Teams Cloud Video Interoperability Service

1. Cloud Video Interoperability Overview

The Teams Cloud Video Interoperability (CVI) service for NHSmail will enable users to join Microsoft Teams calls from video teleconferencing (VTC) devices.

Organisations’ Local Administrators (LAs) must register users to the CVI by completing a CVI service request form through the NHSmail Helpdesk Self-Service tool, accessible via the Helpdesk Self-Service button on this link.

Once submitted, the CVI service request form will be validated and processed by the NHSmail Helpdesk, who will then add the CVI service to selected NHSmail users.

Once users have been onboarded to the CVI service, they will generate a secondary VTC Conference ID for every Teams meeting invite that they create. Users will be able to join Teams meetings by dialling the address detailed in the Teams Meeting invite and entering the VTC Conference ID, as detailed in Section 3 of this Guide.

Please note that any NHSmail user can join the meeting from a VTC device, as long as the meeting organiser has onboarded to the CVI service.

2. Guidance for Local Administrators

2.1. VTC Onboarding Prerequisites

Organisations are responsible for making sure that they have sufficient bandwidth to use the service and that the firewall rules (detailed in the tables below) are in place to allow devices to connect to and use the CVI service.

Outbound Rules – From Endpoint to Conferencing Nodes (H.323)

Outbound Rules – From Endpoint to Conferencing Nodes (SIP) 

Inbound Rules – From Conferencing Nodes to Endpoints (H.323) 

Inbound Rules – From Conferencing Nodes to Endpoints (SIP)

2.2.  CVI service request form

To onboard users to the NHSmail CVI service, LAs will be required to complete a CVI service request form. There is no limit on the number of users that can be registered to the CVI service.

LAs will need to include the following information per user:

• Valid user NHSmail email address
• Confirmation that the user has MS Teams in their User Policy, this can be checked from the NHSmail Portal page.

To access and submit the CVI service request form, the LA needs to follow the steps detailed below:

1. Go to the Helpdesk Self-Service tool

2. Select Raise a Request

3. Click on Show More and select Cloud Video Interoperability (CVI) Request

4. Select Enrol users to the NHSmail CVI service from the dropdown

5. Add organisational details i.e. Organisation name and Organisation ODS code

6. On the User Registration section, click on Add and enter the email addresses of selected users; you will need to confirm that the user has Teams enabled in their User Policy

7. For bulk registration of users, LAs can add a CSV file by clicking on Add attachment at the bottom of the form. The file should contain a single column, named EmailAddress, with a list of valid NHSmail email addresses to be registered to the CVI service (please use the following template CSV file to add a list of email addresses, accessible through this link)

8. Click on Submit

The NHSmail Helpdesk will then process the service request.

2.3.  Seeking Support

If further support is required, please raise a service incident to the NHSmail Helpdesk.

3. Guidance for Users

LAs will be required to onboard users so that they can generate CVI meeting details with their Teams invites, as detailed in Section 2.

3.1. Joining a call entering the VTC Conference ID

Once registered to the NHSmail CVI service, every time a user creates a Teams meeting invite, details to join the meeting from VTC devices will be added under the Join with a video conferencing device header, as shown in the picture below.

To join the Teams meeting via VTC devices, users should follow the steps detailed below:

1. From their existing CVI service, dial the email address immediately under the header (teams@cvi.nhs.net). Then, users will need to enter the Video Conference ID, a 10-digit code which is unique to each meeting.

3.2. Joining a call by clicking on Alternative VTD dialling instructions

A second way of joining a Teams call organised by an NHSmail user who is registered to the CVI service is by clicking on Alternative VTC dialling instructions.

Upon clicking on Alternative VTC dialling instructions, users will be directed to a page detailing an extra way of dialling into the meeting, i.e. by dialling an address that is unique to that meeting, this is comprised of the Video Conference ID, followed by @cvi.nhs.net, as detailed below.

3.3.  Seeking Support

Should users require support or guidance, they should first contact their Local IT Support team who will be able to raise an incident ticket with the NHSmail Helpdesk.