Simply put, Direct Routing is Microsoft’s way of enabling a Bring Your Own Carrier approach: providing a PSTN connection to MS Teams users, so they can receive and make calls with Teams using their carrier of choice.
Of course, Microsoft offer their own calling plans as well. Those can be a good fit for users in certain regions, but when it comes to businesses operating in APAC, Microsoft’s calling plans just don’t cut it. Since Microsoft’s calling plan is only available in two countries in APAC, the obvious choice for countries in that region is Direct Routing.
That’s where the Toku for Teams solution-umbrella comes in.
Girish Dharmaraj
“When Microsoft Teams opened up Direct Routing, we came up with Toku for Teams to provide that global calling capability to APAC-based business,” shares Girish Dharmaraj, Head of Product at Toku.
“Toku for Microsoft Teams effectively brings a company’s phone system into the Teams environment, offering PSTN connectivity in 16 countries across APAC.”
According to Girish Dharmaraj, there are two main advantages to using the Toku solution compared to Microsoft’s calling plan: local numbers and voice quality.
“Your users can be sitting anywhere in the world; but with the Toku solution, when you’re calling one of them, the number they’ll see will always be a local number. That’s extremely important, since pickup rates are significantly higher when the calling number is local.”
“From the voice perspective, our solution has been fully deployed in the Microsoft Azure cloud, which means that users get enterprise-grade voice quality. The Azure Super Clusters make sure that one is always connected to the closest location, keeping the call within the country rather having it go all over the world and come back.”
Up until recently, Toku for Teams only came in the form of a native dialer. Now, Toku is offering a new option, making things even easier for companies: the Toku Phone App.
Here’s everything you should to know about it.
No Need for Additional Licenses
“Our native dialer is still a great solution for various use cases, but it always requires a phone system license that should be purchased from Microsoft,” Girish Dharmaraj explains.
“So when it comes to big companies with hundreds or thousands of employees who need to use Teams, the cost of those licenses becomes a major pain point. We took that as a main challenge, and that’s how the Toku Phone App was born.”
The app enables users to make and receive calls using Teams without those additional Microsoft licenses.
“We provide a much simpler license management and a cost-effective solution, which is crucial for big organizations”
A Mix & Match Approach
Another important benefit of the Toku phone app is the mix and match approach that it allows.
“If out of 100 people in an organization, say, 10 are heavy users – CEOs, CTOs, IT Directors – you can go with our native plan for those users. But for the remaining 90 users, the Toku phone app is more than enough,” Girish Dharmaraj explains.
“This provides that extra flexibility and brings the whole organization into Teams, since you only need to purchase a limited number of licenses, rather than buying licenses for the whole organization.”
One-Click Solution
From the product perspective, Toku have designed the new app to be what they refer to as a “one-click solution.” This means that the configuration and use of it are truly as easy as it gets, requiring a minimum of tech expertise.
“While planning the app, we had to take into consideration both the end users and the IT Administrators,” Girish Dharmaraj shares.
“IT-wise – the configuration is super-simple via our one-click service. And end-user-wise, all you need to do is download the app, install it and start using it. If you’re familiar with Teams, there’s no need to be tech savvy or learn anything new. That’s also a huge plus for administrators, since they don’t have to teach a new app to every employee in the organization”
For more information on the Toku Phone App, visit here.
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