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How to create and configure resource accounts for Teams Rooms and panels

  • Article
  • Applies to:
    Microsoft Teams

This article provides steps to create resource accounts for shared spaces and devices, and it includes steps to configure resource accounts for Microsoft Teams Rooms on Windows, Teams Rooms on Android, & Teams panels.

Microsoft 365 resource accounts are mailbox and Teams accounts that are dedicated to specific resources, such as a room or projector. These resource accounts can automatically respond to meeting invites using rules you define when they're created. For example, if you have a common resource such as a conference room, you can set up a resource account for that conference room which automatically accepts or declines meeting invites depending on its calendar availability.

Every resource account is unique to a single Microsoft Teams Rooms installation or Teams device implementation.

Important

Microsoft 365 resource accounts used for Teams devices aren't the same as Teams resource accounts. Teams resource accounts can be used with call queues and auto attendants to accept phone calls from external phone numbers. Microsoft 365 resource accounts are tied to an Exchange Online mailbox and enable booking of shared resources, such as rooms, projectors, and so on.

If you want to know more about Teams resource accounts, see Manage resources accounts in Microsoft Teams.

Note

If using Microsoft Teams panels, the same Teams Rooms resource account signs in to the Teams Rooms device and any associated Teams panels.

Before you begin

Requirements

You may need one or more roles to create, license, and configure resource accounts.

Environment Required Roles
Microsoft Entra ID Global admin or User admin
On-premises Active Directory Active Directory Enterprise Admins, Domain Admins, or have delegated rights to create users
Exchange Online Global Administrator or Exchange Administrator
Exchange Server Exchange Organization Management or Recipient Management
Licensing Global admin or Billing admin
Teams Global admin or Teams admin

Important

Microsoft recommends that you use roles with the fewest permissions. Using lower permissioned accounts helps improve security for your organization. Global Administrator is a highly privileged role that should be limited to emergency scenarios when you can't use an existing role.

Get the right license

In the next step, you'll create a resource account for each your Teams Rooms device. Before you do that, you need to purchase licenses, each resource account you want to associate with a Teams Rooms device needs a Teams Rooms license.

Follow these steps to purchase a Teams Rooms Basic or Teams Rooms Pro license that you can assign to a resource account in a later step. For a comparison between the Teams Rooms Basic and Teams Rooms Pro licenses, see Teams Meeting Rooms Licenses.

  1. Go to the Microsoft 365 admin center and log in with an account that has license admin permissions.
  2. In the admin center, go to the Billing > Purchase services page.
  3. On the Purchase services page, type in Teams Rooms in the search box and press enter.
  4. Select Details under either Teams Rooms Basic or Teams Rooms Pro.
  5. Select the number of licenses you want to purchase in Select license quantity.
  6. Select how often you want to be billed under Select billing frequency and then click Buy.

Create resource account & assign the license

Tip

You can automatically create and configre Teams Rooms resource accounts via the Surface Hub and Microsoft Teams Rooms automated setup guide.

We recommend that you create all resource accounts as cloud only using Microsoft Entra ID and Exchange Online. If using Exchange on-premise, you must be in hybrid for the Teams Rooms device to read the calendar.

Each Microsoft Teams Rooms device needs its own resource account. The Teams Rooms device uses the resource account to log into Microsoft 365 and it's what users in your organization invite in Exchange to book the room.

Tip

When naming your resource accounts, we recommend using a standard naming convention to the beginning of the e-mail address. This will help with creating dynamic groups to ease management. For example, you could use "mtr-" for all resource accounts that will be associated with Microsoft Teams Rooms.

Create a resource account using a method from one of the following tabs:

  1. Sign in to the Microsoft 365 admin center with administrative credentials for your Microsoft 365 tenant.

  2. Go to Resources in the left panel, and then select Rooms & equipment. (If these options aren't available in the panel, you may need to select Show all first.)

  3. Select Add resource to create a new resource account. Enter a name, email address, and capacity for the account, then select Save.

  4. By default, resource accounts are configured with the following settings:

    • Allow repeat meetings
    • Automatically decline meetings outside of the following limits
      • Booking window (days): 180
      • Maximum duration (hours): 24
    • Auto accept meeting requests

    If you want to change them, select Edit booking options before you select Close. If you want to change them later, go to Resources > Rooms & equipment, select the resource account. Then under Booking options, select Edit.

  5. Go to Users > Active users, and select the room you created to open the properties panel.

  6. Next, assign a password to the resource account. In the panel, select Reset password.

  7. Requiring a password change on first login for a Teams Rooms device causes sign in problems. Uncheck Require this user to change their password when they first sign in, and select Reset password.

  8. Assign the Teams Rooms license, purchased in the earlier step. In the panel, select Licenses and apps.

  9. Check the box next to Microsoft Teams Rooms Pro or Microsoft Teams Rooms Basic, and select Save changes

Important

If you're creating resource accounts for Teams Rooms, the resource account's UPN must match the SMTP address of the resource account.

Configure Exchange mailbox properties

Based on organizational requirements, you may wish to customize how the resource account responds to and processes meeting invitations. Using Exchange PowerShell, you can set many properties, review the Set-CalendarProcessing cmdlet for all available configurations. The following are recommended for Teams Rooms:

  • AutomateProcessing: AutoAccept Meeting organizers receive the room reservation decision directly without human intervention.

  • AddOrganizerToSubject: $false The meeting organizer isn't added to the subject of the meeting request on the resource account calendar.

  • AllowRecurringMeetings: $true Recurring meetings are accepted.

  • DeleteAttachments: $true Teams Rooms devices can't access meeting attachments, deleting attachments ensures they're not stored on the resource account calendar.

  • DeleteComments: $false Keep any text in the message body of incoming meeting requests which is required to create join buttons for third-party meetings on a Teams Rooms device.

  • DeleteSubject: $false Keep the subject of incoming meeting requests on the resource accounts calendar.

  • ProcessExternalMeetingMessages: $true Specifies whether to process meeting requests organized outside your Exchange environment. This option is required for meeting invites sent directly by an external organizer as well external organized meetings forwarded by an internal user.

  • RemovePrivateProperty: $false Ensures the private flag that sent by the meeting organizer in the original meeting request remains as specified.

  • AddAdditionalResponse: $true The text specified by the AdditionalResponse parameter is added to meeting requests.

  • AdditionalResponse: "This is a Microsoft Teams Meeting room!" The text to add to the meeting acceptance body. You can also format HTML content in the automatic reply if you wish.

To configure these properties, you need to connect to Exchange Online PowerShell. For more information, see Connect to Exchange Online PowerShell.

The following example sets the properties for the ConferenceRoom01 resource account:

Set-CalendarProcessing -Identity "ConferenceRoom01" -AutomateProcessing AutoAccept -AddOrganizerToSubject $false -AllowRecurringMeetings $true -DeleteAttachments $true -DeleteComments $false -DeleteSubject $false -ProcessExternalMeetingMessages $true -RemovePrivateProperty $false -AddAdditionalResponse $true -AdditionalResponse "This is a Microsoft Teams Meeting room!"

Turn off password expiration

Based on organization policies, resource account passwords may be set to expire automatically after a period of time. If the resource account password expires, the Teams Rooms device with sign out and can't sign in again without manual intervention.

Note

Setting Password never expires is a requirement for shared Microsoft Teams devices. If your organization prohibits passwords that don't expire, you'll need to create an exception for Teams device resource accounts.

To turn off password expiration, follow the steps in one of the following tabs:

  1. Connect to Microsoft Graph PowerShell:

       Connect-MgGraph -Scopes "User.ReadWrite.All"

  2. Set the password to never expire, this example sets the password for the account [email protected] to never expire.

    Update-MgUser -UserId [email protected] -PasswordPolicies DisablePasswordExpiration -PassThru

Next steps

Teams policies

You may need to apply custom bandwidth or meeting policies to this account. For more information, see Meeting policy settings for audio & video. For Teams Rooms, we recommend you set the bandwidth policy no lower than 10 Mbps.

For collaboration purposes, turn on PowerPoint Live, Whiteboard, and shared notes. We recommend you enable the meeting policy setting "Meet now in private meetings" to ensure the "Meet now" functionality on the Teams Rooms console functions. For more information on Teams meeting policies, see Manage meeting policies in Microsoft Teams.

Teams Rooms devices include a Net Promotor Score (NPS) survey, this survey can be controlled with Teams feedback policies. For more information, see Manage feedback policies in Microsoft Teams.

Teams public preview can be enabled on Teams devices to see Teams features earlier than general availability. For more information, see Microsoft Teams Public preview on how to enable public preview.

Calling

Resource accounts can be enabled for public switched telephone network (PSTN) the same way you enable a regular user. For more information, see Calling in Microsoft Teams. We also recommend disabling voicemail for shared devices with a calling policy. For more information, see Calling policies in Teams.

Conditional Access

Conditional access controls resource accounts for Teams devices. You may need to make modifications to your existing policies to ensure your resource accounts are secure and functional. For more information on supported configurations and changes you may need to make, see Conditional access for Teams devices.

Note

Teams shared devices do not support Security defaults in Microsoft Entra ID. Use conditional access to secure your environment and Teams shared devices.

Resource Account Sign in Test

Use this tool: Teams Rooms sign in test to test that your Teams Rooms resource account is configured for successful sign on.

Exchange Room Finder & Microsoft Places

To help your users more easily schedule meetings in a Teams Room, you can create room lists in Exchange Online.

Exchange room lists are used to control which resource accounts (and therefore the Teams Rooms they're associated with) appear in the Room Finder. Room Finder is an Outlook feature that helps users find rooms that are near them, available for reservation, and meet other criteria such as the availability of a display.

Room lists are a special type of Exchange distribution group that lets you group resource accounts (and therefore the Teams Rooms they're associated with) together in a meaningful way. For example, you might want to create room lists for all the rooms in each building on your campus.

Microsoft Places lets you set specific attributes about a resource account and its Teams Room. Some of the attributes you can set are:

  • Building
  • City
  • Capacity
  • Wheelchair-accessible
  • Room features

Room Finder in Outlook shows a list of rooms available to them for reservation based on a combination of room lists and place attributes selected by a user. To make the best use of room lists and places, create room lists based on a place attribute, such as building. For example, set the city and building place attributes for each resource account, and then add each resource account to a building room list. When a user tries to choose a room to reserve, Outlook shows a list of cities and the room lists available in each of those cities.

Important

Each resource account needs to have its place attributes set. If these attributes, especially city, building, and capacity, aren't set, those rooms won't show up as available options for reservation even if a room list contains them.

To create a room list, follow the instructions in Create a rooms list.

To configure the place attributes for a resource account, see Set-Place.

Plan for Microsoft Teams Rooms

Deploy Microsoft Teams Rooms

Manage Microsoft Teams Rooms

Microsoft Teams Rooms Licensing