.  Additionally:

• 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 routing 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 user/service 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.

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

• Skype for Business Administrator:   Required role for enabling Teams users for direct routing, which includes enabling enterprise voice, hosted voicemail, and setting a direct routing phone number.
• Teams Service Administrator:  Required role for creating, managing, and viewing a Teams direct routing configuration.

• Teams Communications Administrator:  This is an optional role that can be assigned when you don't want to give a user account the Teams Service Admin role.  However, 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 at all, but 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:  Required role to create the user/service accounts for each routing domain.  After the user/service accounts have been created this role becomes optional for creating users and assigning licenses.

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.

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 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.

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.

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.} 

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 (TAC).  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.

The below screenshot is normal.

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 (included in Windows 10 & Server 2016/2019).
• Depending on your environment, you may need to be a local administrator on your computer.
• Install the Microsoft Teams PowerShell module: Install-Module -Name MicrosoftTeams -Scope CurrentUser
  
• If you already have the Microsoft Teams PowerShell module installed, make sure you have the latest version: Update-Module MicrosoftTeams

• IMPORTANT: If you have the Skype for Business PowerShell Module installed, you no longer need it.  It should be uninstalled from from your computer.

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

Connect to the MS Teams Services

Use the below PowerShell commands to sign into your MS Teams services using a user account with the proper permissions.  Microsoft's MFA service is supported.

# Import the Microsoft Teams PowerShell module & connect to the services
Import-Module MicrosoftTeams
Connect-MicrosoftTeams

Disconnect from the MS Teams 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.

Disconnect-MicrosoftTeams

Teams Upgrade Policy & Coexistence Mode with SfB

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.  Note: There is no reverting back from the Teams Only coexistence mode.  Once you set it to Teams Only all Skype for Business users will be forced to use Microsoft Teams.

If your organization is using Skype for Business Online, you will need to set a coexistence mode on a per-user basis.  So that you understand the implications of setting individual users to Teams Only while you have other users still using Skype for Business Online, here's a list and description of each coexistence mode:

• Islands - Use this setting if you want users to be able to use both Skype for Business and Teams simultaneously.
• Skype for Business only - Use this setting if you want your users to only use Skype for Business.
• Skype for Business with Teams collaboration - Use this setting if you want your users to use Skype for Business in addition to using Teams for group collaboration (channels).
• Skype for Business with Teams collaboration and meetings - Use this setting if you want your users to use Skype for Business in addition to using Teams for group collaboration (channels) and Teams meetings.
• Teams only - Use this setting if you want your users to use only Teams. Note that even with this setting, users can still join meetings hosted in Skype for Business.

Set the Org-Wide Coexistence Mode

Teams Admin Center :  Teams > Teams Upgrade Settings

Set the Coexistence Mode Per User

If you are not migrating your users from Skype for Business Online to Teams all at the same time, you will need to assign a Teams Only coexistence mode to each user individually.   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 > Manage 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.

Coexistence Mode PowerShell Commands

You can use the below PowerShell commands to check and change the org-wide settings, and to check and change an individual user.  Make sure you connect to your Microsoft Teams services before running the commands.

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

# Check the Org-Wide setting 
(Get-CsTenant).TeamsUpgradeEffectiveMode

# 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

• Edit a calling policy and make sure Make Private Calls is set to On

Teams Caller ID Policy

Caller ID policies are used to change or block the Caller ID (also called a Calling Line ID) for users.  By default, the user's phone number is displayed when a call is made to a PSTN phone number such as a landline or mobile phone.

The Evolve IP voice infrastructure cannot accept a call from a Teams user when their caller ID policy is set to Anonymous.  The policy must be set to User's Number.

Teams Admin Center :  Voice > Caller ID Policies

• Override the caller ID policy - This should be turned OFF.  Turning it on allows users to choose whether to display their caller ID or set it to Anonymous.
• Replace the caller ID with - This should be set to User's Number.  You can also set it to use a Microsoft provided service phone number.

Teams Call Park Policy

By default Microsoft sets the Call Park "Global" policy to OFF.  If you want your users to be able to use the Call Park feature, you need to turn this on in the Teams Admin Center (TAC).  If you only want a subset of your users to have this feature, you'll need to create a new Call Park policy, and assign those users to the policy.

Teams Admin Center :  Voice > Call Park Policies

CSV User Report - Office 365 Admin Center

If needed, you can use the following steps to generate a CSV report for every user account in your Office 365 tenant.  This report can be used to determine whether a user is properly licensed for Teams Direct Routing.  Additionally, if you add columns for your Evolve IP provided phone numbers and location, you can use it for provisioning direct routing to your users.

• Sign into the Office 365 Admin Center:  https://admin.microsoft.com
• Navigate to the Reports section and select Usage.

• On the Usage page, look for the Active users - Microsoft 365 Services card, and click View More.
• On the User Activity page, scroll down to the User Activity Table, and click Export on the left-hand side of the table.
• You will be prompted to save a CSV file, which should be saved to your local computer.
• At a minimum, you should keep following columns in the CSV:
  
  • Display Name
  • User Principal Name
  • Is Deleted
  • Has Teams License
  • Assigned Products

CSV User Report - PowerShell

Optionally, you can create a CSV user report using the Microsoft Teams PowerShell module.  Keep in mind this module will only return users who have been licensed for Microsoft Teams or Skype for Business Online.  Make sure you connect to your Microsoft Teams services before running the commands.

# 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

Properties:

• DisplayName - The user's display name.
• UserPrincipalName - The user's Office 365 sign in address.
• Enabled - If enabled is true this indicates that the user is licensed for MS Teams or Skype for Business Online.  If enabled is false, it indicates that the user is blocked from signing in, or the user is not licensed for MS Teams or Skype for Business Online.
• TeamsUpgradeEffectiveMode - This indicates the user's current Teams Upgrade Coexistence Mode.  For Teams Direct Routing to work, this will need to be set to TeamsOnly.

Deployment Checklist

Here's a checklist you can use for your direct routing deployment.

Environment Discovery & Planning

• Verify all licensing requirements
• Determine a list of pilot users
• Verify your Teams upgrade coexistence mode
• Verify your Teams voice calling policies
• Verify your Teams caller ID policies
• Verify your Teams call park policies
• Verify that you can connect to your Office 365 tenant using the Microsoft Teams PowerShell module

Office 365 Tenant Configuration

• Add & verify the routing domains provided by Evolve IP
• Create a user/service account for each routing domain and assign a temp Office 365 license
• Configure Teams Direct Routing
• Create the PSTN Usage Objects
• Create the Voice Routes
• Create the Voice Routing Policies
• Create the Phone Number Normalization Rules & the Tenant Dial Plan
• Wait 24 to 48 hours, and then remove the temp Office 365 licenses from the user/service accounts

User Provisioning

• Add/purchase the licenses for the pilot group
• Assign the licenses & provision the pilot group
• Test and verify all features & functions with the pilot group
• Add/purchase the licenses for remaining users
• Assign the licenses & provision the remaining users

Next Steps

• Teams Direct Routing - 02 - Add the Domains
• Teams Direct Routing - 03 - Configure Direct Routing
• Teams Direct Routing - 04 - User Provisioning