Avaya is a global unified communications giant, founded in 2000 as an independent arm of Lucent, originally spun off from AT&T in 1995. In short, the company draws from a rich history of innovation in telecommunications and has continued to push the envelope, launching a series of products focused on the cloud and UCaaS. Despite a rollercoaster ride (forcing it to file for bankruptcy in 2017), the company has maintained its market leadership. After completing its debt restructuring in less than a year, it successfully reinstated its position as a publicly-traded company on the NYSE.
A big part of Avaya’s growth journey is its ability to support and co-exist with other surrounding technology systems, even gaining from them through seamless interoperability. In 2019, Avaya announced a virtual assistant app for Slack, allowing Avaya users to use its Spaces and Equinox Conferencing services from the Slack interface. Soon after, in 2020, the app made its debut for Microsoft Teams.
Avaya Assistant for Teams lets business owners and organisations use Microsoft Teams for telephony without purchasing additional licenses, among other capabilities.
Inside Avaya Assistant for Microsoft Teams
In 2019, we reported that Avaya would launch an integrated virtual assistant or Slack at the Avaya Engage user conference. Now, users can get a similar experience for Teams by downloading the integration from the Microsoft Teams app store. Managers can also proactively visit Microsoft AppSource to deploy the integration for their organisation.
Here are the features it offers:
- The Avaya Assistant messaging extension: The primary way the Avaya Assistant app works is through the messaging extension. Once admins have installed the app, the Avaya icon appears right below the message to compose the area in private/group chats and channel conversations. Users can also trigger the extension by directly typing @Avaya in the compose area.
- Access to Avaya Spaces from Teams: There are two ways to connect to Avaya’s infrastructure from the Teams platform. The first is by routing the request through Avaya Spaces, which is like a persistent meeting and collaboration space for a team. Users can choose a space when they click on the Avaya Assistant messaging extension, provided they are already signed in with an Avaya Spaces account.
- Connecting Avaya to Active Directory: Using the company’s Teams integration, users can make calls to contacts outside their Avaya Address Book. To utilise this functionality, admins and users need to set up Avaya with Microsoft Active Directory, allowing users to call someone directly on their associated phone number.
- Support for Chrome, Firefox, and Microsoft Edge: The Avaya Assistant app works with Teams on several platforms, including popular browsers such as Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, and Microsoft Edge. Users will also be able to access the app on mobile, provided they have the necessary Avaya Equinox and Avaya Spaces apps installed for iOS and Android mobile devices.
- Access to Avaya Equinox Conferencing from Teams: Apart from Spaces, users can also call Teams users via the Avaya equinox Video Conferencing Service. Once again, this capability will depend on the type of Avaya license the organisation has, and the specific Equinox features it uses.
- Access to Avaya IX™ Workplace from Teams: A recent update to Avaya assistant introduced support for the Avaya IX™ Workplace service in Teams. If users subscribe to this new capability from Avaya that consolidates UC, collaboration, and next-gen hardware devices, they can access it from the Assistant on Teams.
Why the Avaya Assistant App Makes a Difference
Avaya has a massive user base, deployed at over a million customer locations worldwide. At the same time, Microsoft Teams’ user numbers are constantly growing, rising to 115 million in Q4 2020. As a result, there will be a sizable customer segment with investments in both platforms and unwilling to let go of either. This integration staves off that request and ensures that users continue to gain value using Avaya infrastructure for telephony and Microsoft Teams as a front-end interface.
The Avaya Virtual Assistant is easy to use and addresses an everyday use case. The ability to make calls from any platform and any browser adds to its competitive advantage.
What We Think
Companies looking to use Teams for telephony but unsure about investing in Microsoft phone licenses should consider integrating with Avaya. The app is available to download here.
