Echo360 supports integration with Microsoft Teams to allow Teams users to link into Echo360 sections and classes, and provide one-click access to each users' Echo360 Media Library.

Be advised that it is up to the Microsoft Teams Administrator to determine what users and roles should or should not have access to the Echo360 app and from where. The procedures on this page assume access for all users and does NOT address user access policies in any way. Refer to your Microsoft documentation or support representative if you need assistance.

The high-level steps for configuring MS Teams to work seamlessly with Echo360 include:

• Download the MS Teams Manifest Template from Echo360, and EXTRACT the files from the downloaded .zip into a separate folder.
• Create an LMS Configuration in Echo360 for Teams, to hold the values for authentication between Echo360 and Microsoft.
• Create and register the Echo360 App in Microsoft Azure. This creates the values necessary for authentication between Echo and Microsoft. Copy the generated values into Echo360.
• Edit the Echo360 Manifest to add the App values from Azure. 
• Upload the edited Echo360 App Package to MS Teams.
• Set up policies for the Echo360 app, to include a Pinned app that will be always available in the left navigation that connects to a user's Echo360 media library, and an app for tabs in a Teams channel for linking to an Echo360 course section.
• Finally, enter Teams as an Admin, create or enter an existing Team, add a new tab and select the Echo360 App for that tab. This both verifies and completes the Echo360 app configuration. While not strictly necessary, it allows you to execute the final verification steps instead of an instructor.

At this point, users should see an Echo360 app on the left of their Teams interface, and when they add a tab to an existing Team channel, have the Echo360 app available to select.

Download and Extract the Teams App Package

The Microsoft (MS) Teams Manifest for the Echo360 app is available through the Echo360 Downloads page, shown in the below figure.

Scroll down to find the Microsoft Teams App Package, and click Download.

The zip file that is downloaded includes a manifest.json file along with other items. After downloading the zip file, you MUST EXTRACT the contents into a separate folder. While you can open and view the enclosed files from the .zip archive, you cannot CHANGE them until they are extracted and saved elsewhere.

You will use the instructions later on this page to edit the manifest file and add the appropriate information from MS Azure. 

After editing, you will re-zip the updated manifest file along with the other artifacts from the download. That updated zip file is then uploaded into Azure to complete the Echo360 app creation process.

Generate a Teams Configuration Block in Echo360

Communication and authentication between Echo360 and MS Teams uses the same type of configurations as Echo360 does with LMS/VLE programs. So the configuration block you create for Teams is done through the LMS Configurations page.

To create a Teams configuration block

1. Log into Echo360 as an administrator.
2. Click the Settings icon then select Configurations from the settings menu. The LMS configurations page appears by default.
3. On the right side of the LMS Configurations page, click the Configurations tab, as identified in the above figure.
4. Click Add Configuration.
5. In the Create LMS Profile popup box that appears, select Teams from the drop-down list, then click SAVE.
   
   The new Teams profile appears below any existing LMS configurations you may already have.
6. Find the new Teams configuration profile in the Configurations list, and click the Teams tab of the configuration, as shown in the below figure.
   
7. Leave this browser tab open while you perform the next set of steps for creating a new App registration in MS Azure. The values you generate there will be used to populate the Teams configuration block shown above.

ALTERNATELY you can copy the values generated through the below procedures into a text editor, then return to Echo360 and paste the values into the fields. This is a particularly appropriate approach if the Echo360 Administrator and the Azure Administrator are two different people.

Create the Echo360 App in Azure

All of the below steps are performed by an Azure administrator and assume you have the proper administrative privileges in Microsoft Azure. You must also be an institution-level Administrator in Echo360, or be working with one.

As is common throughout Echo360's integration documentation, the below procedures are provided as a GUIDE to the steps necessary in Microsoft Azure. Your interface may vary from what is shown here, and if you need assistance, please refer to the Microsoft documentation, or your Microsoft support representative.

To create the Echo360 App for Teams

1. Log into Microsoft Azure as an administrator, and use the search box to find App Registrations, as shown in the below figure.
   
2. From the top of the App Registrations page, click New Registration.
   
3. In the Register an application form, shown below, complete the entries as follows
   
   1. Enter a Name that clearly identifies this as the Echo360 app.
   2. Select the Supported account types option that applies to your Microsoft installation.
   3. In the Redirect URI field at the bottom of the form, enter the following, using YOUR REGIONAL ECHO360 URL (echo360.org, echo360.org.uk, echo360.ca, or echo360.net.au):
      

         https://echo360.org/lti/msteams/oauth

      
4. At the bottom of the form, click Register.
   

   The page that appears is your registered app Overview page and contains nearly all of the information and values you will need to complete application setup. Click Overview on the left to return to this page at any time.

5. Click API Permissions on the left.
6. In the API Permissions page, under Configured permissions, select Grant admin consent for {organization-name}, as identified in the below figure.
   If you do not see this option, you do not have permissions to perform this action. Consult with another Azure administrator for access or execution of this task.
   
7. Confirm this change. When the API Permissions page reappears, the status for the User.Read permission should have changed and should appear as shown below.
   
8. Click Certificates & secrets on the left. 
9. Click New client secret.
   
10. In the popup that appears, provide a Description (purpose) for this client secret. 
    
11. Select an Expires option that coincides with your institution's security policies. If you select Custom, the maximum you can set is two years or 24 months (which is already a pre-selectable option).
    

    NOTE: Microsoft no longer allows you to set a client secret with a "Never" expiration. This means you will need to create a new secret when (or before) this one expires, and replace the value in your Teams configuration block in Echo360 with the new one.

12. When finished click Add.
    

    The page refreshes to show the newly created client secret, including the secret value at the bottom that you will copy and paste into Echo360.
    NOTICE the instructions at the top of the page indicating that to use the secret, you MUST obtain the value BEFORE you navigate away from this page. This note is identified below. If you do not, you will need delete the secret and generate a new one for use.

13. At the bottom of the page, hover over the Value field of the newly created secret, and click on the Copy to clipboard icon that appears and which is shown in the below figure.
    
14. Return to the Echo360 browser or tab used in the first set of instructions on this page and paste the copied secret value into the Secret field of the Teams configuration block, as shown below.
    
    

    ALTERNATELY: If you are NOT also the Echo360 administrator, or you do not have the Echo360 Teams configuration page open at the moment, you can copy the Secret value from Azure and paste it into a text editor, along with the App ID and Tenant ID (from the next steps), and then add these values to Echo360 later, or pass them onto the Echo360 Administrator you are working with.

15. Return to Azure and click Overview on the left.
16. Hover over the App ID field then click the Copy to clipboard icon, and paste the copied value into the Application ID field of the Teams configuration block in Echo360. 
17. Hover over the Tenant ID field and then click the Copy to clipboard icon, and paste the copied value into Echo360.
    
18. After the values for ALL THREE fields have been copied into the Teams Configuration in Echo360, click CREATE REGISTRATION, as shown below.
    

After you create the registration in Echo360 NOTICE there are now two toggles appearing below the configuration values in the Teams tab, as shown in the below figure. These do not appear until the registration is completed. The toggles are defined below.

Instructor Access - This toggle is designed to keep users from being auto-created in Echo360 as instructors. More importantly, it will keep Students from getting the instructor role assigned to them, as this role-escalation can allow Students to see information about media that they should not. It is turned ON by default. See Teams Configuration Toggle for Instructor Pass-through for much more information.

Email Mapping - This toggle is designed for use when the User Profile email in your Azure configuration dos NOT match the User Principal Name (UPN) email. The UPN is the email address used to log into Teams. If this toggle is ON, the user is created in Echo360 with their UPN email address as their Echo360 email identifier. It is turned OFF by default.

The communication between your Echo360 App in Azure and your Echo360 tenant is now established. The NEXT step is to edit then upload the Echo360 App Package into Teams. This is where you will be working with the Manifest file you downloaded from Echo360 (through the instructions at the top of this page). 

Edit the Echo360 Manifest File

If you have not yet, perform the steps at the top of this page for downloading the Microsoft Teams App Package from Echo360. Then EXTRACT the contents of the downloaded zip file to a new folder location.

The steps below edit the Echo360 manifest.json file to contain the necessary values for adding the app to Teams.

IMPORTANT: When re-zipping the package files after editing, DO NOT select the folder to send to Archive; you must select the files, then send the files to the .zip archive. Selecting the folder to archive creates a folder level in the Zip file, which causes MS Teams to reject the upload. The zipped file for upload must not contain the folder; it can only contain the files.

To edit the Echo360 manifest file

1. First, be SURE you have extracted the downloaded Teams package zip file to a folder.
2. In a text editor such as Notepad++ or Programmer's Notepad, or other program of your choice, open the manifest.json file extracted from the Echo360 download package.
3. In the top section of the file, find fields for "id", "packageName" and "webApplicationInfo", as highlighted in the below figure. These are the fields you will be editing.
   
4. In Azure, on the Overview page for your registered app, hover over the Application ID and select the Copy to clipboard button.
5. Return to the Manifest and replace the two instances of {application-id} with the copied App ID value. Leave the quotation marks around the value, replacing only the brackets and the text inside.
6. In the packageName field, replace {institution} with a unique identifier for your institution. It may be as simple as the institution name or a short name for it. 
   For example, SUNY for "State University of New York" or UNSW for the "University of New South Wales" or Marshall for "Marshall University".
   It should be reasonably short and must have NO spaces.
   It must be "unique" to the degree that no two Echo360 manifest-generated Apps in Azure can have the same packageName.
7. Check your work and ensure that this section of the Manifest file looks VERY MUCH like the below figure, where both id fields include the Application ID value, and the packageName identifies your institution.
   
8. SAVE THIS EDITED FILE.
9. Return to the folder on your computer containing the edited manifest and the other components from the originally extracted .zip file.
10. REZIP all the items including the edited manifest.json file (do NOT include the unedited original!). BE SURE to select the FILES to send to the .zip archive and not the folder in which they reside. See the IMPORTANT note above these procedures. You may also want to give the new archive/zip file a name that you recognize as containing the EDITED version of the manifest file.

The manifest file now contains all of the information needed to be added to Teams. Uploading the edited and zipped package will add the Echo360 app to your Teams installation. The section below completes this process. 

Adding the Echo360 App Package to MS Teams

Once you have an updated and re-zipped Echo360 app package, the next step is to upload that package into MS Teams. This creates the Echo360 app in Teams.

The steps below are performed in the Teams Admin console, available at https://admin.teams.microsoft.com. You must be a Teams Admin to perform these steps.

To add the Echo360 App package to Teams

1. Log into MS Teams as a Teams administrator.
2. In the left navigation, expand Teams Apps and select Manage Apps. If your sidebar is collapsed, use the "list button" at the top to expand it or hover over each icon to see the options available.
   
3. Click Upload.
4. In the box that appears, click Select File and navigate to the zip file containing the updated manifest.json from the above procedures.
5. Once the file is uploaded, you will receive a success message in the panel. You can verify the existence of the app by searching the Apps list for the app name, as shown below.
   

Now that the App is installed in Teams, you can set up your existing policies to have it appear for selection by whatever user groups you want to allow access.

Adding the Echo360 App to a Policy

There are two places in a policy where you can add the Echo360 app; as a pinned app, and as a tab app that can be selected when adding a tab in a channel.

The Pinned version of the app provides easy access to a user's Echo360 Library. Any user clicking it will be placed into Echo360 on their Library page, from where they can view and edit and create content for use.

The "Installed" app provides users with the ability to add a Tab to their Teams channels that uses the Echo360 app. This tab can then link to Echo360 sections, either by mapping to an existing section or through the Simplified Provisioning feature which creates new Echo360 course/sections on link-through.

Add either or both to any App Policy where you want it to apply.

WARNING: We advise you to add the Echo360 tab app to App Policies in a way such that only Instructors can ADD it to a Team Channel. Because this method of link-through gives the user the Instructor role in Echo360, you want to be sure it is NOT available to Students who may also be Teams Owners. See also Teams Configuration Toggle for Instructor pass-through for more information.

1. In the Teams Admin console, under Teams Apps on the left, select Setup policies.
2. Select the app setup Policy you want to add the Echo360 app to.
   
3. Install the Echo360 app and/or Pin the Echo360 app in this policy as is appropriate for your institution and access policies.
   Remember:
   The Pinned app appears in the left bar for all users and links to the user's Echo360 media Library.
   The Installed app makes it available to use as a tab within a Teams channel, and can link to an Echo360 section and/or to classes within a section.
   

   NOTE: You may receive an error when trying to add the Pinned app to a policy. This is due to issues with the Microsoft Cache. It can take anywhere from a few hours to 2-3 days to clear (from the time you upload the Echo360 package to Teams). If you encounter this error, wait and try again, or contact your Microsoft support representative.

4. When finished, click Save (at the bottom of the Policy page.
5. Repeat these steps for any other policies you want to add the Echo360 app to.

Users can now access Echo360 through teams using the Echo360 App and it's placements as you have configured for them through the Policies. See For Instructors: Using MS Teams with Echo360 for selecting the app in it's different locations, and for using the app in a Team for Echo360 course access.