Study Guide Series: Exam MS-700 – Configure and manage Microsoft Teams devices (Part 2)

On By sean mcavinueIn Microsoft Teams, MS-700, Study Guide

This post is part of the overall MS-700 Exam Study Guide. Links to each topic as they are posted can be found here.

In the previous post in this series, I explained how Teams can be configured to work with different VDI environments and some of the considerations associated with deploying Teams for VDI. In this post I will cover the following aspects of the configure and manage Microsoft Teams devices section of the exam:

  • Manage configuration profiles for Teams devices
  • Manage Microsoft Teams device tags
  • Manage device settings and firmware
  • Provision and configure remote sign-in for new devices

Manage configuration profiles for Teams devices

Configuration Profiles allow a pre-set configuration to be created and deployed to one or more devices. For instance, to configure the time zone for multiple devices across multiple regions is a cumbersome, manual process. Configuration profiles allow for standard configurations to be built and deployed to devices automatically.

A configuration profile is created from the TAC by opening the relevant device type section and selecting the Configuration Profiles section. From here, either add a new profile or choose to edit an existing one. In the configuration profile window, there are a number of useful settings available to configure as shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1: Creating Configuration Profiles in Microsoft Teams

Configuration Profiles provide the ability to define specific settings for single devices, such as network settings and also more global settings for multiple devices. In Figure 1, I set the time zone for the Italy conference rooms to be UTC+1 and configure the screen saver timeout.

Configuration Profiles are assigned to devices by selecting the device in the TAC and clicking Assign Configuration. In the pop out window, search for the correct configuration profile (Figure 2) and select Apply.

Figure 2: Search for and apply the configuration profile

Once applied, the current assigned configuration profile is listed in the configuration profile column for the device.

Manage Microsoft Teams device tags

Device tags are used to associate metadata to groups of devices. This lets you organize and filter for specific groups of devices easily, making management much easier – particularly in larger scale environments. To create a device tag, select any device type in the TAC and from the actions dropdown, select All device tags. Tags are plaintext values so adding tags on this page is easy as shown in Figure 3.

Figure 3: Adding device tags in the TAC

Once a tag is created, select the devices you want to apply it to and click the Manage tags option from the top menu. Choose the tags you want to apply to that group of devices (Figure 4) and click Apply to assign them.

Figure 4: Assign tags to devices

With tags assigned, devices can be filtered by their respective tags using the TAC filter option as shown in Figure 5. In this instance, I am filtering for all Yealink devices with the tag Milan assigned.

Figure 5: Filtering devices by assigned tags

Manage device settings and firmware

Settings and firmware/software updates are also managed easily directly from the TAC. To modify the settings of a particular device, simply select it from the device list and click Edit Settings on the top bar. An example of the settings that are configured from the TAC is the peripherals of the device. We can remotely configure which peripherals are used and the default volume settings for each as shown in Figure 6.

Figure 6: Modifying the settings of a device from the TAC

Other settings that can be configured from here include:

  • Account and authentication settings
  • Meeting expierience settings
  • Device settings such as Cortana voice activation
  • Coordinated meeting configuration
  • Themes

Another useful option in the TAC is to update devices remotely. Devices with pending updates will usually signify this in their health status. Selecting the devices you want to update and then in the pop out window selecting the components to be updated along with optional scheduling allows for easy management for firmware and software updates as shown in Figure 7.

Figure 7: Updating Teams devices remotely

Firmware auto-updating can also be configured for each device to allow device to automatically update firmware after a certain period if not done by an admin.

Provision and configure remote sign-in for new devices

In the above section on configuring device settings I mentioned account and authentication settings. Generally for Teams devices (With some exclusions such as personal devices) we don’t want to have end users signing in to the devices. We can configure automatic provisioning (based on mac address) and remote sign-in for devices to make them easy to use.

I’ve actually covered this piece before in my post about configuring Teams Common Area Phones (CAP). I won’t repeat it all here but I recommended checking out that post to see the end to end process for provisioning Teams devices and auto-sign in.

Summary

In this post we’ve rounded out the topic on Teams devices. Teams devices are only going to get more common with organizations globally preparing for hybrid working and meetings. There are also some very cool Teams devices available that, as shown here, are very straightforward to configure and manage.

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