Teams Rooms & Device Management

Managing Teams devices at scale

Teams device types

Device	Purpose	Licence	Example
Teams Rooms on Windows	Full meeting room experience — join meetings, share content, whiteboard	Teams Rooms Basic or Pro	Poly Studio, Lenovo ThinkSmart Hub
Teams Rooms on Android	Meeting room experience on Android hardware	Teams Rooms Basic or Pro	Neat Bar, DTEN D7X
Teams Phone (desk phone)	Voice calling with Teams	Teams Phone Standard + Calling Plan	Poly CCX400, Yealink T58A
Common area phone	Shared phone in lobby, break room	Teams Shared Devices	Poly CCX200, AudioCodes C470HD
Teams display	Personal desk display with Teams features	Teams Phone Standard	Lenovo ThinkSmart View Plus
Teams panel	Room scheduling display outside meeting rooms	Teams Rooms Basic or Pro	Crestron TSS-770, Poly TC10
SIP device	Legacy SIP phones connected through SIP Gateway	SIP Gateway licence	Existing Cisco/Polycom SIP phones

Microsoft Teams Rooms

Setting up a Teams Room

Each Teams Room needs:

1. A resource account — like a room mailbox in Exchange
   • Create in Microsoft 365 admin center → Resources → Rooms & equipment
   • The account represents the room (e.g., “Conf-Room-5A@pinnacle.com.au”)
2. A licence — Teams Rooms Basic (free, max 25 rooms) or Teams Rooms Pro
3. A password for the resource account (used to sign into the room device)
4. Calendar configured in Exchange (for scheduling)

Teams Rooms Basic vs. Pro

Teams Rooms licences

Feature	Teams Rooms Basic (Free)	Teams Rooms Pro
Cost	Free (up to 25 rooms)	Paid per-device per-month
Join meetings	Yes	Yes
Share content	Yes	Yes
Intelligent cameras	No	Yes — speaker tracking, people recognition
Teams Rooms Pro Management	No	Yes — remote management portal, AI-driven insights
Front Row layout	No	Yes — optimised for hybrid meetings
Cloud IntelliFrame	No	Yes — AI-enhanced video
Max rooms per tenant	25	Unlimited

Scenario: Tara manages 200+ rooms at Pinnacle Corp

Pinnacle Corp has 210 meeting rooms across APAC. Tara’s licensing strategy:

• 25 executive boardrooms → Teams Rooms Basic (free) — uses the full 25-room allocation for premium rooms that don’t need advanced features
• Wait — that’s backwards. Executive rooms NEED intelligent cameras.

Revised:

• 25 small huddle rooms → Teams Rooms Basic (free) — basic join/share only
• 185 conference rooms → Teams Rooms Pro — intelligent cameras, Pro management, Front Row layout
• Each room has a resource account (Conf-Room-Building-Floor-Number@pinnacle.com.au)

Configuration profiles

Configuration profiles push settings to groups of devices without touching each one:

Teams admin center → Teams devices → Configuration profiles

Setting Category	Examples
Display	Screen timeout, brightness, language
Network	Proxy settings, DHCP vs static IP
Account	Auto sign-in settings
Meetings	Default volume, auto-accept meeting invites
Device	Timezone, update ring

Profiles are assigned to devices by device tag or individually.

Device tags

Tags are labels you apply to devices for organisation and bulk management:

• “Building-A-Floor-3” — all devices on Floor 3 of Building A
• “Executive” — all executive boardroom devices
• “Common-Area” — all lobby and break room phones

Tags enable you to:

• Apply configuration profiles to tagged groups
• Filter the device list in the admin center
• Run bulk operations (restart, update) on tagged devices

Firmware management

Teams device firmware is managed in the Teams admin center:

Update Option	Behaviour
Auto-update (default)	Devices update automatically when firmware is available
Manual	Admin selects specific firmware versions to deploy
Defer	Delay updates for testing (30/60/90 days)

Best practice: Use auto-update for most devices. Defer updates for a small “pilot” group of devices to test firmware before broad rollout (similar to update rings for the Teams client).

Remote sign-in (provisioning)

New Teams devices can be provisioned without physically being at the device:

1. In the Teams admin center, add the device’s MAC address and generate a verification code
2. On the device, the technician selects Provision device and enters the verification code
3. The device appears under Waiting for sign in in the admin center, where the admin completes remote sign-in with a resource account

This is critical for large-scale deployments — Tara doesn’t need to visit all 200 rooms to sign in each device.

Teams for VDI

Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) environments need special handling for Teams:

How Teams works in VDI

Component	Hosted Where	Notes
Teams client (chat, channels, apps)	Virtual desktop (server)	Standard functionality
Media (audio, video, screen share)	Thin client (local device)	Media optimisation offloads to local device

VDI platforms supported

• Azure Virtual Desktop (AVD) — native media optimisation
• Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops — media optimisation plugin
• VMware Horizon — media optimisation via Teams VDI plugin

Exam point: Without media optimisation, Teams audio/video runs on the server and streams to the thin client — this causes high latency and poor quality. Media optimisation redirects media processing to the local device, dramatically improving call quality.

Key VDI considerations

• New Teams client is required (classic Teams deprecated for VDI)
• Media optimisation plugins must match the Teams client version
• Per-machine installation (not per-user) is recommended for VDI
• Persistent and non-persistent VDI both supported
• Some features may be limited in VDI (e.g., background effects, Together mode)

🎬 Video walkthrough

🎬 Video coming soon

Teams Rooms & Device Management — MS-700 Module 12

Teams Rooms & Device Management — MS-700 Module 12

~11 min

Flashcards

Question

What does a Teams Room resource account need?

Click or press Enter to reveal answer

Answer

1. A resource account (created as a room mailbox in Exchange), 2. A Teams Rooms licence (Basic or Pro), 3. A password for device sign-in, 4. Calendar configured in Exchange for scheduling.

Click to flip back

Question

How does remote provisioning work for Teams devices?

Click or press Enter to reveal answer

Answer

Admin adds the device's MAC address in the Teams admin center and generates a verification code. The technician enters the code on the device. The device then appears under 'Waiting for sign in,' where the admin completes remote sign-in with a resource account.

Click to flip back

Question

Why is media optimisation critical for Teams in VDI?

Click or press Enter to reveal answer

Answer

Without it, audio/video runs on the VDI server and streams to the thin client — causing high latency and poor quality. Media optimisation redirects media processing to the local device, dramatically improving call quality.

Click to flip back

Knowledge Check

Knowledge Check

Pinnacle Corp has 210 meeting rooms. Tara wants intelligent cameras and the Pro Management portal for 185 rooms, but needs to minimise costs for 25 small huddle rooms. What licensing approach should she use?

ATeams Rooms Pro for all 210 rooms — simplest to manageBTeams Rooms Basic (free) for 25 huddle rooms + Teams Rooms Pro for 185 conference roomsCTeams Rooms Basic for 185 rooms + Pro for 25 executive roomsDNo Teams Rooms licence — E5 user licences cover room devices

Check Answer

Knowledge Check

Tara is deploying 50 new Teams Rooms devices across Pinnacle Corp's APAC offices. She can't travel to each office for setup. How should she provision the devices?

AEmail the resource account password to each office manager to sign in locallyBUse remote sign-in — each device shows a provisioning code that Tara enters in the Teams admin centerCPre-configure each device in Melbourne before shipping to officesDUse Intune to push the resource account credentials to each device

Check Answer

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Next up: PowerShell & Graph Automation — automate Teams management with the Teams PowerShell module and Microsoft Graph API.