Cloud Video Interop (CVI) for Skype for Business Scheduling Now Supported within Outlook Web Access (OWA)

December 17, 2019

Takeshi Ishimaru

Microsoft has recently enabled CVI for Skype for Business Scheduling within Outlook Web Access (OWA). Previously, only Outlook 2016 C2R or newer, Office 2013/2016 MSI with RealConnect Invite Add-in or Outlook for Mac were supported for CVI for Skype for Business Online scheduling. This new functionality allows meeting organizers more flexibility to schedule a meeting from a web browser while ensuring that CVI coordinates are populated.

Updated Office 2013 and 2016 MSI Support through RealConnect Invite Add-in

October 23, 2019

Adam Jacobs

Today Poly posted an updated version of the RealConnect Invite Add-in. This update addresses a recent change to Microsoft UCWA scheduling, and will remove erroneous metadata that may be included within the invite, specifically:

Data:text/html;charset=utf-8,

The RealConnect Invite Add-in v1.6.4.0 and releated documentation have been posted on the RealConnect Tenant Report, which is accessible with a Device Operator role on the Poly Cloud Service Portal.

RealConnect Service VTC Conference ID Length Change

October 16, 2019

Takeshi Ishimaru

Poly (CVI partners) has been notified by Microsoft of the change that has taken place in North America and the pending change for the rest of the world regarding the VTC Conference ID length.
Due to the success of Cloud Video Interoperability (CVI) and the overall number of Teams and Skype for Business meetings happening daily, Microsoft is taking a proactive measure to expand the potential VTC Conference ID pool from 9 to 10 digits, so the randomly generated VTC conference IDs never run out. This change has been implemented in North America, and the rest of the world should follow within weeks.
Note: According to Microsoft, the Conference ID could eventually increase to 12 digits.

How this will affect the RealConnect Service subscribers:

  • When creating a Teams or Skype for Business meeting on Outlook, the VTC conference ID is now 10 digits long instead of 9 digits. There is no impact to the RealConnect Service—VTC participants will need to dial the 10 digit conference ID, if dialing manually. If One Touch Dial is enabled for a VTC endpoint, the dial string is automatically adjusted.
  • If recurring meetings have been scheduled prior to this change, the VTC conference ID is likely a 9 digit number. RealConnect Service will continue to accept the 9 digit format.

Join Microsoft Teams Meeting dialog

Office 2013 and 2016 MSI Support through RealConnect Invite Add-in

September 24, 2019

Takeshi Ishimaru

Today we are excited to announce the availability of RealConnect Invite Add-in for Office 2013 and Office 2016 MSI users.

Previously, the RealConnect Service was only available to Skype for Business Online users running Office 2016 with Click-to-Run or newer. Customers relying on the Office 2013/2016 MSI version were unable to take advantage of the RealConnect Service. With this new add-in, all Office 2013/2016 customers will be able to enjoy the benefits of RealConnect cloud video interoperability. Note that this limitation was only for Skype for Business Online users. Microsoft Teams and Skype for Business Server have different mechanisms to provision VTC dialing information and therefore Office 2013/2016 MSI versions are supported.

Once the RealConnect Invite Add-in has been deployed, a user will be asked to sign-in only one time, using his or her credential, to open the Outlook application and perform a consent to allow this add-in. Once this is complete, (provided the user has been provisioned with the RealConnect Service by admins), the VTC dialing information will auto-populate the next time a Skype for Business meeting is created.

The RealConnect Invite Add-in and the documentation have been posted on the RealConnect Tenant Report, which is accessible to the Device Operator role on the Poly Cloud Service Portal.

RealConnect Tenant Report

September 19, 2019

Takeshi Ishimaru

Poly has officially rolled out the Poly RealConnect Tenant Report, a portal to view live and historical data of the tenant’s service usage, for all RealConnect Service subscribers.

RealConnect Tenant Report Dashboard

The RealConnect Tenant Report provides administrators with a variety of datapoints and trend data that delivers valuable insights for ROI analysis, troubleshooting, and license renewals. In essence, this portal removes the guesswork and equips the Admin with analytics for more precise, data-driven decisions.

You can read more about the type of information available on the RealConnect Tenant Report via the RealConnect online documentation (select Tenant Report on the left navigation panel).

The RealConnect Tenant Report is available to all RealConnect Service subscriber tenants. To access the report, a user must have a Poly Cloud Service (PCS) user account with a Device Operator role. See Add a New User.

Burst Option for Concurrent VTC Subscriptions

May 1, 2019

Takeshi Ishimaru

A new Burst capability has been launched for the RealConnect Service, providing short-term capacity for either the Microsoft Teams or Skype for Business Interop services. The optional product is available for purchase and provides additional concurrent subscriptions (1 unit of Burst SKU adds 50 subscriptions) in support of non-recurring business events (e.g. annual company meetings, sales kick-offs, etc.), The Burst feature is a cost-effective way to temporarily add capacity for RealConnect Service. Note: A key requirement to enabling the Burst capability is to process the order, via the standard order flow, at least two weeks prior to the event to ensure the proper setup and activation.

For questions, contact Poly resellers or TeamMicrosoft@poly.com.

Announcing VTC Mute Support

April 18, 2019

Chad Alexander

Today we launched VTC Mute/Umute for the RealConnect for Teams Service. Previously, VTC participants were blocked from being muted by the Microsoft Teams client. Now, "noisy" participants can be muted, minimizing interruptions in the conference.

When a VTC is muted from Teams, they will see the following image overlay their video session: import

Example: import

To unmute, a VTC user will use #6.

Soft Ceiling for Concurrent VTC Subscriptions

October 15, 2018

Takeshi Ishimaru

We have successfully launched Soft Ceiling to the RealConnect Service Concurrent VTC subscriptions (Microsoft Teams and Skype for Business).
Soft ceiling allows users to connect to the cloud service even when the maximum number of connections (up to 50% of the subscriptions) have been reached. This is preferred over a hard ceiling, where a call attempt would immediately fail once the maximum number of connections has been reached. A soft ceiling helps administrators deal with increasing usages for service. Notifications of the overages are made to the tenant administrator, who can increase the subscription as needed.

A couple of things to note:

  • Soft ceiling is available to the concurrent VTC subscription count of 6 or more. Free PoC trial (5 concurrent VTCs) and paid subscription of less than 6 do not include soft ceiling.
  • Soft ceiling should not be abused repeatedly – the service description remains unchanged.