Page 3 - Teams Q1 2019

1st Quarter 2019
Lucidchart Announces New Integration with Microsoft Teams ...continued from page 1
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Microsoft to build integrations that help teams break down communication barriers,” said Karl Sun, co-founder and CEO of Lucidchart. “This new addition fits in line with our company mission, which is to make working visually easy so that teams can communicate clearly and innovate faster.”
In Teams, an Office 365 platform where teams can chat, share files, and hold online meetings, customers can now create or add a Lucidchart
document as a tab in any team channel. Through an embedded editor, anyone in the channel can then contribute to the diagram without leaving Teams. Those who install the Lucidchart app can also set up a personal tab to access their Lucidchart documents from Teams.
This new integration with Teams is just one of many ways that users can work visually with Lucidchart in the Microsoft environment. Lucidchart is also tightly integrated with many
other Microsoft applications:
Microsoft Word: Allows users to insert visuals
into Word documents.
Microsoft Excel: Allows users to insert visuals
into spreadsheets.
Microsoft PowerPoint: Allows users to embed
diagrams with interactive features, such as buttons, external links, and videos, into their presentations.
Centralized Deployment: Allows admins to
deploy Lucidchart add-ins so their users can add visuals to Office 365 programs in one click.
Single Sign-On: Allows admins to manage user access and users to sign into Lucidchart using their credentials from Office 365 or Microsoft Azure Active Directory.
OneDrive: Allows users to import images and brand assets from their OneDrive accounts into a Lucidchart document.
For more information, visit lucidchart.com/ pages/integrations/microsoft-programs.
More at lucidchart.com. n
AudioCodes’ family of IP phones includes models that are certified by Microsoft and support seamless Teams and Skype for Business integration including presence indication. The phones offer high-definition voice quality with built-in support for wideband codecs such as SILK and Opus.
Colt’s customers can use the
AudioCodes One Voice Operations
Center (OVOC) management suite to manage and monitor their entire deployment simply from a single, central location. OVOC alleviates the complexity of managing a
large voice network, enabling devices to
be configured remotely, voice quality to be monitored in real time and network issues to be resolved promptly and efficiently.
“Organisations everywhere are looking to adopt cloud-based communications solutions to power their digital transformations and next wave of business growth,” said Peter
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the Office 365 Graph API and does not provide any detailed call analytics. Through misunderstanding or miscommunication, some customers end up confusing this point and think they can get the same level of call quality troubleshooting as they currently can from on-prem Skype for Business deployments.
The Future of Microsoft’s Cloud-Based Analytics
Microsoft has not shared any information about when or if they will release an API that will allow vendors to incorporate Teams call data into their existing call analytics platforms. Rest assured that Nectar is keeping a close eye on the situation and will be able to incorporate Office365 call analytics into our call analytics platform as soon as something is available.
In the meantime, if a vendor is promising they can do advanced analytics for Microsoft’s cloud platform, think of this and ask the right questions:
Exactly what kind of call data can the tool retrieve? (MOS scores, jitter, packet loss etc)
How does the tool get data from Office365?
Does the tool provide detailed call quality reports for the entire enterprise?
If you get appropriate answers, then you can make a more informed decision on purchasing a call analytics platform for your cloud-based UC platforms. n
Colt Selects AudioCodes for Cloud-Based Microsoft Unified Communications Offering
phones is certified for use in Microsoft Teams and Skype for Business environments with integrated support for presence status and wideband SILK and Opus voice codecs
l AudioCodes One Voice Operations Center (OVOC) alleviates the complexity of managing a large voice network deployment
Details
AudioCodes (NASDAQ: AUDC), a leading vendor of advanced voice networking
and media processing solutions for the digital workplace, has announced that
the available tools only show a subset of the available information, presented in limited ways. A dedicated person can customize the tools to meet some of their needs, but this takes time, effort and deep knowledge.
This is the ideal place for other companies to provide additional value. Unfortunately, the only way to access detailed call analytics is to use the Get-CsUserSession PowerShell command (included as part of the Skype for Business Online PS Module).
The output of the Get-CsUserSession command provides detailed CDR and quality information for a specified user over a specified timeframe in JSON format. Much of the detail is not available in the existing O365 dashboards. At first blush, this appears to be a fantastic way to import detailed call data into 3rd party call analytics platforms, but there are some significant limitations:
The Get-CsUserSession command only returns data for a single user
No built-in delta mechanism, so no way to return only new/updated information since the last time the command was run
Data is only available for 30 days
Theoretically, a tool could constantly run the Get-CsUserSession command for every user in the enterprise, but this is not an approach that scales to the enterprise-level. Nectar looked
at this but discarded it after early tests showed
service based on Microsoft Teams and Skype for Business. The AudioCodes products are designed to offer high-quality and reliable voice services to Colt’s customers in thirteen countries across Europe.
Colt’s SIP trunk together with
AudioCodes Mediant 800 SBC can be deployed to deliver high-quality voice services with Microsoft Teams Direct Routing in a seamless and easy way. For customers using Skype for Business Online, Colt’s SIP trunk connectivity can be achieved by deploying
the same SBC model as a Cloud Connector Edition appliance.
inherent scalability issues.
Another approach would be to provide
a GUI front-end that simply runs the Get-CsUserSession in the background on demand for a specified user. This avoids any scalability issues and can provide some useful information on a given user’s call quality. However, this approach doesn’t allow for any enterprise-level reporting or trending data, since data for all users is never downloaded.
Microsoft Teams
As mentioned in the previous section, customers have access to a limited portfolio
of Teams call analytics tools through their Office 365 subscription. There is room for improvement and vendors are anxious to show value in this area.
At the time of writing, there is absolutely no way to access detailed call analytics about Microsoft Teams calls or conferences. The Get-CsUserSession command discussed in the previous section only returns call data
for SfBO calls. Some Teams PSTN calls
may show up in Get-CsUserSession results, but that’s because it appears PSTN calls are routed through SfBO infrastructure. Detailed call data on P2P calls or conferences are not available.
Some vendors provide some great analytics about Teams usage (channel members, activity etc). These analytics are provided through
AudioCodes session border controllers and IP phones deliver reliable, high-quality voice services for enterprise customers of Colt’s Intelligent Communications service
LOD, Israel, -
Highlights
l Colt Intelligent Communications is a unified communications and collaboration service powered by Microsoft Office 365
l Colt’s customers in thirteen countries across Europe can select AudioCodes session border controllers and IP phones to enjoy a high-quality enterprise voice experience
l AudioCodes Mediant SBCs deliver seamless connectivity to Colt’s SIP trunk network thanks to Direct Routing support
l AudioCodes’ 400HD family of IP
The Current State of Microsoft Cloud-Based Call Analytics
its session border controller (SBC) and IP phone products have been selected by Colt Technology Services, a leading business voice and high bandwidth connectivity provider, for deployment in its Intelligent Communications
The AudioCodes IP phones offered
by Colt to its customers range from the entry-level 405HD device to the mid-
range 445HD and high-end executive 450HD.
https://wp.me/p2Q636-w2g
by Ken Lasko, Sr. Solutions Architect at Nectar Services Corp.
Microsoft Teams continues to evolve at a rapid pace, and nearly every company who currently runs on-prem Microsoft Skype for Business deployments are investigating the feasibility of moving their UC infrastructure to the cloud.
While moving UC workloads to the cloud eliminates the need for most (if not all) customer-owned server hardware, UC media still must traverse the customer network. Since the network is one of the major causes of poor call quality, customers still require advanced troubleshooting capabilities.
Microsoft does provide some basic call analytics in Office 365, but there is much room for improvement. As such, many 3rd party vendors (including Nectar, of course) are keen to fill the gaps. Unfortunately, there is a lot of confusion and misdirection in the marketplace about what is possible with 3rd party call analytics in Office 365 UC platforms.
Skype for Business Online
Even though Skype for Business Online
is being deprecated in favour of Microsoft Teams, there are still many customers who have not made the transition. As mentioned previously, Microsoft does provide some limited call analytics and reporting capabilities for both SfBO and Teams at no extra cost, but
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