Overview

This article covers the process to convert a Teams enabled phone into a Common Area Phone (CAP).  A Teams enabled common area phone is typically placed in an area like a lobby, kitchen, break room, or conference room, and can also be used for hoteling (hot desking). 

Common area phones are associated with a user account that's assigned a Microsoft Common Area Phone license.  The Common Area Phone license includes a license for Microsoft Teams and an M365 Phone System license.  By itself, the CAP license does not include the ability to dial out to the PSTN.  For that you need a direct routing provider like Evolve IP, or you need to purchase a Microsoft Calling Plan to use Microsoft's PSTN.

Planning for Common Area Phones

Some important things to know and understand when deploying common area phones. 

User Accounts & Licensing

• The Common Area Phone license can be purchased directly from Microsoft in the M365 Admin Center, from a Microsoft volume license reseller, or from a Microsoft Cloud Solution Provider (CSP) partner like Evolve IP.
• The Common Area Phone license includes a license for Microsoft Teams and Microsoft 365 Phone System.
• Common area phones are associated with a user account, which is licensed with the Common Area Phone license.  It is not a device license.
  • The user account should not be disabled or blocked from signing in.
  • The user account should have a complex password, and should not be assigned any admin roles.

Common Area Phone Limitations

• Common area phones do not support voicemail.
• Common area phones cannot be used as a dial in bridge.  When you use a common area phone in a conference room, the phone is used to dial into the meeting organizer's dial in bridge.
• If you do not configure the user account with Teams direct routing or assign the user account a Microsoft Calling Plan, you cannot dial out to the PSTN, which means it cannot be used to dial emergency services (911, 999, 112, etc.).
• To properly configure a common area phone, you need to use PowerShell.  However, you can set up a common area phone in the Teams admin Center, but that doesn't allow you to configure some important settings, and you won't be able to configure a common area phone for direct routing.

Common Area Phone User Experience

Some notes about the end-user experience with common area phones:

• If the phone's home screen is disabled, which is recommended, the main screen of the phone only displays the dial pad.
• There are no other options such as calendar, call history, or voicemail.
• If your configuration allows it, a user can use the phone to search the directory for other Teams users.
• After signing into the phone it will stay signed in even after a reboot or power cycle.  The user account associated with the phone should not be blocked from signing in.
• To sign the phone out you will need the phone's admin password, which is entered in the Admin Only menu of the phone.  The admin password can be set using a configuration policy in the Teams admin center.

Configuring Common Area Phones

Before configuring a CAP, create a user account for it, assign the Common Area Phone license to the user account, and sign into the phone with the user account's sign in credentials.

Teams IP Phone Policy

Teams IP Phone policies manage features related to Teams phone experiences, which in turn, determine the features that are available to users. 

There is a "global" Teams IP Phone Policy, which applies to all Teams enabled phones including end-user phones.  Therefore, instead of changing the global policy to configure your CAP, you should create a new policy and assign it to the CAP's user account.  None of this can be done in the Teams admin center – it has to be done using PowerShell.

Teams IP Phone Policy settings include the following:

Create a New Teams IP Phone Policy

Make sure you have the latest version of the Microsoft Teams PowerShell module installed, and sign into your Microsoft Teams services.  PowerShell requirements and sign in details can be found in the Teams Direct Routing Planning and Prerequisites article.

View Existing Teams IP Phone Policies

• Get-CsTeamsIpPhonePolicy

Get-CsTeamsIpPhonePolicy

Create a New Teams IP Phone Policy

• New-CsTeamsIpPhonePolicy

$PolicyProperties = @{

    Identity                    = "EvolveIP-CAP"
    SignInMode                  = "CommonAreaPhoneSignIn"
    AllowBetterTogether         = "Disabled"
    AllowHomeScreen             = "Disabled"
    AllowHotDesking             = $False
    SearchOnCommonAreaPhoneMode = "Enabled"
    Description                 = "Common Area Phone Policy"
}

New-CsTeamsIpPhonePolicy @PolicyProperties

Assign a Teams IP Phone Policy to a User Account

• Grant-CsTeamsIpPhonePolicy

Grant-CsTeamsIpPhonePolicy -Identity cap1@contoso.com -PolicyName "EvolveIP-CAP"

Remove a Teams IP Phone Policy from a User Account

Grant-CsTeamsIpPhonePolicy -Identity cap1@contoso.com -PolicyName $null

Delete a Teams IP Phone Policy

• Remove-CsTeamsIpPhonePolicy

Remove-CsTeamsIpPhonePolicy -Identity "EvolveIP-CAP"

Configure the CAP for Teams Direct Routing

In this section we will configure the user account assigned the CAP license for Teams Direct Routing.

PowerShell Command Reference

• Get-CsOnlineVoiceRoutingPolicy
• Grant-CsTeamsUpgradePolicy
• Grant-CsOnlineVoiceRoutingPolicy
• Grant-CsTenantDialPlan
• Get-CsOnlineUser
• Set-CsUser

Get the name of the Evolve Voice Routing Policy, which will be entered into the below block of PowerShell code.

Get-CsOnlineVoiceRoutingPolicy | Where { $_.Identity -like "*Evolve*" }

Get the name of the Evolve Tenant Dial Plan, which will be entered in the below block of PowerShell code.

Get-CsTenantDialPlan | Where { $_.Identity -like "*Evolve*" }

Get the name of the Evolve Teams IP Phone Policy, which will be entered in the below block of PowerShell code.

Get-CsTeamsIpPhonePolicy | Where { $_.Identity -like "*Evolve*" }

Provision the CAP for Direct Routing

# Enter the name of the Evolve voice routing policy
$VrPolicyName = "EvolveIP-East"

# Enter the name of the Evolve tenant dial plan
$TdpPolicyName = "EvolveIP-TenantDialPlan"

# Enter the name of the Evolve Teams IP phone policy
$TipPolicyName = "EvolveIP-CAP"

# Enter the CAP's user principal name
$UPN = "user@domain.com"

# Enter the CAP's telephone number (no spaces, dashes, or parentheses)
$Phone = "tel:+16105551234"


### Begin User Provisioning ###

# This will check if the CAP's account coexistence mode is set to TeamsOnly for Direct
# Routing. If it is not set to TeamsOnly, it will be set.
 
If ((Get-CsOnlineUser $UPN).TeamsUpgradeEffectiveMode -ne "TeamsOnly") {
  Grant-CsTeamsUpgradePolicy -Identity $UPN -PolicyName UpgradeToTeams
}

# This will configure the CAP's account for direct routing and add the account
# to the voice routing policy, the tenant dial plan, and the Teams IP phone policy.

Set-CsUser -Identity $UPN -OnPremLineUri $Phone -EnterpriseVoiceEnabled $true
Grant-CsOnlineVoiceRoutingPolicy -Identity $UPN -PolicyName $VrPolicyName
Grant-CsTenantDialPlan -Identity $UPN -PolicyName $TdpPolicyName
Grant-CsTeamsIpPhonePolicy -Identity $UPN -PolicyName $TipPolicyName

### End User Provisioning ###