5 Ways to Connect Microsoft Teams and Cisco Webex in 2021

Hi, I was trialling streaming a Webex Meeting on youtube for our local community. The youtube stream was ok, however, the entire screen was not filled with video being shared. At the bottom, were thumbnails of the participants and there is dead area on eithe sides of the video. I see no option.

For many reasons and in many businesses, we regularly see organizations with instances of both Microsoft Teams and Cisco Webex.

This post addresses how businesses got to this situation and highlights the best ways to connect the two platforms together.

• Webex Teams is the leading team collaboration app. Get access to screensharing, group messaging, cross-collaboration tools, and app integrations.
• Cisco WebEx is Cisco’s video and team collaboration software platform. Cisco positions WebEx as a full unified communications solution for the enterprise: they can provide chat, video, and phone capabilities, as well as in-room hardware. WebEx was created in 1995 and acquired by Cisco in 2007.
• UMD offers Webex Teams (formerly Cisco Spark) to faculty and staff members. Learn how to remove or add a Space to a Team.

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:

• 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:

1. Simple way to connect Webex calling functionality with Microsoft Teams
2. Embedded buttons in Teams make the function easy to use

Cons:

1. Only works to connect two VoIP calling strategies. You can’t connect your chat messages or file sharing this way.
2. Calling opens a new window, which means there are more tabs for users to keep track of.
3. 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 any changes to them.

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.

Youtube Webex Tutorial

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…

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.

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The all new Webex is one easy-to-use and secure app you can use to call, message, meet, and get work done:

• It brings everyone together to do exceptional work.

• It makes you smarter; it’s personalized to you.

• It gives you options to choose how you work.

• It moves fluidly while you call, message, and meet.

We're glad to have you join us! If your company’s already given you an account, you’re ready to get started.

If you don’t have an account yet, first choose a plan that works best for you, then you can get started using web.webex.com or by downloading the app. When you sign in for the first time, you're guided through some tips on how to use the app.

Start working together

When you start a conversation with someone, it creates a space between you and the people you invite to the conversation. You can invite anyone (including people outside your organization) to join in on a conversation. All you need is their email address.

All your work takes place within spaces and teams. Spaces give you a place to collaborate on a specific topic or project. In a space, you can send messages, schedule meetings, and call other people.

If your original intention changes and your project outgrows its original purpose, you can create a team and then move a space into a team. Teams help you keep everything organized by putting multiple spaces under a common theme. Teams are great for a consistent group of people who are going to be working on something for a long time. That something can involve many activities or can be subprojects happening at the same time.

And you find that you're in too many spaces and some of them don't require your input or you don't need to keep up with that particular conversation, you can leave any space at any time.

Elevate important information

Right away, you're notified about all messages coming your way. Work smarter by keeping track of what's important to you. You can play around with your notifications until you figure out what works best for you. For example, you can set it up so that you're only notified when you're @mentioned in any space or when any message gets posted in your most important spaces. And if you're not interested in a particular space, you can leave it or hide it so that you're no longer notified about messages posted to that space and it doesn't show up in your Spaces list.

You can also see other people's availability so that you can find the right time to connect with them. For example, if you see a green circle around someone's profile picture, it means they've been using the app within the last 10 minutes so chances are, you'll get a response if you reach out.

On the other hand, if you see someone doesn't want to be disturbed, you might want to wait before reaching out.

Personalize Webex

Make Webex feel more like your own by personalizing it a bit. Start by adding your own photo as your profile picture so that other people can recognize you.

Webex Teams Demo

You can change your display name to a nickname.

Add more color to your view by choosing your preferred color theme.

You can change your status to be something more descriptive. If you have to step out for a bit or you're busy, you can let people know just by changing your status in the app. For example, you can set it to Be right back or let people know you don't want to be disturbed. You can also make up a custom status so people know what you're up to.

Webex Meeting Youtube

If you're in a call or meeting and you're sharing your video, you can blur your background to hide anything around you or even use a fun virtual background.