In This Article |
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.
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:
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).
Optional for Microsoft Enterprise plans, a Microsoft Audio Conferencing add-on license (already included with the A5 & E5 plans).
The Audio Conferencing license is required to:
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For the direct routing back-end configuration, Microsoft requires a license that includes MS Teams be assigned to a user/service account for each domain added to your Office 365 tenant. The domains are used to route your voice traffic to an Evolve IP voice gateway (PSTN Gateway). This is a Microsoft requirement to enable & configure Microsoft's back-end voice environment, and it is a temporary license assignment for the configuration. After the configuration has been completed, the licenses can be removed from the user/service accounts and repurposed to other users in the organization. |
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.
Microsoft requires that a user/service account be created and permanently assigned to each of the domains added to your Office 365 tenant. These user/service accounts do not need any special permissions, and they should never be deleted. Here's an example using our naming conventions:
Additionally, during the back-end direct routing configuration, an Office 365 license that includes MS Teams (e.g. Office 365 E1, E3, or E5) will need to be temporarily assigned to each of the user accounts. |
Here's an example:
Location | Domain | User/Service Account UPN | Temp License |
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Evolve IP East (PHL) | c1005437.phl01.us.teams.evolveip.net | eip-tdr@c1005437.phl01.us.teams.evolveip.net | Office 365 E1 |
Evolve IP West (LAS) | c1005437.las01.us.teams.evolveip.net | eip-tdr@c1005437.las01.us.teams.evolveip.net | Office 365 E1 |
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 a primary route and the other a secondary route. For example:
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.
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 choose to use your own naming conventions, that's totally fine. We understand.
Teams Direct Routing User/Service Accounts
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 Evolve IP domains to your Office 365 tenant for Teams Direct Routing.
Teams Communications Administrator: Required role to make changes to the voice settings in your Teams Admin portal.
Skype for Business Administrator: Required role to configure the Microsoft Phone System voice services and provision users for Teams Direct Routing. This role was once known as the Lync Service Administrator.
User Administrator: Required role for creating users and assigning licenses.
For step-by-step instructions to manage role assignments, check Microsoft's Assign Directory Roles to Users article. |
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 will need to meet the following requirements on their computers:
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
If you are familiar with using code editors, you can use one of them to stage the PowerShell commands. The PowerShell ISE comes with Windows, and VSCode can be downloaded and installed separately. Do not use a code editor to run self-contained PowerShell scripts (.ps1 files). You should run those from a PowerShell window opened as an administrator. |
The Skype for Business Online PowerShell module uses lyncdiscover.yourdomain.com to find and connect to your Skype for Business Online services. If you are connecting to the service with a user account that is not a .onmicrosoft.com cloud-only account, you need to make sure you have a DNS CNAME entry in your domain's DNS zone pointing to webdir.online.lync.com. For example, if the user account you use to sign in is "jsmith@contoso.com", you will add the following DNS CNAME entry for lyncdiscover in the contoso.com DNS zone. ; Hostname TTL Type Target |
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.
Before running the commands, modify line 5 with your username. |
# 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 |
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 |
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.
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.
# 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 |
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:
# 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 |
If the TeamsCallingPolicy property is empty, the user is configured with the Global policy. |
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.
Optionally, you can create a CSV user report using the Skype for Business Online 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 Skype for Business Online 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: