Plan for network deployment using Network Planner

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Network Planner is designed to assist the admin to determine and organize network requirements for connecting Microsoft Teams users across the whole organization. You can access the tool by going to Microsoft Teams admin center > Planning > Network planner. After providing network details and Teams usage, the Network Planner calculates the network requirements for deploying Teams and cloud voice across the organization’s physical locations.

Screenshot of Network planner.

With Network Planner you can:

  • Create representations of your organization using sites and Microsoft recommended personas (office workers, remote workers, and Teams room system devices)

  • Generate reports and calculate bandwidth requirements for Teams usage

To use the Network Planner, you must have one of the following roles:

  • Global administrator

  • Teams administrator

  • Teams communication administrator

Create a custom persona

To create a custom persona in your network plan, do the following steps:

  1. Sign into Microsoft Teams admin center.

  2. Navigate to Planning > Network Planner.

  3. On the Network Planner page, select the Personas section, review the default personas, and then select + Add if you’d like to add a custom persona.

  4. On the Add persona page, provide the persona name and description. Under the Permissions section, choose from the following services: Audio, Video, Screen sharing, File sharing, Conference audio, Conference video, Conference screen sharing, and PSTN.

  5. Select Apply.

    Screenshot of creating custom personas.

Build your plan

To build your network plan, do the following steps:

  1. Sign into Microsoft Teams admin center.

  2. Navigate to Planning > Network Planner.

  3. On the Network Planner page, under Network Plans section, select Add.

  4. On the Network Plan name page, enter the name for the network plan (for example NY Teams network plan), a description, and select Apply.

  5. The newly created network plan will appear under the Network Plans section. Select the plan you created.

  6. On the plan page, for example NY Teams network plan, under Network Sites section, select Add a network site.

  7. On the Add a network site page, enter the following information, and then select Save.

    • Name of the network site

    • Network site address

    • Network settings – IP address subnet and network range

    • Express route or WAN connection

    • Internet egress

    • Internet link capacity

    • PSTN egress (VoIP only or local)

    • Optional description

Create a report

To create a report based on your network plan, do the following steps:

  1. Sign into Microsoft Teams admin center.

  2. From the left navigation pane, select Planning, and then select Network Planner.

  3. On the Network Planner page, under Network Plans section, select your network plan (for example, NY Teams network plan).

  4. On the plan page, select Report, and then select Start a report.

  5. On the Add report page, enter the report name, and in the Calculation section, choose the type of persona, such as Office Worker or Remote Worker and the number of each persona types.

  6. Select Generate report.

  7. On the report page, review the report including Type of service and required bandwidth for different services, such as Audio, Video, Screen share, Office 365 server traffic, and PSTN.

Screenshot to run report of network planner.