Interoperability is the cornerstone of an effective UC setup, and leading providers like Microsoft and Cisco now support customers with bidirectional integrations between their apps. This allows users to preserve their existing workflows and investments while driving extensibility. Microsoft first announced a collaboration between its Teams platform and Cisco Webex at Ignite 2019. The company said these new features would be available on new meeting room devices that can run embedded web technologies. At Ignite 2020, Microsoft strengthened its Cisco partnership yet again, bringing direct video interoperability to the Microsoft Teams platform.
In 2022, users can run Cisco video conferencing from Teams, provided an administrator enables the integration on both platforms.
How to Deploy Cisco Webex Meetings for Microsoft Teams
To use Webex from Teams, administrators need to first configure the organization's Webex site for integration with Microsoft 365. Here are the steps to enable this:
- Open https://admin.webex.com in customer view and navigate to Services.
- Go to Meeting > Sites > the selected Webex site > Configure Site.
- Click on Common Settings and select Site Options.
- Go to Third-Party Integration and find the Microsoft (Microsoft 365 and Microsoft Teams) section. Here, you will find three options:
- Allow users to sign in to Webex Meetings with their Microsoft 365 accounts
- Allow individual users to add the calendar integration
- Automatically link users with this Webex site if their Webex account email address matches their Microsoft 365 email address
- The first two options are mandatory, while the third is optional, but recommended for the sake of convenience
- Click on Add New Authorization. You can sign into an admin account and accept the integration
- Select Update to connect the two platforms
These six steps allow Cisco administrators to prepare for Teams-Webex interoperability so that users can start making Webex video calls directly from Microsoft’s collaboration platform.
How Can Microsoft Admins Enable the Webex Meetings App?
Microsoft administrators can make Cisco video conferencing available to Teams users by following these steps:
- Open the Microsoft Teams admin center and go to Settings > Services & add-ins > Microsoft Teams.
- Find the External Apps section and ensure that the Allow external apps in the Microsoft Teams option are turned on.
- Turn off the Allow sideloading of external apps option.
- Check the Cisco Webex Meetings box, select Save and exit.
Administrators can now open the Teams user interface and install a Cisco Webex tab by clicking on the + icon at the top of the relevant channel.
For instance, if there is a dedicated channel for team communication at the headquarters, the Microsoft Admin can click on the + sign on the top of the channel to open the Add a tab menu. Search for Cisco Webex Meetings in the menu, and the installation wizard will guide you through the process. Since you are logged in from an admin account, you can choose to Consent on behalf of your organization so that every end-user does not have to go through and accept the permissions manually.
How to Connect Microsoft Teams and Webex for Video Conferencing
Once the Cisco and Teams administrators have set up the prerequisites, end-users can start to access Webex video conferences from a Teams channel. Here are the steps:
