UC Monitoring - Microsoft Teams#

Microsoft UC is a feature set offered as part of VOSS Insights, allowing customers to monitor their Microsoft Unified Communications (UC) environment, including Microsoft Teams and other integrated services like Office 365. VOSS Insights for Microsoft provides advanced monitoring and analytics capabilities tailored to enhance visibility into UC Performance, User Adoption, Advanced Diagnostics, and User Experience. Monitoring Microsoft environments often relies on native tools or third-party platforms that lack flexibility or the depth of analysis needed for comprehensive service management. VOSS Insights for Microsoft bridges this gap, offering powerful tools to analyze and optimize the performance of your Microsoft UC ecosystem.

Data Collection#

The data collected from the Microsoft ecosystem is categorized and analyzed based on the following aspects:

User behavior and experience#

  • End-user feedback analysis

    • End-user peripheral device analysis (speaker, microphone, webcam, etc.)

Session diagnostics#

  • Session reliability and quality analysis based on historical call records.

  • Stream analysis based on modality.

  • Threshold-based alerting

  • User Experience testing - Synthetic testing to measure and trend user experience for UC and other services

Service Performance#

  • M365 service availability monitoring

  • M365 service SLA analysis

  • ISP/ASN performance analysis

  • M365 front door performance testing via BOTs

Adoption#

  • License usage trend

  • Service usage analysis based on user activity types.

  • Traffic engineering reports (BHCA, BHCC)

  • Top user analysis based on their usage patterns.

Meeting Room Monitoring & Analytics#

  • Microsoft Teams Rooms device health and connection monitoring

  • Consolidated data collection across MS Teams, meeting room devices

  • Optional data collection from building management systems

  • Data can be retained as needed – not subject to vendor limits

Architecture#

See UC Monitoring - General tab for server details.

The VOSS UC Monitoring solution data flow for MS Teams is relatively simple:

  1. After configuring the data collection parameters on the correlation server, it initiates the data retrieval process from the accessible M365 public APIs. Specifically, for gathering Microsoft Teams call information, it establishes a subscription within the M365 API, acting on behalf of VOSS. This subscription ensures that any notifications generated by M365 for new Microsoft Teams call records are directed to VOSS Cloud.

  2. While the M365 public APIs continue to transmit event notifications regarding Microsoft Teams call records to the VOSS Cloud, the local correlation server routinely queries the VOSS Cloud to retrieve this data. The local correlation server uses this call metadata to contact the M365 public APIs directly to collect and download further details on each call record.

  3. The collected details are pre-processed, normalized, and retained on the correlation server; and visualized on the dashboard server.

Dashboards - Overview#

The system provides a range of dashboards to review and analyze Microsoft environments

  • Alerting against Microsoft Teams

  • Diagnostics and Monitoring

  • Performance and Service Management

  • Digital Experience Monitoring (Synthetic Testing)

Diagnostics and Performance#

Microsoft Teams Call List#

  • Ability to view key metrics and also interact with the aggregated call lists for a more detailed view of the data. Several filtering options are provided and can be used to identify and enable drilldown to specific call sessions. Also drill into PSTN, Direct Routing and site details.

    • Stats can be used to filter the tables to identify related records - e.g Call Type, Errors, Quality, and Modality.

    • View details about matching sessions and initiate deeper dive via Debug link from the identified session as required

  • Guides the user through filtering to identify specific call details and facilitate deeper dive as needed.

Microsoft Teams Call Debug#

  • Can be used directly but typically fed out of the debug function on the Call List - Detailed dashboard above to facilitate a detailed view of an identified call. You may find the values for several attributes for all the parties that are part of the call - enables deeper analysis to highlight potential issues impacting call quality/experience.

    • Guided debug of a call - especially where a call failed or reported bad quality.

    • Covers various attributes of the call such as:

    • Overall call details e.g. caller/callee, duration, detected quality, errors, etc

    • Device information for participants - base device, headsets, etc

    • Network connectivity info for all parties

    • Events Microsoft reports about the call that might impact experience - e.g. howling

    • Directional stream details for the call - jitter, packet loss, delay, concealed samples - highlights values outside best practices

  • Additional device event details that are reported that impact a call

Microsoft Teams Calls with Issues#

  • Overview of details and stats around calls and quality in the environment from an operational perspective

    • Overall counts of users generating calls and trending over time

    • Counts and trending around number of calls and services used in the calls.

    • Call List summary view - can create some filters to see key call types/lengths, and more at a glance.

    • Call quality rating (user rating) volume and trending - see status but also how user sentiment is trending to get a user provided view on experience.

  • Call failure summary and trends - identify issues to investigate and how it is trending.

(also UC Analytics)#

Analysis of calls/meetings and trending over time. Identify usage as expected and highlight areas for improvement (e.g not using video, etc)

  • Modality usage volume - audio, screen sharing, video and combinations of them

  • User activity trends

  • Call volume & quality trends

  • Session failure trends

  • Reported quality by modality and call type

(also UC Analytics)#

End user feedback analysis.

  • Overall ratings with trending over time

  • Detailed list including reason for the rating

  • Drill down on callid to see all feedback related to a call

  • Compare quality ratings to platforms used

Microsoft Teams Call Feedback#

  • End user feedback analysis.

    • Overall ratings with trending over time

    • Detailed list including reason for the rating

    • Drill down on callid to see all feedback related to a call

    • Compare quality ratings to platforms used

Microsoft Teams PSTN Calls#

  • See Call List above. View additional PSTN specific call details

Microsoft Teams Direct Routing Call Analysis#

  • See Call List above. View additional Direct Routing specific call details

Microsoft Teams Site Quality#

  • See Call List above. Drill down into detailed calls and quality by site

NO DASHBOARD#

  • Microsoft Teams - Call Review

    Analysis of collaboration and meeting calls to look at overall volume and quality trends over time. Identify changes in business trends or unusual changes to drive business decisions and track overall end-user experience.

    • Total user count and active Microsoft Teams user count that are actively generating calls

    • Total number of Microsoft Team media sessions and a break-down based on the modality of the media session.

    • Call volume indicators based on reported call quality (good, poor, unclassified)

    • Volume trend in terms of session counts, and duration.

    • Volume trend in terms of modality. This section also provides details on how much the volume changes in percentages compared to sessions placed in the last week/month.

    • Volume trend in terms of reported quality. This section also provides details on how much the volume changes in percentages compared to sessions placed in the last week/month.

    • Volume trend in terms of call type (peer-to-peer, group). This section also provides details on how much the volume changes in percentages compared to sessions placed in the last week/month

Performance & Service Management#

Microsoft Teams Service Health#

  • Microsoft 365 cloud service status checks - latest status checks on public M365 services, incidents, and advisories

    • M365 Cloud Service Availability and Service Trouble Tickets

    • M365 service status break-down

    • Categorized public trouble ticket status based on service type

    • Trouble ticket details such as service type, timeline, status, and description

Microsoft Teams User Experience Overview#

  • Drill down on individual users to see their overall Microsoft Teams experience and how devices, network, and platforms affect that experience.

    • Call quality over time

    • Device, network & platform details

    • User reported quality

NO DASHBOARD#

  • Microsoft Teams - Microsoft Managed Issues

    Latest and historical tracking of incidents within M365 services

    • M365 Cloud Service Availability and service trouble tickets

    • M365 service status break-down

    • Categorized public trouble ticket status based on service type

    • Trouble ticket details such as service type, timeline, status and description

    • Status updates from Microsoft about incidents and advisories

NO DASHBOARD#

  • Microsoft Teams - Service Provider Impact on Performance

    Analyzing ISP performance for branch offices and employees that work remotely. ISP analysis based on end-user’s registration status/IP

    • Depicts the impact of different Internet service providers on Microsoft Teams media quality.

    • Geo location map based on endpoints estimated physical location and call quality experience.

    • Call type (peer-to-peer, group) and connection type (wifi, wired, mobile, etc.) indicators to narrow down the available statistics per service provider.

    • Impact of available service providers on Microsoft Teams call quality at different geo locations.

    • Top country and internet service providers that impact media quality

Digital Experience Monitoring#