Microsoft Teams offers an unprecedented feature set for office communication – its integration with document processing, emails and a huge amount of Windows ecosystem software make Teams an outstanding productivity tool for just about every organization. In many business environments, however, both traditional and hybrid, connectivity to standard VoIP devices can be challenging.
Microsoft Teams offers an unprecedented feature set for office communication – its integration with document processing, emails and a huge amount of Windows ecosystem software make Teams an outstanding productivity for just about every organization. In many business environments, however, both traditional and hybrid, connectivity to standard VoIP devices can be challenging. There are two cases to consider:
The Vodia PBX supports a wide range of VoIP devices, DECT phones, door phones and analog adapters (ATA). In many deployments, companies will be able to keep their existing VoIP phones, allowing cost savings for the rollout and purchase of new devices. For users with cell phones, installing the free Vodia app is a simple way to connect them.
Companies can combine “best of both worlds” to address large requirements from the Teams side and from the classical PBX side. The PBX can be run on-premises, operated by the organization itself, or it can be run in a multi-tenant environment as a service, so organizations don’t have to operate the PBX themselves. This especially makes sense with Office 365.
Microsoft Teams Direct Routing with Vodia
Simple Setup
The Vodia PBX makes the setup incredibly simple: connecting to Teams uses the PBX’s built-in SBC, and there is a drop-down for Teams trunks that will request information such as domain name – the trunk will be set up within seconds. The PBX will attempt to fetch the required X.509-certificate from a cloud service, so in most cases there are no additional costs for certificates (which are automatically renewed or uploaded).
Extensions can be marked as Teams extensions, which will trigger a call to Teams when the extension is dialed.
When a Teams extension calls a number outside the group, it sends the call to the PBX; if possible, the PBX will terminate the call to an internal resource or route the call to the public network (PSTN). PSTN termination can be done with a large number of SIP trunk providers. When more than one trunk is used, the PBX can route calls according to rules, which helps reduce termination costs, including domestic and international calls or calls to cell phones. There are myriad ways to report call records inside and outside the PBX; if necessary, external accounting software can be deployed.
Administrators can keep the user locations in the PBX and, if needed, the PBX can indicate the user’s location for emergency calls. When a user calls an emergency number, the PBX can notify staff about this important event by email, SMS and/or overhead paging with information about the user and his or her location; location can be synchronized with some SIP trunk providers, such as Bandwidth.
Other features of the Vodia PBX are easily accessible for Teams users. This includes overhead paging, where users can play live and recorded messages; the plug-and-play feature of the PBX makes it easy to install devices from an IP endpoint provider, such as CyberData, for this purpose (https://www.cyberdata.net/).
Requirements
Step-by-step instructions are available on the Vodia documentation page to help customers set up the Teams side – the administrator only needs to enter a few commands into a shell to instruct Teams to send and receive calls from the PBX. The PBX needs to be accessible over the public Internet, with firewall rules to ensure only the Microsoft servers have access to the PBX (in this case, the PBX can be run on a private IP address).
Offering Teams integration is a great opportunity for providers of Vodia hosted PBX, particularly as it reduced the amount of time customers need to set up the integration. Companies and organizations using the service don’t need internal resources to operate the integration: especially when PSTN termination is required, using a Vodia hosted PBX provider dramatically reduces the complexity of the solution while offering all the benefits of Teams integration.
The Vodia PBX comprises the most complete suite of robust business telephony features for on-premise and cloud-based telephony, including auto attendant, SMS, paging, separation of personal and work calls, conference calls, call recording, CRM integration and Microsoft Teams integration. If you’re looking for an integrated solution to provide telephony, Internet and Wi-Fi for your organization, contact us, sales@vodia.com.
The Vodia cloud PBX gives end-users the ability to service more than one caller simultaneously – it’s a native feature with our phone system. Our PBX comes with agent groups which are equipped to handle higher call volumes and sequentially distribute calls. Callers can receive a call back when it’s their turn, instead of holding. Agents can log in and out of the queues, and managers can see service level measurements like speed of answer.
The Vodia app also makes it so you can set business hours, for the entire company or for individual employees, all within the PBX. This means no one can call an employee late at night or on a weekend or holiday. This is a key requirement for many employees, who worry using their smartphones means receiving work calls at all hours.
With all this 21st century technology and the many “work from anywhere” requirements it satisfies, what about your phone system? For many of your clients and customers, your company’s phone number is the most direct and simplest way to engage with your organization. If your system is a traditional PBX, those old-fashioned wires make it so you’re anchored to your office if you want to make and receive calls, but there’s no need for this – you can move your entire phone system to the cloud!
