Let’s take a deep-dive and compare two business-grade collaboration solutions; Cisco WebEx and Microsoft Teams. Amid response to the pandemic known as Coronavirus or COVID-19, many organizations have adapted to remote work for the first time. The Webex Call app in Microsoft Teams will launch voice and video calls using the Webex app. The Webex app must be enabled for calling using either Webex Calling or Cisco Unified Communication Manager. Install both the Webex Call app with the Webex Meetings app to have access to both Cisco Calling and Meetings from Microsoft Teams.

Arraya Insights | November 19, 2020

Are you a Cisco shop or a Microsoft shop? When it comes to collaboration, many organizations – Arraya included – reside somewhere in the middle. The appeal of a diversified, multi-vendor collaboration footprint isn’t lost on Cisco and Microsoft. Even though they are competitors at heart, the tech giants have a history of making their solutions play nicely together in order to help keep their customers connected and productive. That partnership was on full display earlier this year, although it may have gone overlooked due to coronavirus-necessitated lockdowns.

Late last year, Cisco and Microsoft pledged to move toward a new era of interoperability between their Webex and Teams solutions. Specifically, that idea would materialize in a couple of different forms. The companies planned to release a Microsoft Cloud Video Interop (CVI) certified solution that would allow Cisco Webex Room and SIP video conferencing devices to join Microsoft Teams meetings. Additionally, they also proposed creating a direct guest join pathway connecting their respective video conferencing devices with their meeting web apps. This pledge of greater interoperability has started coming to fruition with the release of a pair of solutions: the aforementioned CVI offering and another option called WebRTC.

Compare Cisco Webex Events vs Microsoft Teams. 1085 verified user reviews and ratings of features, pros, cons, pricing, support and more. Webex Teams enables continuous teamwork with video meetings, group messaging, file sharing, and white boarding. The Cisco Webex Teams and Office 365 integration is great for users that are happy to live in Webex Teams — but it doesn’t take into account users that prefer Microsoft Teams for collaboration.

Let’s take a closer look at these offerings and what they could mean for organizations pursuing reopening their facilities.

Microsoft CVI

Webex

First up is the Cloud Video Gateway (CVI-enabled) option. Those looking to connect to a Microsoft Teams meeting hosted internally, by their own company could do so using this pathway. It delivers a Cisco Webex-based experience to those making the connection, including multi-screen capabilities, flexible layouts, and wired/wireless bi-directional content sharing. In terms of devices supported, this route is travelable by all Cisco and SIP-capable video devices, registered either on premises or in the cloud. Users can connect via this path through one-button-to-push (OBTP) join which includes calendar service, direct dial-in complete with an interactive voice response (IVR) experience. Lastly, it is worth noting that this service will require additional licensing to make it operable.

WebRTC

Then, there’s the WebRTC application. This allows users to connect to any other type of Microsoft Teams meeting. Connecting via this method delivers a Microsoft Teams-oriented meeting experience, including a single-screen Teams layout with only the ability to be on the receiving end of shares. This pathway is accessible from Cisco Room Kits, Room series, Boards, and Desk Pro devices. These devices can be cloud connected. Once again, this method offers OBTP join with calendar service. Webex Room registration, which is part of Flex licensing, is required. As of right now, WebRTC is one way only as Microsoft Teams doesn’t support any browsers compatible with the tool. User can, however, add the Webex bot to their Teams client, which, in turn, will enable them to access a Webex Meeting.

Webex For Microsoft Teams

Next Steps: Put the joint power of Microsoft and Cisco together for you

Hopefully, we’ll all be able to dust off our Cisco Room devices sooner rather than later and start putting these new abilities to work. In the meantime, if you’d like to learn more about how your organization can benefit from the above advances or from Cisco and Microsoft’s ongoing partnership in general, our collaboration experts can help. Reach out any time to get the conversation started.

Visithttps://www.arrayasolutions.com/contact-us/ to connect with our team now.

Webex Addin For Microsoft Teams

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Microsoft Teams Rooms devices support a one-touch experience for joining third-party online meetings, also referred to as Direct guest join. When enabled, you can use a Teams Rooms device to join meetings hosted on Cisco WebEx and Zoom just as easily as you can join meetings hosted in Microsoft Teams.

Before you can join third-party meetings from a Teams Rooms device, you need to do the following:

  1. Configure the Teams Rooms device's Exchange Online room mailbox to process invites for third-party meetings.
  2. Make sure your organization doesn't have any policies that would prevent you from connecting to third-party meeting services.
  3. Configure your Teams Rooms devices to allow third-party meetings.

The following sections show you how to do each of these steps.

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Step 1: Allow calendar invite processing for third-party meetings

The first thing you need to do to enable a one-touch join experience from a Team Rooms device is set the calendar processing rules for the device's Exchange Online room mailbox. The room mailbox needs to allow external meetings and keep the message body and subject so it can see the URL needed to join the third-party meeting. To set these room mailbox options using the Set-CalendarProcessing cmdlet, do the following:

  1. Connect to Exchange Online PowerShell. For more information, see Connect to Exchange Online PowerShell with Basic authentication or Connect to Exchange Online PowerShell using multi-factor authentication, depending on your authentication method.

  2. Get the User Principal Name (UPN) of the room mailbox if you don't know it by running the following command:

  3. Find the name of the room mailbox associated with your Teams Rooms device and make note of its UPN.

  4. After you find the room mailbox's UPN, run the following command. Replace <UserPrincipalName> with the room mailbox's UPN:

Learn more about Exchange Online PowerShell.

Step 2: Configure Office 365 Threat Protection and link rewrite

To enable the one-touch join experience, meeting join link information from the third-party meeting needs to be present and readable in the meeting invite. If your organization uses the Office 365 Advanced Threat Protection Safe Links feature, or if you use a third-party solution that scans all incoming and outgoing URLs for threats, it may change the meeting join URLs and make the meeting unrecognizable by the Teams Rooms device. To make sure this doesn't happen, you need to add the third-party meeting service's URLs to the ATP Safe Links 'do not rewrite' list or the third-party URL rewrite exception list.

To add third-party meeting service URLs to the ATP Safe Links 'do not rewrite' list, follow the steps in Set up a custom do-not-rewrite URLs list using ATP Safe Links. If you use a third-party solution, refer to the instructions for that solution to add URLs to its URL rewrite exception list.

Webex Teams App Download

Here are some example entries that you may need to add to your ATP Safe Links 'do not rewrite' list or third-party URL rewrite exception list:

  • Cisco WebEx*.webex.com*
  • Zoom*.zoom.us*, *.zoom.com*, *.zoomgov.com*

For a complete list of URLs to add to your ATP Safe Links 'do not rewrite' list or third-party URL rewrite exception list, contact the third-party meeting service provider you want to accept meeting invites from.

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Only add URLs that you trust to your ATP Safe Links 'do not rewrite' list or third-party URL rewrite exception list.

Step 3: Enable third-party meetings on device

The last step you need to do is allow each Teams Rooms device to join third-party meetings. Third-party meetings require a username and email address to join them. If the username and email address that you need to use is different than the device's room mailbox, you need to add them to your device. You can do this in the device settings or in the XML config file.

Use device settings

To configure the Teams Rooms device using its touchscreen, do the following:

  1. On the Microsoft Teams Rooms device, select More ...
  2. Select Settings, and then enter the device administrator username and password.
  3. Go to the Meetings tab and select Cisco WebEx, Zoom, or both.
  4. If you want to join meetings with the username and email address associated with the room mailbox, select Join with room info.
  5. If you want to join meetings with an alternate username and email address, select Join with custom info and enter username and email address you'd like to use.
  6. Select Save and exit. Your device will restart.

Use the SkypeSettings.xml configuration file

The following settings can be added to the SkypeSettings.xml file located in C:UsersSkypeAppDataLocalPackagesMicrosoft.SkypeRoomSystem_8wekyb3d8bbweLocalState. For more information about the SkypeSettings.xml file, see Manage a Microsoft Teams Rooms console settings remotely with an XML configuration file.

To enable Cisco WebEx meetings, set the WebExMeetingsEnabled XML element to True, as follows.

To enable Zoom meetings, set the ZoomMeetingsEnabled XML element to True, as follows.

Webex For Microsoft Teams Download

You can optionally specify a custom username and email address to join third-party meetings using the following XML elements. If the values you provide aren't valid, the Teams Rooms device will default to use room mailbox username and email address. Edge chromium windows 7 64.

Webex For Microsoft Teams App

Note

Cisco Webex For Microsoft Teams

To join Cisco WebEx meeting from a Teams Rooms device, the Cisco meeting needs to be hosted using Cisco WebEx web application version WBS 40.7 or later.