Network – Tony Gonzalez

Microsoft has released a new console to visualize the network performance between your corporate network and M365, this new feature will help the administrators to identify performance issues proactively.

This console has been released this month, and you can find it in the Health tab – Network connectivity.

The first time you have to join the network connectivity preview.

As part of the set up, you have to add a new location in your service, as the message indicated: “We need more data to generate network connectivity insights

To get started, turn on your location opt-in setting to automatically collect data from devices using Windows Location Services, go to your Locations list to add or upload location data, or have someone run the Microsoft 365 network connectivity test from your office locations.”

Click on the Locations tab, then click on Add Location.

Click on yes to allow Bing maps to get your location.

Input your network details in the new location, then click on save.

A confirmation will appear the location has been added.

Once you have the location(s) configurated, go to the right upper corner and select Network Connectivity Test.

The Microsoft 365 network connectivity test console will appear, read all the terms and click on run test.

As you can see below, there is information vital for review. Also you can run a .exe file to run the report on your own.

Now you have one more tool to identify performance or network issues; this information will also provide metrics to the network team to adjust in the QoS or any other parameters in the networks.

I hope this information helps. Thanks for reading.

If you are in the process of migrating from Skype for Business to Microsoft Teams for the first time, in that case, always is a best practice to execute the network assessment tool to identify any possible bottleneck in your internal network.

Sometimes, even when you have excellent network switches, the problem can be wireless clients’ access points.
When there is a branch office in the company, because they don’t have the same infrastructure as in the headquarter, this kind of tool will help you identify possible network problems before implementing Microsoft Teams.

Suppose you are already using Microsoft Teams, and you have bad quality in either voice or video. In that case, this tool is a good resource to identify what device or configuration is causing these failures.
When I say failures in your network, maybe it is just the quality of service configuration or adjustments that will allow using the same network. Still, with some improvements for the voice or video, in the same way, you will find some delays in your network or jitters, but again, if you don’t have this kind of tools, it will be hard to be 100% sure about what is going on in your internal network.

For all the messaging administrators that were using the same tool but for the Sky for business, this new version is exclusively for Microsoft Teams.

You can get that tool from this link Download Microsoft Teams Network Assessment Tool from Official Microsoft Download Center, download and install it on a computer.

Accept the license terms and click on Install

The progress bar will appears and also another window to install the program

Be careful of the path, you will need this information later

Click install and this is the last step.

Using a windows explorer, go to the installation path and double click on NetworkAssessmentTool.exe

You will see the tool validating the ports, IP’s to start the performance check.

Where you can see the results?

Open the file NetworkAssessmentTool.exe.config and you will find these configuration, you can modify if needed.

  <!-- Audio: 50000-50019
       Video: 50020-50039
       VBSS:  50040-50059 -->
  <add key="MinimumSourcePort" value="50000"/>
  <add key="MaximumSourcePort" value="50019"/>

  <!-- Duration of media flow for the quality checker, in seconds                               -->
  <!-- Note that Ctrl+C can be pressed at any time to stop the quality check                    -->
  <add key="MediaDuration" value="300"/>

  <!-- File name of where detailed service connectivity check results are stored                -->
  <!-- Directory: %appdata%\..\Local\Microsoft Teams Network Assessment Tool                    -->
  <add key="OutputFileName" value="service_connectivity_check_results.txt"/>

  <!-- File name of where quality check results are stored                                      -->
  <!-- Directory: %appdata%\..\Local\Microsoft Teams Network Assessment Tool                    -->
  <add key="ResultsFileName" value="quality_check_results.csv"/>

Thanks for reading, I hope it helps.

Tony Gonzalez

Tag: Network

Microsoft 365 network connectivity

Microsoft Teams network assessment tool