Discover Microsoft Teams Cloud Calling

What is it and how to get started?

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Discover Microsoft Teams Cloud Calling
Collaboration

Published: November 26, 2020

UC Today News

Technology Journalist

As companies rely more and more on cloud-based platforms like Teams, it is only a matter of time until it becomes a business staple even for traditional communication channels like telephony. Prescient as always, Microsoft has spent the better part of the last few quarters on strengthening telephony on Teams. You can now go well beyond the occasional phone call or a video-less group conference for collaboration. Microsoft Teams Cloud Calling supports advanced use cases such as webinars, telephone customer support, and even full-fledged contact centres, thanks to the newly released Advanced Communication plan.

But we are getting ahead of ourselves – before you can deploy Microsoft Teams for use cases outside of the original notion of team-based collaboration, we must answer one basic question. What is Microsoft Teams Cloud Calling?

Understanding Microsoft Teams Cloud Calling

Teams gives you a bunch of options when setting up a telephony system. In addition to Microsoft Teams Cloud Calling, you can also stay with your existing Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) infrastructure, or opt for a combination of cloud and PSTN, depending on the region.

Microsoft Teams Cloud Calling can be defined as an entirely cloud-based telephony system where the Microsoft 365 Cloud acts as the intermediary between Teams users and the back-end PSTN infrastructure, with Microsoft effectively becoming your PSTN carrier.

Microsoft will provide you with a set of four numbers that can be used internally, externally, across domestic channels, as well as for international calls. At the moment, cloud calling is available for both Teams and Skype for Business Online – but the latter will be retired soon, giving sole priority to the Microsoft Teams Cloud Calling offering.

Why Use Microsoft Teams Cloud Calling Vs. Traditional Telephony Systems?

The Teams cloud calling solution comes with several advantages over traditional telephony systems.

  1. To begin with, you gain from the resilience of the public cloud. Regardless of internal conditions or local carrier availability, your telephony lines will remain up and running. At Ignite, Microsoft also announced the survivable branch appliance (SBA) for Teams telephony to keep emergency lines running even when you are offline
  2. New businesses can quickly procure and assign phone numbers without going through a complex carrier subscription process. Currently, automated phone number generation is available in ten countries when you use Microsoft Teams Cloud Calling
  3. You get all the benefits of a cloud-based contact centre, built into the Teams platform. The offering supports configurable call queues with custom greetings, music on hold, and shared voicemail on the cloud. Teams can convert voicemail into transcriptions to streamline your service requests
  4. Microsoft Teams Cloud Calling comes with advanced routing capabilities through its auto-attendant feature. The auto-attendant registers customer preferences and your user availability to rout calls as per time zone, language, and other parameters
  5. You can switch between a one-on-one telephone conversation and a rich video calling experience at the click of a button. Microsoft Teams Cloud Calling blends our usual video conferencing experiences with business telephony, giving you the best of both communication and collaboration worlds
  6. Cloud Calling is a priority feature for Microsoft right now, so you can expect the experience to consistently improve over time. In August 2020 the company announced upgrades to Teams Calling, consolidating the myriad telephony options on the Teams platform that have been scaling gradually. And this isn’t limited to software features – Microsoft’s certified endpoints like SIP phones, 3PIP phones, USB phones, and the new Microsoft displays all work with Cloud Calling seamlessly

But is Microsoft Teams Cloud Calling for everyone, or are there any prerequisites that can hold back implementation?

Prerequisites for Microsoft Teams Cloud Calling

There aren’t any prerequisites that could hold back adoption as such, but you do need a Phone System add-on license and, of course, a Teams client installed for every user. Microsoft will bundle in PSTN capabilities that kick into action when connecting with external users.

All internal communication – even between geographically dispersed offices – happens entirely on the cloud, saving you significantly on long-distance costs.

The steps for setting up Microsoft Teams Cloud Calling are simple:

  • From this page, select your relevant country and check if Phone System is available. Review the features closely before buying any licenses
  • If Calling Plans are not available (which is the case for smaller regions, like say, Cyprus) you will not be able to use Microsoft Teams Cloud Calling. In such scenarios, the company recommends using your on-premise PSTN infrastructure instead
  • From your admin centre, add on a Phone System license. Once the Phone System is live, you can add on Calling Plans to enable fully cloud-based telephony
  • You can choose either a domestic Calling Plan or a Domestic + International Calling Plan, depending on your requirement. The plan will include several built-in numbers that you can assign to specific users
  • Following these basic steps, you can configure Teams to support call-in-based audio conferencing, cloud-based call queues, and the cloud auto-attendant

So, to quickly recap, you need an office in a Calling Plan-compatible region, and a Microsoft Phone Systems license to get started with cloud calling on Teams. The solution also lets you set-up Cloud Voicemail (powered by Azure cloud), which will deposit audio records and its text transcription to an exchange mailbox. The feature is automatically provisioned once you assign a user their phone number on Teams.

Transforming Microsoft Teams into a Holistic Collaboration App

Microsoft is leaving no stone unturned as it strives to become a one-stop solution for business collaboration and communication. The company realised that 1-on-1 calls remain a mostly untapped space, with users preferring traditional carriers via smartphone or consumer VoIP apps like WhatsApp, Messenger, etc. to talk to their colleagues. Microsoft Teams Cloud Calling hopes to introduce a smarter alternative that will reduce IT fragmentation for companies and remove any inconvenience of switching between apps for end-users.

We are looking at a growing captive audience for Teams, as Microsoft presciently identifies and addresses users’ unspoken requirements.

 

 

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