Polycom Phones with Skype for Business Online

Polycom Phones with Skype for Business Online

As of the end of January 2016 many currently available Polycom IP handsets and conference phones are now supported with Skype for Business Online with Office 365.  This functionality was first added to the VVX IP handset models back in September 2015 as covered in this previous article.  Direct registration support was just added to the new RealPresence Trio 8800 last month as introduced in the firmware release table here.

This brief article reviews the basic requirements for each family of phones along with the few steps needed to successfully register a device.  Some of this content has already been made available in previous articles but is revisited here for the sake of providing a single referenceable article.  This can help clear up any confusion that long-time users of these phone may have, as well as provide a starting point for the various administration which may be completely new to these products as they move to the new voice capabilities provided in Office 365.

To recap Microsoft has begun providing voice service directly in Skype for Business Online to new and existing tenants of their Office 365 cloud offering.  This new functionality has been called Cloud PBX and is comprised if a few different topologies and options.  Primarily the simplest option is for tenants to purchase additional licenses for their online users to provide PSTN Conferencing and PSTN Calling capabilities.  PSTN Conferencing provides one or more telephone numbers to be added to the user’s Skype Meetings to allow for any PSTN telephone user to dial-in to a meeting from their phone.  PSTN Calling simply means that the users will be assigned a real telephone number and can place and receive calls with any PSTN phone in the country or worldwide, depending on the purchased call plan.  This can now all be done with absolutely no Microsoft servers or services deployed on-premises.

The secondary option is to allow for a tenant to bridge their own on-premises IP-PBX or SIP trunks directly to their online tenancy.  This hybrid technology can be provided by either leveraging a small deployment of Lync or Skype for Business servers on-premises or by using the upcoming Cloud Connector.

At present the following list of devices are supported for use directly with Skype for Business Online as well as Exchange Online using the same set of credentials.  This provides both SIP registration to SfB Online and mailbox connectivity via Exchange Web Services for features like the calendar, calls logs, voice mail, etc.

• CX600, CX3000
• VVX 201, VVX 300/301, VVX 310/311, VVX 400/401, VVX 410/411, VVX 500/501, VVX 600/601
• RealPresence Trio 8800

These two devices in the CX family of IP handsets include a Type A USB port and run Microsoft’s Lync Phone Edition software.

At present only the CX600 and CX3000 models are supported; the CX500 is not.  This is due to the fact that the CX500 Common Area Phone does not include a Type A USB port and thus cannot be used with the Better Together method of registering the phone.  Only the PIN Authentication method can be used with the CX500 model and this capability is not compatible with Skype for Business Online.

Prerequisites

The only requirements of the phone itself is that the installed firmware be upgraded to at least the minimum supported version for Skype for Business Online.  The following version, or newer, must be installed onto the phone prior to attempting to register it to Skype for Business Online. 

Microsoft Lync Phone Edition for Polycom CX500, Polycom CX600 and Polycom CX3000

Version: 4.0.7577.4463 Released: 5/6/2015 Download: http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?displaylang=en&id=23866

As of the publishing of this article Microsoft has released a newer version of this firmware (4.0.7577.4487).  This is the version that is currently available from the download link above and is also supported with Skype for Business Online.

Using a firmware version older than the .4463 release may result in a failure to register the phone and there is no way to upgrade a Lync Phone Edition device without it  first registering successfully.  For those familiar with this device there is a way to support an unregistered device update but that approach is only applicable for on-premises Lync for Skype for Business deployments.  It cannot be used with Skype for Business Online registration.  In the event that a device is still using older firmware then it must be upgraded to at least the .4463 version using some other environment first.

Registration

• Using a USB cable connect either the CX600 or CX3000 to a Windows desktop PC running either Lync or Skype for Business clients.
• Enter the appropriate user credentials when prompted. 

For most Office 365 users account the the User name will be identical to the Sign-In address.  In hybrid environments with Directory Synchronization in place then it’s possible that the User name will be in different string, but the format must be entered as a User Principal Name (UPN) and the legacy DOMAIN\username format cannot be used with online account.

Management

Only in-band provisioning information is leveraged by Lync Phone Edition devices, no differently than when registered to an on-premises server deployment.  Devices registered to online accounts do not leverage all of the same parameters which are available with traditional on-premises server deployments, but this list is growing over time.  Skype for Business MVP Adam Jacobs has an article which calls the supported commands today.

These devices include all of the previously and currently available VVX Business Media Phones which run Polycom’s Unified Communications Software (UCS).

As of the end of 2015 Polycom has started a hardware refresh on these models which includes newer faster processing internals.  These newer modes are denoted by ending in a ‘1’ instead of the previous models ending with a ‘0’.  So while a brand new VVX 501 may have updated internals over the older VVX 500 the software capabilities today are the same.  Any and all of these models support the same firmware, thus the same software features and capabilities with Skype for Business.

Prerequisites

As with the CX phones the only requirement is that the minimum supported firmware version is installed on the device.  The following version, or newer, must be installed onto the phone prior to attempting to register it to Skype for Business Online. 

Polycom UC Software 5.4.0A

Version: 5.4.0.10182 Released: 9/25/2015 Download: Latest Polycom UC Software Release

As of the publishing of this article there are newer firmware releases for the VVX phone which still support Skype for Business Online but have also added new functionality..  Reference this updated article for the latest recommended firmware version to be used with Skype for Business platforms.

Registration

The various ways to sign into a VVX phones as covered by many other article on this blog are all still applicable, with the exception of PIN Authentication as explained earlier.  For any of the user credential methods the same formatting guidance as what is mentioned above holds true.  The UPN format is required for online registration, thus the Domain field must be left blank.

Enable Lync Base Profile, if it is not already enabled.

• This can be controlled directly on the phone from the Settings > Advanced > Administration Settings > Network Configuration > Base Profile menu. Or by using the web management UI at Simple Setup > Base Profile.
• Use either the handset interface (pictured below) or Web Management UI (pictured below), or the Better Together over Ethernet (BToE) application (which looks the same as the CX process above).
• Enter the appropriate user credentials.

Management

The VVX platforms supports a variety of in-band provisioning information like the the Lync Phone Edition devices in additional to a large amount of out-of-band options.  These other options can be managed by a variety of options today like basic a provisioning server or third-party applications like Event Zero’s UC Commander.

The brand new RealPresence Trio 8800 is the only model in this family thus far and runs on the same UCS platform as the VVX phones.  This solution is the subject of a separate in-depth article which will be posted online shortly.

Prerequisites

Again the only requirement is that the minimum supported firmware version is installed on the device.  The following version, or newer, must be installed onto the phone prior to attempting to register it to Skype for Business Online. 

Polycom UC Software 5.4.1AA

Version: 5.4.1.17597 Released: 1/29/2015 Download: Latest Polycom UC Software Release for Trio

Registration

As the Trio uses the VVX platform then the registration capabilities are nearly identical.  While the BToE method is not currently supported with the Trio 8800 the other two options are the same.  The web interface looks identical is what was shown above and the user interface directly on the Trio looks like the following.

Enable Lync Base Profile, if it is not already enabled.

• This can be controlled directly on the phone from the Settings > Advanced > Administration Settings > Network Configuration > Base Profile menu. Or by using the web management UI at Simple Setup > Base Profile.
• Use either the handset interface (pictured below) or the Web Management UI also (which looks the same as the VVX process above).
• Enter the appropriate user credentials.

Management

The Trio supports all the same management models as the VVX in addition to one new functionality, USB Provisioning. This concept is covered in detail in the new Trio article but basically it’s the ability to copy a provisioning server-like directory to a USB disk and the phone will treat it identical as to how it would read from a centralized network server.  This method allows for quick one-off changes to be applied to a few devices manually.

This device is a bit unique as while it is categorized in the CX family it does not run Lync Phone Edition software.  Instead the 5500 model includes an embedded version of UCS just like that found on the VVX phones.

Prerequisites

Note that support for direct registration to Skype for Business Online is not yet available in the CX5500 product.  When the supported firmware is release then this article will be updated to reflect that.  That being said the device can be used with SfB Online users via USB tethering, just not yet using the embedded line registration capabilities of the VVX software.

Registration

As the Trio uses the VVX platform then the registration capabilities are nearly identical.  When connected via USB the desktop client’s own registration is used and this device simply acts as a microphone, speaker, and video camera.  The individual line registration over its Ethernet connection is still available.

Management

The CX5500 supports all the same management models as the VVX because it runs the VVX software.

Filed under Lync, Office 365, Skype for Business, Voice · Tagged with 3PIP, CX, LPE, Polycom, Trio, VVX

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