5 Ways to Connect Microsoft Teams and Cisco Webex in 2021
- Cisco Webex Teams Account
- What Is Webex Teams Used For
- Webex Teams Sign In
- Cisco Webex Sign In
- Create Webex Teams Account
For many reasons and in many businesses, we regularly see organizations with instances of both Microsoft Teams and Cisco Webex.
Webex Teams is the leading team collaboration app. Get access to screensharing, group messaging, cross-collaboration tools, and app integrations.
- The file has to be under 10 MB, though and ideally a square image between 200x200 pixels and 1000x1000 pixels. Webex Teams resizes your file to use in Webex Teams. If your picture doesn't change for you, it could be the file size.
- Cisco Webex Teams provides continuous teamwork beyond the meeting with group messaging, file and screen sharing, white boarding and more. It is a secure platform with end-to-end encryption, that means your messages, files, and whiteboard drawings are fully encrypted right from your device to your recipients' devices.
- Speed up workloads, track projects, and work faster together right in Webex.
This post addresses how businesses got to this situation and highlights the best ways to connect the two platforms together.
Why Microsoft Teams and Cisco Webex?
Common reasons for instances of both Microsoft Teams and Cisco Webex include:
- Legacy or current Cisco hardware like telepresence, VoIP handsets, and Cisco Spark boards
- Microsoft 365 packages offering free Skype for Business and Microsoft Teams licenses
- Mergers and acquisitions where one company uses Cisco Webex and the other uses Microsoft Teams
- A new CIO or IT Manager started and implemented their preferred
solution - You interact with guests from other organizations that use different messaging platforms
Can Microsoft Teams replace Webex?
Microsoft Teams has tons of great features, like grid videos and custom backgrounds. You can integrate your conversations with Microsoft 365 and access direct routing.
But Microsoft Teams isn’t the right solution for everyone.
If you try to shift everyone to Microsoft Teams, you risk isolating some of your team members who use Webex.
People who don’t want to stop using their preferred app won’t switch easily. This puts your team at risk of shadow IT and other security issues.
It’s always better to give your team the freedom to use the tools they prefer.
If you do need to connect the two together, the next section outline five ways to connect the two platforms together.
1- Webex call features in Microsoft Teams
If all you want to do is connect your Microsoft Teams account holders with Cisco Webex calling features, here’s how:
In April 2020, Cisco announced a new Call Appfor Microsoft Teams. The app launches calls through Webex technology, even when you click the call button in Microsoft Teams.
To access this functionality, follow these steps:
Cisco Webex Teams Account
- Verify users have accounts activated in the Webex Control Hub
- Ensure users are registered to the Cisco Webex Calling or Unified Communications Manager
- Make sure users have the Webex app
- Ensure you have Administratorprivileges for Microsoft Teams
- Update phone numbers for users in the Azure Active Directory
With us so far? Great.
Head over to the Microsoft Teams Admin Center and click Teams Apps followed by Manage apps. You can search for the Webex Call function and toggle the app status to allowed.
Remember to update your permission policies to allow third-party apps too.
In the Teams apps menu, click on Setup policies and add the Cisco Webex Call app to your Microsoft setup. Users will now be able to click Webex Call at the bottom of a window when chatting in Microsoft Teams.
Or employees can click on the Webex Call function on the left-hand menu bar and just tap in the number of the person they want to call through Webex.
Pros:
- Simple way to connect Webex calling functionality with Microsoft Teams
- Embedded buttons in Teams make the function easy to use
Cons:
- Only works to connect two VoIP calling strategies. You can’t connect your chat messages or file sharing this way.
- Calling opens a new window, which means there are more tabs for users to keep track of.
- Only works to add Webex Calling to Microsoft Teams. You can’t add Microsoft calling to Webex instead.
2 – Cisco Webex and Microsoft 365 integration
Cisco recently announced integration between its Webex app and the Microsoft 365 suite.
How do I integrate Webex with Office 365?
Users can access files like apps like SharePoint and OneDrive from within the Webex app.
If your end goal is to use the Microsoft 365 suite within the Webex app, this integration will work just fine.
How do I integrate a Webex team with Outlook?
Go to your Cisco Webex admin Settings.
Click on Outlook then Outlook settings. You’ll have the option to Connect to Outlook. Choose Yes and hit the Save button.
Having more than one app integrated with Outlook sometimes causes problems with Webex. Before you integrate Webex and Outlook, you’ll have to unregister other tools. This includes removing Skype for Business connections.
Once your Outlook integration is ready, you can see the status of Webex contacts in Outlook.
Pros:
a. Users no longer have to leave their Webex app if they use Microsoft 365 for productivity tools like Microsoft PowerPoint and Microsoft Word.
b. You can benefit from Microsoft Teams governance and data privacy from Microsoft 365 whilst never leaving your Webex app.
c. Share content created in Microsoft apps in Cisco Webex spaces.
Cons:
a. This integration is available for multiple Microsoft apps, but not Microsoft Teams.
b. If you’re a Webex for Web user, you can only view these types of files, but not make
The Cisco Webex and Microsoft 365 integration is great for users that are happy to live in Webex – but it doesn’t take into account users that prefer Microsoft Teams for collaboration.
3 – Bot integration for Microsoft Teams and Cisco Webex
If This Then That (IFTTT) helps apps and devices work together.
There are examples of IFTTT working in homes and businesses alike.
When rules are set for one app or device to do something based on the behavior of another app of device, these are called recipes.
From common scenarios like turning up the heating in your home when the temperature drops below a certain threshold to syncing your Instagram and Dropbox account, recipes come in all shapes and sizes.
When setting recipes for both Microsoft and Cisco, this typically includes what happens on Microsoft Teams when a message is posted in Webex.
For this scenario, a Webex users sends a message and the bot in Microsoft Teams gets a notification.
Pros:
a. Bot integrations come with many pre-built recipes to choose from across a range of apps and devices.
b. Familiar look and feel to consumer IFTTT apps.
c. Options to add your own customized recipes.
Cons:
a. Administration time can be lengthy as scenarios have to be set up one-by-one.
b. When new users are added, administrators must build new recipes.
c. Functionality across platforms is limited.
d. Cross platform experience is not seamless. Notifications are received in a bot rather than native to a chat, space or direct message etc.
4 – Host Webex meetings in Microsoft Teams
For users that prefer Microsoft Teams for messaging and collaboration, but must use Cisco Webex for meetings, there is the Cisco Webex Meeting app.
This is perfect for running Cisco Webex meetings direct from Microsoft Teams.
The meeting app is also available for Slack, Workplace from Facebook, and Google Calendar.
Pros:
a. Schedule and join Cisco Webex meetings without leaving Microsoft Teams.
b. Microsoft Teams users just need to add the Webex Meetings app to their Microsoft Teams app.
c. Simple administration in the Cisco Webex Control Hub.
Cons:
a. The Cisco Webex Meetings app for Microsoft Teams doesn’t support accounts on webex.meetings.com, on meetingsln.webex.com, or on Cisco Webex Meetings Server sites.
b. Limited to Cisco Webex Meeting functionality.
c. Messages, chats, files etc cannot be exchanged via the Webex Meeting app for Microsoft Teams. A meeting must be launched to communicate across platform.
d. Jonathan Dame wrote on SearchUnifedCommunications that customers of both Cisco and Microsoft using the integration have labelled it clumsy, forcing them to consider back to working in silos.
5 – External federation for connecting with guests on different platforms
Do you communicate with people outside your organization?
Do they use apps other than Microsoft Teams?
If the answer is yes to both of these questions, according to research, Cisco Webex is one of the most favored.
When this is the case, it becomes extremely unproductive moving out of Teams, into your external contact’s choice of app, and starting the conversation again.
Or even worse, end up resorting to email like it’s the 90s. (Okay, email has a purpose but you get the point).
That’s why Mio has created universal channels for Microsoft Teams with Webex…
Getting the Parts. The longest step is right here, buying the parts and waiting for them to ship. Today we’re going to be making our own custom Arduino macro USB keyboard. Well, a two-key “keyboard”. For this we’re going to use the Arduino Pro Micro. And the reason we’re using the pro micro is because the Pro Micro has a special version of the Arduino microcontroller, the ATmega32u4, as opposed to the ATmega328. Arduino macro keyboard. Install Atmel flip which will allow you to put the arduino-keyboard-0.3.hex file onto the arduino. Arduino to Keyboard: Once Atmel is installed and your board is plugged in, load Atmel up and click on the computer chip icon below the file button, select the processor of the. 3D Printing and Joining. The first thing to do is 3D print your shell. My 3D printer is a little too small. You can do this by flashing custom keyboard firmware to the arduino with the program FLIP. First of all you need to set your arduino to DFU mode. You can do this by connecting the 2 pins in the image for a split second (while connected to your pc). Then, you need to upload the keyboard.hex file through flip. Press ctrl+u and click on 'open'.
You can stay in Teams and send messages to your contractors, suppliers, or clients who use Webex.
They stay in their platform too and Mio translates the messages across platform.
And it’s not just messages that are supported! GIFs, emojis, channels, DMs, and message edits/deletes are all supported.
If this sounds like something you need, install Mio into either Microsoft Teams or Webex.
You choose which platform you use and your external contacts choose theirs.
If you’d like to learn more about enabling cross-platform messaging, you can watch our on-demand webinar with Mio CEO, Tom Hadfield, here.
You must be logged in to post a comment.
Cisco Webex Meetings and Webex Teams
Webex Meetings is a cloud-based app that provides video conferencing & online meetings.
Webex Teams is a cloud-based app for continuous teamwork with videoconferencing, meetings, group messaging, file sharing and white boarding.
Both include
- End to end encryption that ensures your information is secure
- Mac or PC compatibility
- iPhone or Android Apps
Overview and Training
Webex New Features
The 60,000-foot view of Webex Teams
When a user signs in to Webex Teams they create a “Team”. Team members can be anyone with an email address, from on campus or off. Examples might include all the members of a research project or the students in a particular course.
What Is Webex Teams Used For
Once the “Team” is together you need to create a “Space” to work in. This is where you access the available tools, i.e. videoconferencing, messaging, file sharing and whiteboarding. The system comes with a “General Space” to start, and you may never need another. However, Webex Teams provides the ability to create as many other spaces as you want.
Using the example of a “Team” with the students in a course, each “Space” you create could be a class, this way you track each class by itself. Or you could create one “Space” for course work, one for lab’s and maybe another for special project(s).
The big take way here is that any of the tools used, less videoconferencing, are automatically tracked. So, the notes taken during a Meeting, any Whiteboards worked on, any Files Shared, or Messages sent, are embedded in the “Space” you created.
Come back 3 weeks or 3 years later, and it’s all still there.
Special note about videoconferencing, it’s not automatically tracked, but you can record any session by pressing the “Record” button.
To start using Webex Meetings or WebexTeams
To start using Webex Meetings or WebexTeams
Webex Meetings Account Activation
- Go to https://rensselaer.webex.com
- Select 'Sign In' from the upper left.
- Enter your RPI email address
- This will take you to the RPI login screen where you will enter your RCS ID and password (what you use to get your email).
- At this point the system may need to install a plug-in for your browser, if asked say yes. They may also ask which webex site you want to use, if so, select 'rensselaer.webex.com'.
- Once that's finished you are taken to the main menu of Webex Meetings.
Webex Teams Account Activation
- Got to https://teams.webex.com,
- Enter your RPI email address
- This will take you to the RPI login screen where you will enter your RCS ID and password (what you use to get your email).
- At this point the system may need to install a plug-in for your browser, if asked say yes. They may also ask which webex site you want to use, if so, select 'rensselaer.webex.com'.
- Once that's finished you are taken to the main menu of Webex Teams.
Cisco Webex Meetings Desktop App
The Webex Meetings desktop app allows you to start and join meetings quickly from your meetings list within the app without going to your calendar or Webex site. It also allows you to add a Webex meeting directly in Microsoft Outlook. The Windows version also supports integrations with other applications, such as Microsoft Office (Word, Excel, PowerPoint), Microsoft Skype for Business, Microsoft Lync, Internet Explorer, IBM Lotus Notes, and so on. The Webex Meetings desktop app can also automatically detect nearby video devices, so you can share the desktop on a video device or automatically call it when joining a meeting.
*note - the desktop application provides limited functionality but is great for spur of the moment meetings/conferences
Cisco Webex Teams Desktop App
Webex Teams is an app for continuous teamwork with video meetings, group messaging, file sharing and white boarding.
*note - the desktop application provides greater flexibility/more options and is strongly recommended
Webex Teams Sign In
Help and the Basics
Webex Teams was originally called Cisco Spark and Cisco has not finished updating the documentation found on the following links. While the name is different, the software and its operation are the same, so be sure to take a look at anything named Spark as well.
Cisco Webex Sign In
Installation and Troubleshooting
Webex Meetings Suite 'How to' and Help
Create Webex Teams Account
Webex Teams 'How to' and Help