Hello readers. Happy Friday. Hope you’re well as always.
This is a quick post on Exchange Online Room mailboxes and Skype Room accounts. I’ll explain a bit about both Room Mailboxes and Skype Room accounts, the licensing required to use them and then how to set them up in Office 365.
Room Mailbox
First, I’ll explain why you need either of these in the first place. If you have meeting rooms in your organization, you really should have a way to book them. You could get your office manager or front of house team to try and keep track of them. You could hang a clipboard outside the rooms and post a booking sheet. You could just let people sort it out between themselves and let the most important people, or the biggest, kick out the people in the room out when they want to go in. Or you can use a tool you already have, Exchange, and create a booking system.
Exchange has the concept of resource accounts. A Room Mailbox is an Exchange mailbox used for room bookings. The mailbox can be configured to auto accept bookings and pop the meetings in the calendar for the Room. One great thing is that because there is an Exchange Calendar, you shouldn’t get double bookings. If there is already an meeting in the calendar when someone tries to book it, they’ll get a message that informs them that the room is booked and it declines the invite. You can also configure dispute resolution to go to Front of House or something, so they can sort it out.
Skype Room account
Licensing Requirements
Use Cases
- A User that schedules a meeting must have E1, E3 or E5
- The User with the correct licensing schedules the meeting and invites the room.
- The User that scheduled the meeting (aka the presenter) joins the meeting on their laptop or whatever to share content, chooses no audio
- The presenter clicks/taps join on the room system to join the meeting
- Participants join from the web or Lync/Skype client.
- The presenter shares content
- The user that schedules the meeting must have E1 or E3 and the PSTN Conferencing add-on or E5 with PSTN Conferencing included.
- The User with the correct licensing schedules the meeting and invites the room.
- Because the user that scheduled the meeting has the PSTN Conferencing add-on, the invite can/will include the bridge telephone numbers configured in the tenant
- The User that scheduled the meeting (aka the presenter) joins the meeting on their laptop or whatever to share content, chooses no audio
- The presenter clicks/taps join on the room system to join the meeting
- Participants join from the web or Lync/Skype client.
- Participants join by calling the bridge number
- The presenter shares content
How to set it up
- First, you must log in as tenant admin and create a Room Mailbox. This can be done in ECP or PowerShell. I like PowerShell, so I’ll show you that method.
- Then you must enable the Room mailbox as a Skype Room account.
- Then you assign the license.
Set-ExecutionPolicy Unrestricted
$org=’domain.com’
$cred=Get-Credential admin@$org
$sess=New-PSSession -ConfigurationName microsoft.exchange -Credential $cred -AllowRedirection -Authentication basic -ConnectionUri https://ps.outlook.com/powershellImport-PSSession $sess
$rm=”roomname@domain.com“$newpass=’password’
New-Mailbox -MicrosoftOnlineServicesID $rm -room -Name “Room Name” -RoomMailboxPassword (ConvertTo-SecureString $newpass -AsPlainText -Force) -EnableRoomMailboxAccount $true
Import-Module LyncOnlineConnector
$cssess=New-CsOnlineSession -Credential $cred
Import-PSSession $cssess -AllowClobber
Get-CsOnlineUser -Identity ‘user@domain.com’| fl *registrarpool*
RegistrarPool
————-
sippoolDB41E02.infra.lync.com
Enable-CsMeetingRoom -Identity $rm -RegistrarPool “sippoolDB41E02.infra.lync.com” -SipAddressType EmailAddress
$cred=Get-Credential admin@$org
Connect-MsolService -Credential $cred
Set-MsolUser -UserPrincipalName roommailbox@domain.com-PasswordNeverExpires $true
Get-MsolAccountSku
AccountSkuId ActiveUnits WarningUnits ConsumedUnits
———— ———– ———— ————-
domain:O365_BUSINESS_PREMIUM 1 0 1
domain:MCOSTANDARD 1 0 0
domain:STANDARDEPACK 1 0 0
domain:ENTERPRISEPACK 1 0 0
Set-MsolUserLicense -UserPrincipalName roommailbox@domain.com -AddLicenses “domain:MCOSTANDARD”
Set-MsolUserLicense -UserPrincipalName roommailbox@domain.com -AddLicenses “domain:STANDARDPACK”
Set-MsolUserLicense -UserPrincipalName roommailbox@domain.com -AddLicenses “domain:ENTERPRISEPACK”
As always I hope this has been useful. If this or any other post has been useful to you please take a moment to share. Comments are welcome.