Direct Routing for Microsoft Teams have become General Available a week a ago. In this article, i’m going to go through step-by-step instructions on how to configure Microsoft Teams with AudioCodes Mediant VE Session Border Controller (SBC) using Direct Routing. I’m going to brake this in to 2 sections as it’s going to get lengthy.

1. Configure Microsoft Teams for Direct Routing.
2. Configure AudioCodes Medinat VE for Direct Routing with Teams

This post will cover the Microsoft Teams end configuration and getting a Teams user enable for Enterprise Voice.

Let’s begin. 1st things first. The most important component, License. The users that you are plan to enable for Direct Routing, must have a “Microsoft Phone System” license enabled. Or have an E5 License which have Phone System license added by default. Below are the possible license options;

• Office 365 Enterprise E3 (including SfB Plan2, Exchange Plan2, and Teams) + Phone System
• Office 365 Enterprise E5 (including SfB Plan2, Exchange Plan2, Teams, and Phone System)

In my setup, i have assigned my test user with an E3 license + the Phone System license.

Moving on to Tenant configuration. For this, you will need to Powershell in to Skype for Business Online. If you don’t have that set up already, follow this article from Microsoft to set it up. Once setup, run below commands to connect to Skype for Business Online;

Import-Module MSOnline
Connect-MsolService -Credential $credential
Import-Module LyncOnlineConnector
$lyncSession = New-CsOnlineSession -Credential $cred
Import-PSSession $lyncSession -allowClobber

You will need to provide Tenant Admin credentials to log in.

Creating and Pairing the Gateway

After logging in, the first thing to do it to pair the SBC. Run the command below to confirm that the required commands are available to configure and manage Gateways.

gcm *onlinePSTNGateway*

Create the Gateway and pair with the tenant. Run below command to create the Gateway.

New-CsOnlinePSTNGateway -Fqdn <SBC FQDN> -SipSignallingPort <SBC SIP Port> -MaxConcurrentSessions <Max Concurrent Sessions the SBC can handle> -Enabled $true

New-CsOnlinePSTNGateway -Fqdn SBC.uctechie.com -SipSignallingPort 5067 -MaxConcurrentSessions 100 -Enabled $true

Newly configured Gateway looks as below;

Next is to configure Dial Plans, PSTN Usages and Voice Routes. Let’s start with the Dial Plan.

Creating Dialplans

In this step, i’ll explain how to create an online Dialplan with couple of sample normalization rules. This configuration is valid for both Teams, as well as Skype for Business Online. You still need Powershell to configure this and have a Powershell session connected to Skype for Business Online.

As for the normalization rule, you need to have an understanding of general number dialing formats\habits within the organization. As an example, in Australia, we dial mobile numbers as 045xxxxxxx and local Perth (Western Australian) numbers as 9xxxxxx. But, these number formats are not supported within either Teams or Skype for Business. These different number formats must be normalized in to universal E.164 format, which Teams and Skype understands.

Taking above example formats, you need the mobile numbers to convert to +6145xxxxxxx and Perth numbers to+6189xxxxxxx, to make them compatible. This is where the number normalization rules comes in. Purpose of the normalization rule, is to convert\normalize the dialed number in to a different format. For Microsoft UC platforms, number normalization is based on Regular Expressions. You need to make your self familiar with Regex to come up with a correct normalization rules to convert the numbers.

If you are not familiar with Regex, then i would recommend below blog from Ken Lasko as study material.

http://ucken.blogspot.com/2017/04/tenant-dial-plans-in-skype-for-business.html 

Getting back to the topic at hand, i have created 2 Normalization rules to normalize Mobile numbers, as well ad local Perth numbers. The command that i ran to configure them are below.  This command not only create the rules, but add them in to the Global as well.

$rule1 = New-CsVoiceNormalizationRule -Parent Global -Name AU-Mobile -Description “Australia Mobile Numbers” -Pattern ‘^0([45]\d{8})$’ -Translation ‘+61$1’ -InMemory
$rule2 = New-CsVoiceNormalizationRule -Parent Global -Name AU-Local -Description “Perth Local Numbers” -Pattern ‘^([2-9]\d{7})$’ -Translation ‘+618$1’ -InMemory
Set-CsTenantDialPlan -Identity Global -NormalizationRules @{add=$rule1,$rule2}

Online PSTN Usage 

This section, i’m going to talk a bit about PSTN Usage and what it’s for. In simpler terms, PSTN Usage is the component that allows a certain number to route in to a configure Gateway.  If you are already familiar with Skype for Business Enterprise Voice, then you know that the 3 components,  PSTN Usage, PSTN Route and Voice Policy are working together to either allow or deny from users making PSTN calls.

In Teams, it’s still the same. Create the PSTN usage records for the number formats that you want. I have created a record to allow Mobile numbers dial out to PSTN. Command to run to create the usage records are;

Set-CsOnlinePstnUsage -Identity Global -Usage @{Add=”AU-Mobile”}

Online Voice Route 

As i explained in above PSTN Usage section, Voice Route and PSTN Usage goes hand in hand to allow calls to be route out to PSTN. A voice route is assigned with a PSTN Gateway, that the call need to be sent to. In the voice route configuration, a normalization rule need to be defined to allow the number pattern. This rule can be strictly configured to allow only a certain number pattern can be routed out. Or, allow any number to be routed out. In other words, voice route can be used as a controlling mechanism to prevent certain number formats from dialing out.

In my setup, i have only created a route to allow Mobile number. Command to create the route mentioned below;

New-CsOnlineVoiceRoute -Identity “AU-Mobile” -NumberPattern “^\+61(45(\d{7}))$” -OnlinePstnGatewayList sbc.uctechie.com -Priority 2 -OnlinePstnUsages “AU-Mobile“

Online Voice Routing Policy

Voice Routing policy is the component that controls what numbers that the end users can dial. Online Voice Policy will have Online PSTN Usage records added to allow certain number patterns to dial out to PSTN via the PSTN Gateway.

There can be many Online Voice Routing policies with different set of PSTN Usage records assigned. Assigning these different policies to end users allows to control what numbers they can or cannot dial.

In my setup, i have only created an Online Voice Routing Policy and added the PSTN Usage record that i created to allow Mobile numbers to dial out. Command to create the Voice Routing Policy mentioned below;

New-CsOnlineVoiceRoutingPolicy “AU-AllCalls” -OnlinePstnUsages “AU-Mobile”

Assign Voice Routing Policy to users and enable for Enterprise Voice

We are almost there. In this section, i will explain how to enable users for an existing Voice Routing Policy and enable for Enterprise Voice. I’m going to enable my test user for the previously created Voice Routing Policy called “AU-AllCalls”. Run the below command to enable the user;

Grant-CsOnlineVoiceRoutingPolicy -Identity “Thamara WIjesinghe” -PolicyName “AU-AllCalls”

Now, i have my test user configured with the Voice Routing Policy, i will enable the user for Enterprise Voice. Run the command below to enable the user. Note that the OnPremLineURI should be the user’s DID number in E.164 format.

Set-CsUser -Identity thamaraw@uctechie.com -EnterpriseVoiceEnabled $true -HostedVoiceMail $true -OnPremLineURI tel:+61893423245

Configure Teams and Set Teams as preferred calling client

In this section, i allow my test Teams user to allow calling and set the Teams client as the preferred client for calling. If an environment that both Skype for Business and Teams enabled, Skype for Business will be the preferred calling client.

Once Teams have been enabled with calling capabilities, that need to change. Teams client must be the preferred calling client. Below commands set Teams users to allow calling and set Teams client as preferred calling client;

Grant-CsTeamsInteropPolicy -PolicyName DisallowOverrideCallingTeamsChatTeams -Identity thamaraw@uctechie.com

Grant-CsTeamsCallingPolicy -PolicyName Tag:AllowCalling -Identity thamaraw@uctechie.com

At this point, we are all set. If you login to Teams client, the Dial Pad will appear on the client that allows you to dial numbers. Try dialing the number patterns that you have configured normalizing rules for ans see if they normalize properly. 

As i mentioned above, i’ll be doing another article to configure the AudioCodes SBC to allow calls to go out to the PSTN. Stay tuned and all comments and feedback are welcome.