UC Round Table: Adding Voice to Microsoft Teams

Microsoft Teams, as with many other UC platforms, has been revelatory for enabling digital collaboration and communication between employees, including instant messaging and video. However, there is one prominent feature it is missing — voice. While Teams is an enormously helpful tool for business worldwide, embedding voice into workflows is more important than ever.

Rather than changing platforms, many businesses are instead looking for solutions to add voice to Teams instead. There are myriad methods of integrating voice into Teams, each involving its own upsides and challenges. Naturally, the issue is the catalyst for compelling discussion among leading voices in UC and collaboration.

With our latest Round Table subject, “Adding Voice to Teams” we spoke with experts and executives from Vonage, Fusion Connect, AudioCodes, Sinch Voice, CallTower, and Pure IP, about the best strategies for adding voice to Teams, what is the most in-demand method for integrating voice to Teams, the challenges that businesses face when adding voice, and how Operator Connect and direct routing can work in tandem.

How Should Businesses Approach Choosing the Right Path to Adding Voice to Microsoft Teams?

Ian Guest, Marketing Director, Pure IP

Guest breaks down the business approaches for adding voice into three deployment options: Calling Plans, Operator Connect and Direct Routing. “Each method has its merits and sweet spots,” Guest said, “but it is important to recognise that it is not a case of either/or when it comes to choosing. The three options can be used harmoniously together.”

“As with any project,” Guest elaborated, “the decision should be driven by the business requirements and factor in a combination of technical and non-technical considerations. For example, Calling Plans typically gives you the vanilla telephony service in selected countries, with the convenience of it all being managed through the 365 admin for a bundled per-user, per-month price.”

If a user’s needs are more complex, Guest argued that the decision will come down to Direct Routing, Operator Connect, or a combination of the two. “Both are bring your own carrier (BYOC) models and will provide a robust, resilient and secure solution for Teams Calling,” Guest added. “Both are potentially more cost-effective than Calling Plans depending on the provider’s pricing model.”

Direct Routing is typically more suited to fulfilling complex routing or integration requirements, whereas Operator Connect provides a simplified management and provisioning process, similar to that of Calling Plans, and satisfies nearly all the standard enterprise telephony requirements. From our experience, many organisations are turning towards Operator Connect for core services, with Direct Routing used for the edge case requirements.”

Leon Frankel, Senior Director, Product Management, Vonage

Frankel believed businesses wishing to add calling capabilities to Teams need to first assess their core business needs and by department. “It’s important to understand call volume and geography of calls,” Frankel said, “as well as the kind of hardware already in place — IP phones, legacy hardware — or if teams are using apps for calling purposes. In addition, what are customer-facing department needs beyond basic calling functionality: are there advanced routing needs?”

“Reliability and redundancy for calling is also a factor,” Frankel added. “What is the disaster recovery plan should Microsoft Teams experience an event? Can employees continue to place calls, message or even conduct video meetings? Selecting a communication vendor that integrates with Microsoft Teams is critical for disaster recovery. All of these will help to decide which integration path to follow, what calling plan/bundles are needed, and what international presence looks like.”

Frankel argued that after reliability and redundancy comes integration needs and options. Factors include the frequency with which employees use Teams, the onboarding process for integrating calling capabilities, and whether the process will require complex IT involvement.

“Selecting a communication vendor that can seamlessly add calling and SMS without disruption to the business is key. Do they have a contact centre that needs to be integrated with Teams as well? Understanding the various integration options, benefits and associated costs will help to determine the best way forward — whether a single integration method or a hybrid approach with different integration methods for different users.”

Judy Arnold, Product Marketing Manager, Sinch Voice

Arnold said that understanding your specific business environment is necessary before choosing how best to integrate calling into Teams. “Consider what percent of employees are using Microsoft 365 and Teams on a regular basis,” Arnold expanded, “if they’re in the office, remote, or hybrid, how staff communicates with customers, what you’re using for your current phone system, and your growth plans. Remote and hybrid environments are easily supported by Teams calling while enhancing collaboration.”

Arnold added that for companies scaling quickly, Operator Connect or Direct Routing can provide cost savings by consolidating systems and reducing infrastructure needs: “Operator Connect and Direct Routing also allow a customer to maintain their relationship with their chosen service provider. It also makes sense to choose a service provider who offers both Direct Routing and Operator Connect for flexibility if needs change.”

Jason Wyatt, Marketing Manager, EMEA, AudioCodes

Wyatt highlighted a multi-step approach, “all of which are essential elements to adding voice to Microsoft Teams and traditionally form part of a Microsoft Teams Discovery Workshop,” he said.

These include assessing business requirements, understanding all the available options, including Direct Routing with certified SBCs, or cloud-based telephony services, and evaluating different deployment options to see which fulfil the users’ needs. “Considering integration capabilities with Teams, including ease of deployment and management, CRM, and Call Recording,” Wyatt continued. “Evaluate pricing and licensing, this is a key area as often additional add-ons are required such as MS Phone System if not on an E5 Plan.”

The next steps include assessing support and reliability relative to the needs of the business, testing the solution for the specific environment, and factoring in potential scalability in the future. Lastly, Wyatt said users should be “providing user training and adoption plans, key consideration, Champion Building. Considering long-term partnership with a reliable vendor for ongoing support and innovation.”

Adam Pottorff, Channel Director, CallTower

Pottorff believed customers need to decide whether they want a native solution (“leveraging the Microsoft Cloud PBX in Teams”) or a non-native solution (“leveraging a 3rd party PBX in Teams”). “If they determine that a native solution would serve their organization best then Operator Connect would be the way to go,” Pottorff said.

George Schoenstein, SVP of Marketing, Fusion Connect

Schoenstein believed adding voice to Teams comes down to deciding between Operator Connect and Direct Routing. The fundamental question is: “What level of support does the business need to manage its calling service?”

“Direct Routing is best suited for organizations with more complex configurations, customized programming, or third-party integrations with CRM systems, call centres, or other applications,” Schoenstein said. “Using this method, a service provider like Fusion Connect does all the heavy lifting. They configure the environment, assign and upload numbers, manage changes, and more.”

Direct Routing is the orthodox method of managing voice in Teams, but Schoenstein believed Operator Connect is a viable option for organizations of all sizes looking for more flexibility and control, as it allows them to “manage all their own moves, adds, and changes through an intuitive portal.”

“When it comes to selecting a Microsoft Certified Partner,” Schoenstein expanded, “businesses should look for a provider that also delivers enterprise-class features — availability in multiple countries, disaster recovery and failover capabilities to ensure voice continues to work even in the event of a Teams outage, and premium features like receptionist console, compliance call recording, and SMS — to obtain a truly complete and secure business phone system.”

Which Method of Adding Voice to Microsoft Teams do you see the Most Demand for, and why?

Judy Arnold, Product Marketing Manager, Sinch Voice

Arnold explained that Operator Connect is where Sinch Voice are noticing the most demand. “Customers tell us Operator Connect is easier to use and manage, deploy, and integrate,” Arnold said. “It’s a much less complex process — they get enhanced customer service and support and like the opportunity to choose their own carrier.”

“Sinch Voice recently announced a new white-label program, Operator Connect for Partners, allowing our service providers, managed service providers, and value-added resellers to provide Microsoft Teams voice calling to their customers.”

George Schoenstein, SVP of Marketing, Fusion Connect

Schoenstein said Fusion Connect is also seeing the most demand for Operator Connect for Microsoft Teams. “Operator Connect offers businesses a level of control not available with other delivery mechanisms, allowing company admins to easily manage number assignments, users, and calling features on their own time,” he said. “It eliminates potential setup and configuration delays that come with Direct Routing and streamlines the provisioning process.”

Schoenstein explained that organizations still choosing Direct Routing do so because they have a subset of their employee population with more complex, customized voice and collaboration needs: “This could include, for instance, a group of call centre operators that need to be able to integrate Calling capabilities with their CRM platform.”

Jason Wyatt, Marketing Manager, EMEA, AudioCodes

Wyatt acknowledged that less than 10 percent of Microsoft’s 280 million monthly active users have enabled Enterprise Voice, so it’s “no surprise” that AudioCodes are “still seeing huge demand for Direct Routing, closely followed by Operator Connect. Most organisations have either legacy infrastructure or complex integrations, with staged migration plans from existing telephony.”

“Direct Routing for all of these use cases is by far the best option, it allows the flexibility to manage all of these requirements, Operator Connect also allows some flexibility, however, this really depends upon the provider and the solutions they offer/support.”

Adam Pottorff, Channel Director, CallTower

As with Sinch Voice and Fusion Connect, Pottorff and CallTower have seen the most demand for Operator Connect. “Most of the demand can be attributed to the fact that phone numbers are assigned to the users in the Teams admin portal,” he said. “For example, if a new user comes on board the organization will log into their O365 portal and create the user and assign them a license (M365 E5 for example). Once that takes place, the user will appear in the Teams admin portal and a CallTower phone number can be added to the user from there!”

Pottorff added that CallTower uses Microsoft Azure Peering Service (MAPS), “which provides dedicated connections directly into the core of Microsoft.”

Ian Guest, Marketing Director, Pure IP

Guest and Pure IP also noted the momentum behind Operator Connect. “As an original launch partner for Operator Connect,” he says, “we’ve seen it go from strength to strength and grow as the most in-demand option for PSTN connectivity. The reason being, it blends the best features from Calling Plans and Direct Routing, giving the best of both worlds.”

Guest argued that it offers the same ease of use as Calling Plans but with the flexibility of Direct Routing, where business are “required to cater for complex routing or integration requirements to other applications such as Contact Centres, analogue devices, operator consoles and call recording, to name a few,” Guest said. “It is quite common to have a combination of both, particularly in larger, multi-national organisations, or businesses with a blend of knowledge and frontline workers such as manufacturing and healthcare environments.”

Leon Frankel, Senior Director, Product Management, Vonage

Frankel said that a hybrid approach is the most popular option among Vonage’s customers looking to add premium call capabilities to Teams. “Many organizations are using a combination of our Vonage Business Communications (VBC) unified communications integrations, which provide calling options to meet their business communication needs,” he explained.

“VBC for Microsoft Teams enables organizations and departments to add 20+ full-featured calling capabilities,” Frankel added. “For more cost-conscious organizations, VBC Voice For Microsoft Teams solution offers basic PBX grade calling within the Microsoft Teams experience without requiring the cost per user Microsoft phone license.”

What are the Common Challenges/Pitfalls Businesses Face when Integrating Voice with Microsoft Teams, and how can they be Navigated?

Jason Wyatt, Marketing Manager, EMEA, AudioCodes

Wyatt believed such challenges can range from “the complexity of deployment, interoperability with existing systems, compliance requirements, user adoption and training, scalability and performance, cost and budget considerations, and vendor selection and support.”

Wyatt argued an effective way of discovering these challenges is via “a thorough Discovery Workshop”. “If an organisation is at all unsure,” he said, “then it should seek assistance from an experienced vendor/consultant.”

Adam Pottorff, Channel Director, CallTower

Pottorff said that if a business seeks a native solution, then “they need to find a partner who can incorporate call centre features, overhead paging, point-to-point call recording and SMS/MMS.”

George Schoenstein, SVP of Marketing, Fusion Connect

Schoenstein cited user adoption and call quality as two of the most common challenges businesses face in adding voice to Teams. “By working with a managed communications service provider that specializes in Microsoft Teams Calling services,” Schoenstein said.

Businesses can ensure proper training of employees to familiarize their workforce with the features and benefits of calling services and optimize their use of the platform. For employees who are still hesitant to swap out their desktop phones for a PC with headphones, organizations can provide a Teams-enabled desk phone that enables them to realize the benefits of a unified collaboration platform with the hardware they’re accustomed to.”

Schoenstein believed that call quality is a challenge that can be avoided with a “professionally-designed network infrastructure”. “Look for a partner that couples Microsoft Teams Calling Services with other services, like SD-WAN, to properly prioritize call traffic over competing demands for bandwidth,” he added. “This is key to ensuring enterprise-class call quality that meets requirements, and in doing so, helps drive platform adoption.”

Leon Frankel, Senior Director, Product Management, Vonage

Frankel argued that one of the biggest challenges businesses face is not “understanding the full use cases by department and trying to go with a ‘one size fits all’ approach,” which can create staff dissatisfaction and reduce productivity.

Frankel described technical challenges too: “Selecting a UC provider to power voice for Microsoft Teams that lacks optional calling features, is difficult to set up/configure and taxes IT,  and doesn’t provide reliability and redundancy for the additional expense and effort, can hinder the benefits of voice integration.”

Frankel also believed selecting a provider with ongoing support is essential, citing Vonage’s simple onboarding approach which reduces the complexities of integrating with Teams. “While VBC was designed to be self-service and easy to configure, in the unlikely event customers do run into any challenges, our professional services and support teams are always there to assist and help,” Frankel said.

Judy Arnold, Product Marketing Manager, Sinch Voice

Arnold pointed out that because any business’s integration with Microsoft’s phone system requires designing and implementing features based on specific customer needs, companies often don’t have the resources to manage this customization.  

Arnold also argued that migration of existing services when onboarding can be an issue. “During these migrations,” she said, “a layer of complexity can impact business operations during the cutover process from minutes to hours. Identifying existing Microsoft services such as Microsoft Online Direct Routing, Microsoft Teams Calling Plans, or moving from one Operator Connect provider to another is a key element to a smooth transition and anticipating possible impacts to plan accordingly.”

Arnold concluded by saying that Sinch Voice is planning to offer “professional services for onboarding and support to help customers in their journey to use the Microsoft Teams phone system as their primary mode for voice communications”.

Ian Guest, Marketing Director, Pure IP

Guest highlighted three common challenges. Firstly, “knowing what you have”. “It sounds simple,” Guest elaborated, “but the bigger and more dispersed the organisation, the more complex it becomes to get a complete picture of what you have in your estate, which is often the starting point for identifying or designing what you need. We see this quite frequently and it can add considerable delays for the project team. Our approach to helping clients with this discovery process is to use an automated tool which can be deployed to collect and collate key system data from existing platforms, thus fast-tracking the process.”

The second issue is geographic coverage. Multinational organisations desire a solution in each region using as fewer providers as possible for cost and management reasons. “The more they have to split up the project, the more complex it becomes,” Guest said. “We have put great effort into obtaining licenses to provide compliant PSTN replacement services in as many different countries as possible, currently 47, to alleviate this challenge for our customers. In addition, we have created a Managed SBC service (SBCaaS) as a solution for those countries where PSTN replacement is not available.”

Guest’s third challenge is handling analogue or legacy infrastructure, which he believed is “probably the most common challenge of all”. “With an understandable desire to move as much of communications estate to the cloud, how do you continue to support other services such as common area phones, lift phones, door entry systems, and fax services, that still perform a vital role? How do you incorporate these into a joined-up, integrated environment with a seamless user experience? Our answer is to integrate them into the new solution, supporting the current workflows as far as possible.”

How do you see Operator Connect and Direct Routing Coexisting?

Judy Arnold, Product Marketing Manager, Sinch Voice

Arnold said there are pros and cons for each Teams calling program option, depending on the organisation’s size, structure, and environment.

Larger organizations with complex systems may prefer Direct Routing if they have an internal IT team to handle integrations and management, while Operator Connect allows enterprises to lean on the expertise of their approved Microsoft Service Provider to assist in the deployment and configuration of the Teams PBX.”

Arnold added that because Direct Routing requires a Microsoft Teams-certified Session Border Controller (SBC), “we’ve seen customers move from direct routing to Operator Connect to simplify their operations.”

Ian Guest, Marketing Director, Pure IP

Guest believed that it’s not only possible for them to coexist, but that a hybrid of the two is often the best solution for Pure IP’s customers. “Operator Connect is a strong offering and stacks up in most key areas, but there are some cases where it doesn’t meet customer requirements. For example, if your provider does not offer geographic coverage on Operator Connect in one of your required locations, you’ll need to utilise Direct Routing for a local solution. In that case, you can use Operator Connect for countries that are covered and direct routing for ones that are not.”

Guest added that there are scenarios where a business’s telephony estate requires integrations with other apps not accessible via Operator Connect: “In that case, you could use direct routing in conjunction with Operator Connect to enable those legacy integrations.”

George Schoenstein, SVP of Marketing, Fusion Connect

Schoenstein said that Direct Routing and Operator Connect can “absolutely coexist as complementary methods of adding voice to Microsoft Teams. At Fusion Connect, many of our customers use both methods to deliver voice to different subsets of their employee base.”

Schoenstein offered an example where a company might have 80 employees needing standard calling, but 30 call centre agents need to connect to their CRM platform. “We’d stand up the 80 employees on Operator Connect and use Direct Routing for the 30 call centre agents,” Schoeinstein said. “For the 30 that use Direct Routing, we’d handle all the programming, configuration, and future changes for them. This scenario, in which Operator Connect and Direct Routing coexist, is becoming increasingly common as organizations seek more control and flexibility over their calling services.”

Adam Pottorff, Channel Director, CallTower

Portorff believed that “for the providers using Direct Routing in a native fashion, I see them eventually moving to Operator Connect and the providers who want to continue using a 3rd party PBX integrated into Teams will continue to use Direct Routing.”

Jason Wyatt, Marketing Manager, EMEA, AudioCodes

Wyatt argued that Microsoft Calling Plans should be factored into the equation with Operator Connect and Direct Routing, as “all three options can be the best solution for many multisite or multinational organisations”.

Wyatt expanded: “Microsoft Calling Plans are very simplistic, you can choose a plan that offers the best domestic and multinational minutes, which is ideal for small offices/remote offices that have simplistic requirements. Both Operator Connect and Direct Routing offer flexibility and customization options for businesses to connect their Teams environment to external voice services according to their specific requirements.”

On the coexistence of Operator Connect and Direct Routing, Wyatt said that Microsoft may continue to develop and enhance both options with greater capabilities while “supporting interoperability between the two options”. “Businesses can evaluate the features, capabilities, and costs of Operator Connect and Direct Routing,” Wyatt concluded, “and choose the one that best aligns with their specific requirements and strategies for integrating voice services with Microsoft Teams.”