Can't confirm - running with a world created locally, then copied to the server.
You need to copy the map from this directory, then put it in the worlds folder on the server:
%localappdata%\Packages\Microsoft.MinecraftUWP_8wekyb3d8bbwe\LocalState\games\com.mojang\minecraftWorlds
UDP, which is used by Bedrock, isn't connection oriented, so you won't see any statuses in something like TCPView, or netstat, only that a socket is open.
That being said, something is making the connections not play well with NAT in the slightest, the UDP packets aren't triggering the port forwarding rules on my EdgeRouter X most of the time.
Bedrock doesn't read ops.json, so you can't use that.
Google "XUID" and you'll find sites that claim they can grab an XUID for a gamertag for you.