MS-700 Managing Microsoft Teams Exam Guide E-Book

Peter Rising

• Herausgeber: Packt Publishing
• Kategorie: Fachliteratur
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 365

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022

Beschreibung

Exam MS-700: Managing Microsoft Teams tests your knowledge and competence in the deployment, management, and monitoring of Microsoft Teams features within the Microsoft 365 platform.
This book will teach you how to effectively plan and implement the required services using both the Teams admin centre within Microsoft 365 and Windows PowerShell. Throughout the chapters, you'll learn about all the policies relating to messaging, teams, meetings, and more; get to grips with the settings; and explore configuration options that a Teams administrator would encounter in their day-to-day responsibilities. You'll also discover best practices for rolling out and managing Teams services for users within your Microsoft 365 tenant as you explore each objective in detail.
By the end of this Microsoft Teams book, you'll have covered everything you need to pass the MS-700 certification exam and have a handy, on-the-job desktop reference guide.

Leseprobe

MS-700 Managing Microsoft Teams Exam Guide Second Edition

Configure and manage Microsoft Teams workloads and achieve Microsoft 365 certification with ease

Peter Rising

Nate Chamberlain

BIRMINGHAM—MUMBAI

MS-700 Managing Microsoft Teams Exam Guide Second Edition

Copyright © 2022 Packt Publishing

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To my wonderful wife, Louise, and my amazing sons, George and Oliver. There genuinely are no words. I'm proud of you all and I love you all very much.

– Peter Rising

To my husband and best friend, William Ottens: Thank you for loving me, and for making life more colorful. I love you.

To LGBTQ+ youth targeted by legislators choosing division over diversity: We will get through this together. You are loved, needed, and I can't wait to see what you do in this world.

And to the hardworking people who are actively building and advocating for a more loving, safe, and inclusive world for all: Thank you.

– Nate Chamberlain

Contributors

About the authors

Peter Rising is a Microsoft MVP in Office apps and services. He has worked for several IT solutions providers and private organizations in a variety of technical roles focusing on Microsoft technologies. Since 2014, Peter has specialized in the Microsoft 365 platform. He holds a number of Microsoft certifications, including MCSE: Productivity; MCSA: Office 365; Microsoft 365 Certified: Enterprise Administrator Expert; Microsoft 365: Security Administrator Associate; and Microsoft 365 Certified: Teams Administrator Associate. He is also the author of another Packt book, which is an MS-500 exam guide.

Thank you to my wonderful friend and coauthor, Nate. Here's to many more great collaborations.

Nate Chamberlain is an award-winning, certified technical trainer and content creator who specializes in Microsoft 365 apps and services. Nate has been awarded Microsoft MVP in Office apps and services each year since 2019 and has been a Microsoft Certified Trainer (MCT) since 2020. He regularly works with corporate clients to implement training and adoption initiatives for a wide range of Microsoft 365 collaboration and productivity topics, including OneDrive, SharePoint, Teams, and the Power Platform. He has authored several Microsoft 365-focused books, including Microsoft 365 certification exam guides, blogs regularly at https://natechamberlain.com/, and is often a guest speaker at user groups and conferences. Nate currently lives in Kansas City, Missouri, USA, with his partner, William, and their cats, Baxter and Lia.

Thank you to all of the leaders and my friends near and far in the Microsoft 365 tech community for collaborating with me and supporting me through the years. You continually inspire me. And to my coauthor, Peter: Thank you for inviting me into this project, for your friendship, and for your continual example of compassion and community leadership.

About the reviewers

Dan Rey has been an MCT for 22 years now and is a former Microsoft full-time employee. He is self-employed at DESA Enterprises, LLC, has been a Microsoft user and administrator for over 25 years, and loves teaching various aspects of Teams (end users, champions, support professionals, and administration) for many partners and companies internationally. He is currently a Microsoft MVP in Office Apps and Services. He passed the MS-700 exam in April 2021 and the MS-740 exam in January 2022. During his free time, he likes to play pickleball and bike in the cool weather. He has a public GitHub repository and is active on many social networks, such as LinkedIn, Facebook/Instagram, and YouTube, as well as Twitter.

When Dan isn't training or consulting, he can be found on a pickleball court somewhere (having picked up the sport during the pandemic). In the warmer weather, he enjoys biking and swimming. He is both a PC and Mac, Android and iOS fan. There are few computing platforms that he hasn't tried. The virtual presentations and meetings in the past 2 years have allowed him to present in many different places worldwide that travel would have made difficult or impossible in the past. He participated in a YouTube show hosted in Africa, the Sri Lankan MCT Summit, and his last in-person international event was the MCT Summit in Germany (in 2018). In the fall of 2021, he returned to in-person presentations at CommsvNext in Denver, CO.

I would like to thank my wife, Eva, for her support and the opportunity to train her department on Microsoft Teams. The encouragement of my family (my kids, siblings, father, and cousins) and friends has been great this past year since leaving Microsoft and I appreciate the support of former colleagues at Microsoft during the transition back to training and consulting work.

Yves Habersaat is a Microsoft MVP, MCT, speaker, and blogger with strong expertise in Microsoft cloud technologies such as Microsoft 365, Azure, Dynamics 365, and Power Platform. Yves currently works for Sword Group in Switzerland, a global leader in technology transformation and a Microsoft Gold Partner, as a business applications consultant. He helps a wide range of local and international customers in their digital transformation and Microsoft cloud product adoption, such as Microsoft Teams, SharePoint Online, Dynamics 365 CRM/ERP, and Power Platform, in various contexts, such as on-premises migration, deployment, governance, modern software development, low-code/no-code development, and change management. He's also passionate about sharing his knowledge and experience during his sessions or on his blog and he's always there to help the Microsoft community.

Vivek Vinod Sharma is a senior security architect with Microsoft's Security Engineering division where his focus is to ensure the security of Microsoft's cloud platforms. Vivek is responsible for creating security guidance that enables and empowers product engineering teams within Microsoft to design and implement services and products in a secure fashion.

Vivek works with the development and product planning teams across the Microsoft productivity suite to ensure cloud services have the appropriate level of security embedded into them. Vivek has worked on Microsoft cloud platforms from the very beginning of market-leading products such as Azure and Microsoft 365.

Table of Contents

Preface

Section 1: Plan and Configure a Microsoft Teams Environment

Chapter 1: Planning and Configuring Network Settings for Microsoft Teams

Technical requirements

Calculating the network bandwidth capacity for Microsoft Teams voice, video, meetings, and live events

Analyzing network usage by using Network Planner

Using Network Planner

Specifying the requirements for outbound network ports and protocols for Microsoft Teams

Opening media ports

Creating the required DNS records for custom domains

Determining WAN optimizer, proxy, and load balancer recommendations for Microsoft Teams

WAN optimization

Load balancing

Proxy servers

Configuring Tenant Data Upload in Microsoft CQD

Configuring reporting labels for Microsoft Teams

Assessing network readiness by using the Microsoft 365 network connectivity test and dashboard

Configuring QoS port ranges and DSCP markings

Configuring Group Policy objects

Summary

Practice questions

Further reading

Chapter 2: Identifying Licensing Requirements for Microsoft Teams

Technical requirements

Identifying the required licensing for compliance features

Retention of Teams chats and channel messages

Classifying groups and Teams

Preventing data loss with DLP for Teams

Restricting communication using information barriers

Identifying the appropriate licensing for advanced life cycle management

Identifying the appropriate licensing for guest access

Identifying the appropriate licensing for calling, Phone System, and resource accounts

Identifying appropriate licensing for Microsoft Teams Rooms and common area phones

Identifying the appropriate licensing for apps in Microsoft Teams

Summary

Practice questions

Further reading

Chapter 3: Planning and Configuring Security and Compliance Settings for Microsoft Teams

Technical requirements

Understanding and assigning the Teams admin roles

Assigning Teams admin roles to users

Managing retention policies and sensitivity labels for Microsoft Teams

Retention policies for Microsoft Teams

Sensitivity labels

Setting up alerts for security and compliance in Microsoft Teams

Understanding and implementing information barrier policies for Microsoft Teams

Planning threat policies for Microsoft Teams

Planning data loss prevention policies for Microsoft Teams

Summary

Practice questions

Further reading

Chapter 4: Planning and Implementing Governance and Life Cycle Management for Microsoft Teams

Technical requirements

Planning and managing Teams preview features using Teams update policies

Setting up policies to manage the creation of Microsoft 365 Groups

Planning policy assignments for users and groups

Creating and managing policy packages

Configuring classifications, expiration policies, and naming policies for Microsoft 365 Groups and Microsoft Teams

Configuring group classification

Configuring expiration policies

Configuring a naming policy

Archiving, restoring, and deleting a team

Archiving a team

Restoring a team

Deleting a team

Summary

Practice questions

Further reading

Chapter 5: Configuring and Managing External and Guest Users

Technical requirements

Configuring guest users and permissions for Microsoft Teams

Setting up guest access

Adding a guest to a team

Configuring meeting, messaging, and calling options for guests in Microsoft Teams

Removing guests from Teams and reviewing guest access to Teams with Azure AD access reviews

Removing a guest from a team

Using Azure AD access reviews to review guest access to Azure AD and Microsoft Teams

Configuring guest access to Teams from the Azure AD portal

Summary

Practice questions

Further reading

Chapter 6: Configuring and Managing Microsoft Teams Devices

Technical requirements

Managing device settings for Teams devices with configuration profiles

Managing configuration profiles

Configuring Microsoft Teams for VDI environments

Managing device tags

Managing device settings and firmware

Setting up Microsoft Teams Rooms

Summary

Practice questions

Further reading

Section 2: Manage Chat, Teams, Channels, and Apps in Microsoft Teams

Chapter 7: Creating and Managing Teams

Technical requirements

Creating a team

Creating a new team from the Microsoft Teams client

Creating a team from an existing group

Creating a new team from the Microsoft Teams admin center

Creating a new team via PowerShell

Managing privacy levels for teams

Planning and managing org-wide teams

Managing users within a team

Managing users via the Microsoft Teams admin center

Managing users via the Microsoft Teams client app

Managing users via PowerShell

Configuring dynamic membership

Creating a new Microsoft 365 group with dynamic membership and creating a team

Creating a new security group with dynamic membership and adding it to a team

Modifying a team's existing Microsoft 365 group to have dynamic membership

Summary

Practice questions

Scenario

Multiple-choice questions

Further reading

Chapter 8: Planning and Managing Channels

Technical requirements

Planning for channel types

Creating channels

Managing the Microsoft Teams channel settings

Channel moderation

Channel analytics

Creating and managing the Microsoft Teams policies for private channels

Managing private channel membership

Summary

Practice questions

Further reading

Chapter 9: Managing Chat and Collaboration Experiences

Technical requirements

Creating and managing messaging policies

Creating messaging policies

Assigning messaging policies

Assigning messaging policies via PowerShell

Configuring email integration from Microsoft Teams settings

Managing cloud file storage options

Choosing an appropriate coexistence mode

Choosing your upgrade path

Understanding coexistence mode at both the organization and per-user level

Setting upgrade options for the whole organization in the Teams admin center

Setting upgrade options for individual users in the Teams admin center

Summary

Practice questions

Further reading

Chapter 10: Managing Apps for Microsoft Teams

Technical requirements

Managing org-wide app settings

Creating and managing app permission policies

Creating and managing app setup policies

Adding apps, connectors, tabs, and messaging extensions to a team

Customizing the app store

Publishing and configuring a custom app to Microsoft Teams

Summary

Practice questions

Scenario

Multiple-choice questions

References

Section 3: Manage Calling and Meetings in Microsoft Teams

Chapter 11: Managing Meeting Experiences

Technical requirements

Configure meeting settings

Editing meeting settings with PowerShell

Configure and manage meeting policies

General

Audio and video

Recording and transcription

Content sharing

Participants and guests

Meeting policy actions with PowerShell

Create and manage conference bridges

Create a dedicated, local call-in number

Change conference bridge user experience

Configure live events settings

Support URL

Third-party video distribution providers

Create and manage live events policies

Summary

Practice questions

Further reading

Chapter 12: Managing Phone Numbers

Technical requirements

Evaluating when to use Calling Plan versus Direct Routing

Voice routing policies

Planning and configuring emergency calling policies

Emergency calling policies

Emergency call routing policies

Adding, changing, or removing an emergency address for your organization

Provisioning and managing organizational phone numbers for users, services, and conferencing bridges

Adding numbers via Teams admin center

Porting/transferring existing numbers

Requesting numbers or transfers in PDF format

Assigning, changing, or removing a phone number for a user

Assigning phone numbers to users

Releasing/deleting a phone number

Assigning a phone number to a resource account

Summary

Practice questions

Scenario question set

Regular multiple-choice questions

Further reading

Chapter 13: Managing Phone System for Microsoft Teams

Technical requirements

Create and manage call park, calling, and caller ID policies

Call park policies

Calling policies

Caller ID policies

Manage user voice settings

Create, manage, and interpret dial plans

Identify potential issues by using the Health Dashboard for Direct Routing

Create and manage resource accounts

Create and edit a resource account

Create a resource account using PowerShell

Assigning a phone number to a resource account

Assigning/unassigning Direct Routing numbers to resource accounts

Deleting a resource account

Create and manage call queues

Prepare for call queues and auto attendants

Call queues

Creating a call queue

Create and manage auto attendants

Creating an auto attendant

Summary

Practice questions

Further reading

Chapter 14: Monitoring and Reporting on a Microsoft Teams Environment

Technical requirements

Monitoring and reporting on voice and meeting quality

Call analytics

Microsoft Teams Call Quality Dashboard

Microsoft Power BI

Reporting on user adoption, including Productivity Score, team usage, app usage, active users, and per-meeting metrics

The Apps usage report

PSTN blocked users

Monitoring and reporting on the creation and deletion of teams

Monitoring and reporting on guest access

Managing notifications and alerts rules from the Microsoft Teams admin center

Summary

Practice questions

Further reading

Chapter 15: Troubleshooting Audio, Video, and Client Issues

Technical requirements

Troubleshooting chat and presence issues

Identifying, collecting, and interpreting client logs

Troubleshooting issues by using call analytics

Troubleshooting Microsoft Teams sign-in issues by using Azure AD sign-in logs

Identifying potential issues by using Call Quality Dashboard

Summary

Practice questions

Further reading

Section 4: Mock Exam and Assessments

Chapter 16: Mock Exam

Case study (five questions)

Offices, group SIPs, and current coexistence modes

Devices

Voice project

Policies and settings

Case study questions

Multiple-choice questions (20 questions)

Chapter 17: Mock Exam Answers

Answers and explanations

Chapter 18: Assessments

Chapter 1 – Planning and Configuring Network Settings for Microsoft Teams

Chapter 2 – Identifying Licensing Requirements for Microsoft Teams

Chapter 3 – Planning and Configuring Security and Compliance Settings for Microsoft Teams

Chapter 4 – Planning and Implementing Governance and Life Cycle Management for Microsoft Teams

Chapter 5 – Configuring and Managing External and Guest users

Chapter 6 – Configuring and Managing Microsoft Teams Devices

Chapter 7 – Creating and managing teams

Multiple-choice

Chapter 8 – Planning and Managing Channels

Chapter 9 – Managing Chat and Collaboration Experiences

Chapter 10 – Managing Apps for Microsoft Teams

Scenario

Multiple-choice

Chapter 11 – Managing Meeting Experiences

Chapter 12 – Managing Phone Numbers

Chapter 13 – Managing Phone System for Microsoft Teams

Chapter 14 – Monitoring and Reporting on a Microsoft Teams Environment

Chapter 15 – Troubleshooting Audio, Video, and Client Issues

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Section 1: Plan and Configure a Microsoft Teams Environment

In this section, you'll learn how to plan and design your Microsoft Teams environment within Microsoft 365. Upon completion of the section, you will be able to plan and configure network settings and identify licensing requirements and security, compliance, and governance settings. Additionally, you will understand the principles of access settings for external and guest users, and how to deploy and manage endpoint devices to use Teams.

This section contains the following chapters:

Chapter 1, Planning and Configuring Network Settings for Microsoft TeamsChapter 2, Identifying Licensing Requirements for Microsoft TeamsChapter 3, Planning and Configuring Security and Compliance Settings for Microsoft TeamsChapter 4, Planning and Implementing Governance and Life Cycle Management for Microsoft TeamsChapter 5, Configuring and Managing External and Guest usersChapter 6, Configuring and Managing Microsoft Teams Devices

Chapter 1: Planning and Configuring Network Settings for Microsoft Teams

When you're planning to introduce Microsoft Teams to your organization, it is important to ensure that your users can use it effectively. Network and bandwidth issues will negatively impact your users' experience with Microsoft Teams. Therefore, assessing your network's ability to run Teams smoothly will be critical to the success of your Teams rollout.

In this chapter, you will learn how to assess and determine your network requirements for a successful Microsoft Teams deployment within your organization. You will also learn how to calculate the required bandwidth you will need for Teams meetings and live events, how to use the Teams Network Planner tool in the Teams admin center, and how to configure the required network ports and protocols that are required by Microsoft Teams.

Additionally, you will learn how to determine WAN optimizer, proxy, and load balancer settings, configure Tenant Data Upload in the Microsoft Call Quality Dashboard (CQD), use reporting labels, and optimize media configuration using Quality of Service (QoS) port ranges and Differentiated Services code point (DCSP) markings.

In this chapter, we're going to cover the following main topics:

Calculating the network bandwidth capacity for Microsoft Teams voice, video, meetings, and live eventsAnalyzing network usage by using Network PlannerSpecifying the requirements for outbound network ports and protocols for Microsoft TeamsDetermining WAN optimizer, proxy, and load balancer recommendations for Microsoft TeamsConfiguring Tenant Data Upload in Microsoft CQDConfiguring reporting labels for Microsoft TeamsAssessing network readiness by using the Microsoft 365 network connectivity test and dashboardConfiguring QoS port ranges and DSCP markings

Technical requirements

For this chapter, you need access to the Microsoft Teams admin center, which you can reach at https://admin.teams.microsoft.com. You will also need the global administrator, Teams service administrator, or Teams communications administrator role to complete the steps provided in this chapter.

Calculating the network bandwidth capacity for Microsoft Teams voice, video, meetings, and live events

In this chapter, we will go through some processes and tools that you can use to assess the state of your network and its readiness for a Microsoft Teams deployment, such as Network Planner.

However, before we look at how, we need to understand why and when you should plan to introduce Microsoft Teams into your organization. It's important to understand the way Teams prioritizes QoS concerning the state of your network. An example of how this works can be observed when Teams detects limited bandwidth. Here, the audio quality is given priority over video quality. Teams will always attempt to maximize both audio and video quality, and the better your bandwidth, the better your experience will be.

Where unlimited bandwidth is available, Teams can provide up to 1080p video resolution. HD video can be delivered in under 1.2 Mbps, which shows that Teams only uses what it needs to deliver the best possible experience.

Microsoft has provided the following guidance on the minimum, recommended, and best performance bandwidth requirements concerning Microsoft Teams:

Table 1.1 – Performance bandwidth requirements

Understanding the preceding requirements will help you successfully plan your organization's Teams deployment.

Now that we have set the scene in terms of what is required, let's look at how you can interrogate your network to assess and determine your readiness and establish your network requirements.

Analyzing network usage by using Network Planner

When you wish to identify your organization's network requirements for Microsoft Teams, you should use the Network Planner tool. In this section, we will introduce you to Network Planner and show you how to use it to plan for your Teams deployment.

Using Network Planner

Network Planner is a tool that can be found in the Teams admin center and is used to calculate and plan your organization's network requirements for connecting to Microsoft Teams. By inputting details relating to your network, as well as your anticipated usage of Teams, Network Planner will provide calculations for network requirements for you to successfully deploy Teams to your business locations.

The tool works by using personas that you create. Alternatively, you can use some built-in personas that are recommended by Microsoft. These personas are used to assess some typical usage scenarios. Running these persona exercises enables you to extract reports that guide you on your network requirements.

So, how does this work? Let's try and run Network Planner by following these steps:

From your internet browser, log into the Microsoft Teams admin center by navigating to https://admin.teams.microsoft.com and signing in with your Microsoft 365 credentials:

Figure 1.1 – Microsoft Teams admin center

From the admin center, choose Planning | Network planner, as shown in the following screenshot:

Figure 1.2 – Network planner

You will now see various Network planner options, as shown in the following screenshot:

Figure 1.3 – Network planner

First, we need to use a built-in persona. We can also create a custom persona for this step. To do this, click on Personas. This will show you the three built-in Microsoft personas, which are Teams Rooms on Windows, Remote worker, and Office worker, as shown in the following screenshot:

Figure 1.4 – Built-in personas

You may examine the settings of these built-in personas by clicking on each one. However, you will be unable to edit these personas, as shown in the following screenshot:

Figure 1.5 – Built-in personas

In most situations, the built-in personas will suffice. However, you may also click + Add to create custom personas. This allows you to be more selective in the persona settings you choose, as shown in the following screenshot:

Figure 1.6 – Creating a custom persona

Click Apply to finish creating your custom persona. Your new custom persona will be displayed, as shown in the following screenshot:

Figure 1.7 – New custom persona

Now that we have examined our available personas, we need to build a network plan. To do this, we need to click on Network plans and select Add:

Figure 1.8 – Adding a network plan

Enter a name and description for your plan. Then, click Apply:

Figure 1.9 – Creating a network plan

Your newly created network plan will now appear in your list of Network plans, as shown in the following screenshot:

Figure 1.10 – Network plans

Next, click on your new plan to view it.

Figure 1.11 – Add a network site

Click on Add a network site and add the details for your site as per the following screenshot. A site may represent a location or a building complex. It is a best practice to create local sites first, before creating sites that connect remotely through the internet or Public Switched Telephone Networks(PSTNs):

Figure 1.12 – Adding a network site

Scroll down and set the values you require for the settings shown in the following screenshot and click Save:

Figure 1.13 – Saving your network site

Your new network site will now appear in the list of sites:

Figure 1.14 – New network site

Now that your network sites are ready, you can use these sites to create reports. To do this, select Report and click on Start a report:

Figure 1.15 – Starting a report

By default, the Microsoft default personas will be selected here, and the network user amounts will be automatically calculated. You may add more personas if required and distribute the user numbers manually. Once you have made your choices, click on Generate report:

Figure 1.16 – Generate report

The projected impact of the settings that you chose will now be shown, as shown in the following screenshot:

Figure 1.17 – Projected impact

You may run the report again later if you wish and use the options at the top right of the preceding screenshot to switch between views and export your report as a PDF.

With that, you have seen how Network Planner can help you introduce Teams to your business locations. Next, we will look at outbound network ports and protocols requirements.

Specifying the requirements for outbound network ports and protocols for Microsoft Teams

Although we understand the bandwidth requirements and how to use Network Planner for a Microsoft Teams deployment, we also need to be aware that several network ports and protocols will need to be opened on your organization's firewalls to ensure that Teams works correctly.

Opening media ports

UDP ports 3478 through 3481 for IP addresses 13.107.64.0/18, 52.112.0.0/14, and 52.120.0.0/14 must be opened at all your business locations for Teams media requirements.

Creating the required DNS records for custom domains

Any custom domains that are added to your Microsoft 365 tenant that you want to use with Microsoft Teams will need to have CNAME DNS record values added to your domain hosting control panel.

The first of these records is as follows:

Hostname: sipTTL: 3600Value: sipdir.online.lync.com

The second of these records is as follows:

Hostname: lyncdiscoverTTL: 3600Value: webdir.online.lync.com

In addition to these ports and DNS records, several more ports and protocols relate to Microsoft Teams. It is highly recommended that you review and familiarize yourself with them by reviewing the relevant Microsoft documentation, which can be found at https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/enterprise/urls-and-ip-address-ranges?view=o365-worldwide#skype-for-business-online-and-microsoft-teams.

Note

Skype for Business Online was retired at the end of July 2021.

Understanding the steps that you need to complete concerning these ports and protocols is a key part of ensuring the success of your Microsoft Teams deployment.

Next, we will look at WAN optimizer, proxy, and load balancer options for Microsoft Teams.

Determining WAN optimizer, proxy, and load balancer recommendations for Microsoft Teams

Planning for network capacity is an important consideration when you're deploying Microsoft Teams. When you consider all the devices that can exist on a network, such as clients, servers, routers, and hubs, adequate network capacity helps prevent the saturation of such devices. In this section, we will discuss how you can optimize your WAN, apply load balancing, and configure proxy servers.

WAN optimization

If you use a WAN optimizer or acceleration proxy in your organization, Office 365 services, including Microsoft Teams, may encounter some problems, so you may need to look at optimizing your network devices to provide a consistent user experience. One such example could be that the content and headers that are encrypted by Office 365 may not be able to be handled by some of your devices.

Microsoft provides some guidance on this subject, which can be found at https://docs.microsoft.com/en-US/office365/troubleshoot/miscellaneous/office-365-third-party-network-devices.

Load balancing

Should your organization need to use a hardware or software load balancing solution to distribute requests to your environment, they can use some available third-party options, along with Microsoft's own software-based network load balancer, which is built into Windows Server and supports Office 365. These services help ensure the availability of single sign-on.

Proxy servers

Many organizations also use proxy servers to control what network endpoints can and cannot be accessed. Office 365 services often need to be excluded from these proxies to ensure connectivity to cloud services. Administrators need to stay on top of things such as changes to Office 365 IP ranges and URLs, manual proxy server bypass methods, and using a PAC file for directly routing Office 365 traffic.

Microsoft provides additional guidance on this subject, which can be found at https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/enterprise/managing-office-365-endpoints.

Next, let's look at configuring Tenant Data Upload in Microsoft CQD.

Configuring Tenant Data Upload in Microsoft CQD

Microsoft CQD is available to organizations that use Microsoft Teams to show call and meeting quality at an organization-wide level. CQD helps optimize network performance and quality.

Uploading your tenant data is recommended by Microsoft. There are two types of tenant data files – building and endpoint.

To upload tenant data, we need to follow these steps:

Open Microsoft CQD from the Teams admin center at https://admin.teams.microsoft.com and navigate to Analytics & Reports | Call quality dashboard. You can also navigate directly to https://cqd.teams.microsoft.com. The following screenshot shows CQD:

Figure 1.18 – Microsoft CQD

Click on the cogwheel at the top right of the page, then select Tenant Data Upload. This will take you to the following page:

Figure 1.19 – The Tenant Data Upload page

First, you must upload building data. You can do this by creating and uploading a building map. Microsoft's guide on the tools you can use to create your building map can be found at https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoftteams/cqd-building-mapping.Once you have created and uploaded your building map, you need to create and upload a tenant data file. A template for this file can be downloaded from https://github.com/MicrosoftDocs/OfficeDocs-SkypeForBusiness/blob/live/Teams/downloads/locations-template.zip?raw=true.

Further details on this process can be found at https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoftteams/cqd-upload-tenant-building-data. Uploading your building and tenant data is highly beneficial if you wish to interpret your CQD data because it makes it easier to view locations and endpoints in the dashboard.

Next, we'll look at configuring reporting labels for Microsoft Teams.

Configuring reporting labels for Microsoft Teams

Reporting labels are a feature in the Microsoft Teams admin center that is used to indicate the physical locations of your business premises. Administrators can upload a text file (in .csv or .tsv format) that contains a list of these locations, along with details of their network subnets. This information is then used to generate reports in call analytics. 

To configure reporting labels, follow these steps:

Go to the Teams admin center at https://admin.teams.microsoft.com and navigate to Analytics & reports | Reporting labels:

Figure 1.20 – Reporting labels in the Teams admin center

Click Upload. This will take you to the page shown in the following screenshot, where you may download a template .csv file to complete your location data. Once your file is ready, select it and click Upload:

Figure 1.21 – Upload reporting labels

Once uploaded, you will return to the main Reporting labels page, where you will now see a location summary showing the number of locations and IP subnets. This information can now be used in call quality reports, as shown in the following screenshot:

Figure 1.22 – Reporting labels location summary

Next, let's look at assessing network readiness using the Microsoft 365 network connectivity test and dashboard.

Assessing network readiness by using the Microsoft 365 network connectivity test and dashboard

Another useful tool that administrators can leverage to prepare for deploying Microsoft Teams is the Microsoft 365 network connectivity test, which can be accessed at https://connectivity.office.com. This is shown in the following screenshot:

Figure 1.23 – Microsoft 365 network connectivity test

The test is very simple to run and should provide immediate results, as shown in the following screenshot:

Figure 1.24 – Network connectivity test results

Note

To run the full advanced tests and see detailed results, you must run the tool from a Windows compute instance.

Finally, let's look at configuring QoS port ranges and DSCP markings.

Configuring QoS port ranges and DSCP markings

With Microsoft Teams QoS, real-time traffic (such as voice or video) that can be affected by network delays is given priority over less critical traffic (such as app downloads).

To configure QoS for Teams, we need to go to the Teams admin center at https://admin.teams.microsoft.com and follow these steps:

Navigate to Meetings | Meeting settings:

Figure 1.25 – Meeting settings

Scroll down to the Network section and move the slider next to Insert Quality of Service (QoS) markers for real-time media traffic to On, as shown in the following screenshot:

Figure 1.26 – Network settings

By default, Specify port ranges will be selected here. These port ranges will be set to Microsoft's recommended ranges for the three media types, which are Audio, Video, and Screen sharing. You may also choose the option to Automatically use any available ports. If you choose this option, any available ports in the range of 1024-65535 may be used.Once you have chosen your network settings, click Save to complete the configuration:

Figure 1.27 – Saving your port ranges

Now that we have chosen and enabled the QoS settings in the Teams admin center, we need to configure a Group Policy object for each of the three media traffic types by using the Group Policy Management console on a domain controller or server in your network.

Configuring Group Policy objects

To create the required Group Policy objects, we need to complete the following steps:

From your domain controller or server, open the Group Policy Management console area by clicking on the Windows Start button, typing gpmc.msc, and pressing the Enter key.Navigate to Computer Configuration | Windows Settings | Policy-based QoS, as shown in the following screenshot:

Figure 1.28 – Policy-based QoS

Right-click on Policy-based QoS and select Create new policy...:

Figure 1.29 – Create new policy ...

Under Policy name, type Teams Audio policy. Then, make sure that the Specify DSCP Value field is checked and has its value set to 46. Click Next:

Figure 1.30 – Creating a QoS policy

Under the This QoS policy applies to section, ensure that the Only applications with this executable name field is checked and set the value to Teams.exe. Click Next:

Figure 1.31 – Applying the policy to the Teams application

On the next screen, leave the default selections in place. Click Next:

Figure 1.32 – Specifying the source and destination IP addresses

Under the Specify the protocol and port numbers section, choose From this source port number or range and enter a Teams audio range of 50000:50019. Click Finish:

Figure 1.33 – Specifying the protocol and port numbers

Once completed, you will need to repeat this process for the Teams video and screen sharing media types. The required DSCP values for these media types are 34 and 18, respectively. Once you have completed the setup for all three media types, the Policy-based QoS section of Computer Configuration will appear, as shown in the following screenshot:

Figure 1.34 – Teams media policies

Once you have deployed these Group Policy settings, they can be confirmed on each target device by inspecting the Windows registry at the Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\QoS\ path.

Note

If QoS is not effective in improving your Teams media performance, it is recommended that you investigate improving your network capacity and bandwidth to improve your users' experience with Microsoft Teams.

In this section, we introduced you to the principles of QoS for Microsoft Teams. We looked at the scenarios that you need to consider while deploying QoS, how to set it up in the Meeting settings section of the Teams admin center, and how to deploy it to your users by setting up Group Policy objects.

Summary