At cloudstep.io® HQ Microsoft Teams is a big part of how we organise digital asset structure in the business. We are a consulting firm by trade, as new prospects become paying customers we add them as a team. The default General channel is used for administration and accounts, additional channels are created per project name or scope of works. We find ourselves no longer needing to going into dark corners of SharePoint administration (commonly referred to in the office as ‘SwearPoint!’). We have adopted Microsoft Teams as our preferred web, audio and video conferencing platform for internal and external meetings. Our board room video conferencing unit runs a full version of Windows 10 and Microsoft Teams that we setup as a ‘do it yourself‘ versus the off the shelf room systems. The VC unit requirements we had were:

• cloudstep.io®, our web application uses a full desktop browser experience.
• Mouse and keyboard are preferred for web navigation inside the app.
• VC to have full OS is preferred to eliminate employees having to BYOD and connect either physically or wirelessly for screen presentation.
• We can connect to third party conferencing platforms by installing the addons for guest access (zoom, webex, gotomeeting, chime etc) with our partner lead meetings direct onto the machine.
• Wirelessly present our Macs, iPads, iPhones, Androids and Windows laptops.
• We are all ‘power users‘ and can handle the meeting join experience in Microsoft Teams client without the need for a single ‘click-to-join’ button on the table which the Microsoft Teams Room (MTR) system provides via a touch device.

We have a boardroom account that has a 365 license to be able to leverage the desktop tools. Windows 10 automatically logs in each morning and the Microsoft Teams client is started automatically. The bill of materials is notably:

• Intel NUC
• Windows 10
  • Teams Client
  • Office 365 Pro Plus (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote)
  • Windows 10 Calendar (Connect to Office 365 Mailbox)
  • AirServer client (ChromeCast, MiraCast, AirPlay)
  • Chrome Browser
• Office 365 user license
• Logitech Meetup camera
• Biggest screen we could fit in the room
• Microsoft Bluetooth keyboard and mouse

The VC mailbox type is set to ‘room‘ with the following to enhance the experience for scheduled meetings in the board room:

#Add tips when searching in Outlook
Set-Mailbox -Identity $VC -MailTip "This room is equipped to support native Teams & Skype for Business Meetings remember to add meeting invite details via the Teams outlook button in the ribbon." 

#Auto Accept
Set-CalendarProcessing -Identity $VC -AutomateProcessing AutoAccept -AddOrganizerToSubject $false -RemovePrivateProperty $false -DeleteComments $false -DeleteSubject $false –AddAdditionalResponse $true –AdditionalResponse "Your meeting is now scheduled and if it was enabled as a Teams Meeting will be available from the conference room client."

This has worked well in the last 12 months, the only user experience problem we have had is when running a meeting from the VC unit, the account isn’t a member of the team where the data attempting to be presented is stored and therefor cannot see/open the content. A simple solution for this is automation. We looked to investigated two automation solutions available in the Microsoft services offering we have available.

1. Flow (Office 365 Suite)
2. Azure Automation (Azure Subscription)

Unfortunately option 1 didn’t have any native integration for triggers based on Office 365 groups or teams creation. So we resorted to a quick Azure Powershell Runbook that executes on a simple schedule. The steps needed to run were:

1. Get a list of all the teams.
2. Query them against the UnifiedGroup properties to get…
   1. AccessType equals ‘Public‘
   2. CreationDate within 2 days
3. Check the newly created teams group membership for the VC unit username.
4. If it doesn’t exist add the VC unit as the role ‘member‘.

Write-verbose "Getting Credentials ..." -Verbose
$Credentials = Get-AutomationPSCredential -Name 'Admin-365'
Write-verbose  "Credential Imported : $($Credentials.UserName)" -Verbose

$o365Cred = New-Object System.Management.Automation.PSCredential ($Credentials.UserName, $Credentials.Password)
Write-verbose  "Credential Loaded : $($o365Cred.UserName)" -Verbose
Write-verbose 'Connecting to 365 ...' -Verbose
$Session = New-PSSession –ConfigurationName Microsoft.Exchange -ConnectionUri https://outlook.office365.com/powershell-liveid/ -Credential $Credentials -Authentication Basic -AllowRedirection
Write-verbose 'Importing UnifiedGroups PowerShell Commands ...' -Verbose
Import-PSSession -Session $Session -DisableNameChecking:$true -AllowClobber:$true | Out-Null
Write-verbose 'Connecting to Teams ...' -Verbose
Connect-MicrosoftTeams -Credential $Credentials

$creationdate = ((Get-Date).AddDays(-2))
$teams = get-team
#$groups = Get-UnifiedGroup |Where-Object {$_.WelcomeMessageEnabled -like "False" -and $_.AccessType -like "Public" -and $_.WhenCreated -ge $creationdate}
$TeamsOutput = @()
foreach ($Team in $Teams){
$UnifiedGroup = Get-UnifiedGroup -Identity $Team.GroupId
    if($UnifiedGroup.AccessType -like "Public" -and $UnifiedGroup.WhenCreated -ge $creationdate){
    Write-verbose "Processing team named: $($UnifiedGroup.DisplayName)" -Verbose
        $VC = Get-TeamUser -GroupId $Team.GroupId | Where-Object {$_.User -like "user@domain.com"} 
        If($VC.count -eq 0){
            Write-verbose "VC not member, adding..." -Verbose
            Add-TeamUser -GroupId $Team.GroupId -User "user@domain.com" -Role Member
        }else{Write-verbose "VC is member already" -Verbose}
    }

$TeamsOutput+=$UnifiedGroup
}
Write-verbose "Total teams processed for selection: $($TeamsOutput.Count)" -Verbose 

The result is simple

Next day the board room account is logged in, the Microsoft Teams client will have access to all the teams channels, files, OneNote and apps. This is great for native Teams meetings, but also when we have customers in the board room without the need for an online meeting. The VC account has access to see the required teams and channel data to present to the physical display.

This solution doesn’t have to be for a video conferencing units, you may have some standardised members you want on all groups, or it could be certain owner enforcement or member list.

Hello Microsoft Teams! Bye bye SwearPoint, may you remain in the background forever.