If you’re ready to transform Microsoft Teams into your all-in-one UCaaS environment for the age of hybrid work, then you’ll need to know a thing or two about Phone System. The Microsoft 365 Phone System is the telephony solution provided by Microsoft to enable call control and PBX (Private Branch Exchange) capabilities in your Microsoft cloud.
With Microsoft Teams Phone System, you can link your Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) with the Microsoft cloud in several ways to allow for external calling. The technology also allows for internal calling without access to the PSTN.
Here’s what you need to know about switching on your Microsoft Teams Phone System.
Buying Your Phone System License
The first step in accessing voice within Microsoft Teams is buying and assigning your Phone System license. You’ll then need to follow the same steps required to assign a Microsoft 365 license to each user who needs to access the phone system. You can find a complete guide on how to do that here.
There are three ways to access Teams Phone System:
- Microsoft 365 G1/G3, A1/A3, or E1/E3 and a Teams Phone with calling bundle: This gives you a Microsoft Domestic calling plan and access to the Teams Phone System PBX capabilities and allows all your number management to be handled by Microsoft.
- Microsoft 365 G1/G3, A1/A3, or E1/E3 and Teams Phone Standard license with a separate calling plan or solution from your PSTN carrier: This model provides access to the Teams phone system, but you still need to use your own PSTN connectivity.
- Microsoft E5/A5/G5 plan and Microsoft Calling Plans / Third-party connectivity: This gives you access to the Phone System and requires you to choose your own PSTN connection option.
Choosing your PSTN Connectivity Option
Once you have your licenses, and you’ve assigned them to your users, the next step is choosing your PSTN connectivity option. There are currently 3 ways to access the PSTN with Microsoft Teams:
Calling Plan
Considered the simplest option for bringing calling into Teams, Calling Plan uses Microsoft as your cloud-based carrier for communications. If you want an all-in-one solution with minimal set-up, this could be the choice for you. However, Microsoft calling plans aren’t available in every region.
With this option, you get Phone System access with domestic or international calling plans from Microsoft, and Microsoft handles all your phone number management for you. You don’t need to buy or manage SBCs, and you can access emergency calling and dynamic calling too.
Operator Connect
With Operator Connect, you access one of the partner “Operators” in the Microsoft Operator Connect program, and they manage the service for bringing calling into Teams for you. The carrier handles all the SBCs and PSTN connectivity, and you can obtain numbers through your carrier too.
Operator Connect is a good choice if Microsoft calling plans aren’t available in your region, and you don’t want to deal with the extra configuration requirements associated with direct routing. You can find the carriers participating in Operator Connect here.
Direct Routing
One of the most popular and flexible ways to bring PSTN connectivity into Microsoft Teams, Direct Routing involves purchasing a certified SBC from a third-party vendor, and connecting that to Phone System. This allows you to use your existing PSTN carrier and gives you the freedom to mix routing options, with some calls going through your carrier, and others through the Calling Plan.
With this option, you’ll connect a Session Border Controller to phone system, and you can use virtually any telephony carrier. You’ll also be able to choose between working with a direct routing provider who configures your solution for you, or configuring everything yourself.
Getting your Phone Numbers and Other Services
Once you’ve chosen your PSTN connectivity option, you’ll be able to start getting phone numbers for your users. How you acquire numbers will depend on which route you chose for PSTN connectivity, and the number of telephone numbers you can get depends on the licenses you buy.
In addition to getting numbers for users on Microsoft Teams, you’ll also be able to acquire toll-free numbers for services like call queues and auto-attendants. You can obtain service numbers directly from Microsoft included in your licensing, or you could access these numbers from your carrier if you chose Direct Routing or Operator Connect.
If you want to use toll-free numbers with Microsoft Teams, you’ll need to set up communications credits, as Microsoft bills toll-free calls per minute. Microsoft offers guidance on how to set up communications credits here.
If you want to set up an auto attendant, you can do so either through the Microsoft Teams admin center or through PowerShell, depending on which strategy you used to connect your PSTN to Teams. Auto attendants can direct calls to voice mail, operators, external phone numbers and voice apps, among other locations.
Microsoft also allows you to leverage other services within Phone System, such as call queues, which can provide greetings when someone calls into a phone number in your organization. There’s a complete guide on how to create a cloud call queue here.
You’ll also be able to design your cloud voicemail experience, which is automatically set up and provisioned by Microsoft for all users of Microsoft Teams with Phone System.
Leveraging Voice in Microsoft Teams
Microsoft now offers a multitude of ways for businesses to access phone functionality within Teams. Calling Plans and Phone System work together to provide an all-in-one solution from Microsoft for people who want to bring phone functionality into their Teams environment. Unfortunately, limited flexibility and geographical reach often means these Calling Plans might not be the best option for many larger brands.
With Direct Routing and Operator Connect, you can have more room to expand your phone connectivity experience, as well as additional features in some cases. Direct routing provides the most flexibility, but also requires more administrator input, while Operator Connect delivers a simpler managed service route.
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