Microsoft Teams Large Gallery Support

October 5, 2020

Microsoft has recently enabled the new Large Gallery meeting experience in Microsoft Teams, which introduces the ability for native Teams participants to select a view displaying up to 49 video participants in a 7x7 grid layout.

Starting today Poly is happy to announce the standards-based video conferencing systems joining these meetings, by way of the Poly RealConnect Service for Microsoft Teams, can now also receive the same Large Gallery video experience. Note: As the Large Gallery option is currently being rolled out by Microsoft, it will first need to be available in a specific tenant before it can be leveraged by the RealConnect Service.

The following describes the updated behavior of the RealConnect Service with respect to Large Gallery:

  1. The first native Teams participant in a meeting to select the Large Gallery view prompts the Teams service to create an additional managed video stream, which is then made available for all participants to view. Other native Teams clients and devices will ignore this additional stream unless the user also selects Large Gallery for themselves.
  2. When the RealConnect Service receives this additional stream from Teams, it will automatically switch from using the standard 3x3 layout to the new 7x7 layout, for any video systems currently connected through the service to the same Teams meeting.
  3. The RealConnect Service will continue using the 7x7 layout as long as more than 10 participants are in the meeting. If the total number of participants in the Team meeting drops to 10 or less, then the RealConnect Service will automatically switch back to the standard 3x3 layout. Note: If all participants leave a specific meeting and then rejoin, the 7x7 grid view may not automatically be available; another native Teams participant must select the Large Gallery view again.

RealConnect for Microsoft Teams extends interop functionality for Microsoft 365 Government – GCC Deployments

May 6, 2020

Takeshi Ishimaru

We are delighted to announce that the Poly RealConnect for Microsoft Teams Interop service is accessible to Microsoft 365 Government - GCC deployments.

While the Poly Interop service is hosted via Microsoft Azure and both managed and supported by Poly, the use of the interop functionality is solely determined by the tenant’s adherence to applicable data security requirements. For additional details, please visit the following sites:

RealConnect for Teams and RealConnect for Clariti for Teams are now available to GCC customers. There is no difference in terms of user experience for the GCC users—the same scheduling, meeting join, and the video/content experience as Office 365 commercial users.

If you are a GCC customer interested in a free trial of this service, please contact us at TeamMicrosoft@poly.com.

New East US 2 deployment for RealConnect for Teams

February 21, 2020

We've added a new deployment in the Azure East US 2 region to optimize the video experience for our RealConnect for Teams customers in the Eastern United States and Canada.

The new IP addresses for the deployment are:

  • 13.68.91.113
  • 40.70.7.163
  • 52.167.114.43
  • 52.167.114.107

These addresses have been added to our edge-teams.plcm.vc and edge-global.plcm.vc DNS records

Note: The edge-sfb.plcm.vc remains unchanged as this deployment is for Teams only.

See RealConnect for Teams Prerequisites for additional information.

RealConnect Service for Teams now Supports up to 9 Active Windows

February 12, 2020

Microsoft announced at Enterprise Connect 2019 that the Microsoft Teams client will support up to 9 separate active video streams (in 3 x 3 format). While Microsoft has yet to release this feature for the Teams client, Microsoft has updated the Cloud Video Interoperability SDK to support the 9 active video streams.

Today, we are happy to share that Poly has enabled our RealConnect Service for Microsoft Teams to support up to 9 active video streams. VTCs that join Microsoft Teams meetings through the RealConnect Service will now be able to see more meeting participants (consisting of Teams native clients as well as VTCs) up to 9 sites. While we understand that this behavior is inconsistent with the current Teams client, the value of being able to see more sites is important to our customers, and when the Teams client is updated to support 9 active video streams, users will see the consistent user experience.

VTCs connecting to RealConnect for Teams meetings will get this update immediately - no action is required.

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.

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