To activate a dial pad in Teams you will need to have deployed voice.
The most important part of deploying voice in Teams is to choose the method that works for you: Calling Plan, Operator Connect or Direct Routing. Depending on which method you choose, you will also have to include some additional Microsoft licensing.
There are currently three options for organizations looking to route calls to and from Microsoft Teams. Those three ways of enabling voice in Microsoft Teams include:
These three options all provide a native Teams dial pad within the Teams interface, meaning that outbound, inbound, and call controls are within the Teams environment.
The most efficient (and most popular) way of connecting your existing phone system to Teams is Direct Routing. Another increasingly popular way of voice enabling Teams is Operator Connect.
Direct Routing is a toolkit that allows the integration of an existing phone system with Microsoft Teams – allowing users to make and receive external phone calls via the Teams dial pad.
The technical explanation: Direct Routing enables you to make and receive phone calls via the public switched telephone network (PSTN). The connection is made using a Session Border Controller (SBC) and session initiation protocol (SIP) trunks.
The simple stuff: If you’re looking at Direct Routing as an option, one of the best ways to connect your existing phones to Teams with minimal investment, technical knowledge or technical setup required, is to deploy a Direct Routing as a Service (DRaaS) option. DRaaS provides all of the technical stack that you will need, including SBCs.
Operator Connect offers the Teams administrator the ability to engage with Carriers for their lines and minutes, knowing that they have an approved and certified connection with Microsoft Teams. It is the Microsoft-approved way for external Carriers to connect their phone systems to Teams. When selecting this option, end-users not only have the flexibility of choosing their own Carrier, they can also be assured that the service, quality and customer experience levels set out by Microsoft are being met.
To start making external calls in Teams via PSTN, you will need the following licensing, as part of your Microsoft 365 tenant. For Microsoft 365 Enterprise licensing, those on level E1 or E3 may need to add a Teams Phone license. Level E5 comes with voice capabilities. Those on a Microsoft 365 Business tenant, would need to purchase voice as a bundle. Read more here.
Thanks to our Call2Teams Go product, users can get calling with minimal licensing costs.
Partnering with Call2Teams is easy. Whether you’re a reseller, distributor or manufacturer, as part of a Call2Teams partnership we can ensure a rapid go-to-market and provide all the training and onboarding you will need. This means that we help with everything from portal proficiency to sales strategy. From there it is up to you what kind of shape the partnership takes – how you sell Call2Teams is entirely up to you. Our partnership doesn’t end once you start selling though, you will have a dedicated account manager alongside you every step of the way and full access to our support system.
Call2Teams follows a bespoke pricing structure. If you’re looking to find out more about the costs of Call2Teams you can reach out to your account manager or contact us here.
Onboarding with Call2Teams is incredibly streamlined. After a discovery call and contract signing you will have a 90 day ramp-up period. Directly after signing we will set up a live portal for you and begin getting you up to speed on sales training, give you access to our extensive library of learning materials, and train you using our portal. You will also have a direct link to our customer success team throughout the entire onboarding process.
As every Microsoft Tenant is different, setting up Call2Teams depends almost entirely upon your requirements. A simplified setup process includes contract signing, purchasing seats, adding configuration details, adding necessary authorisations and finally syncing to enable calling.
As part of your Call2Teams agreement you will also be able to work with our customer success team who will be able to smooth out any nuances and guide you through getting started.
Call2Teams is designed to play extremely well with others. It can be integrated with 30+ PBX networks and 30+ Trunk systems. If a customer is using multiple PBXs at once Call2Teams can operate with them all simultaneously, performing a single platform configuration across multiple regions.
Call2Teams Go is a platform agnostic middleware solution. It augments the Call2Teams for PBX solution by providing PSTN calling capabilities to your end users from the native Microsoft Teams client. It eliminates the need to add unnecessary Teams calling licenses — (only one is needed per tenant).
The Call2Teams Go client companion enables end users to have native dialing capability in Microsoft Teams and is used in replacement of, or alongside Teams Phone System, depending on the needs of the end customer’s end users.
Call2Teams Go is available in 3 delivery modes:
1. As an out-of-the-box solution – Simply use Call2Teams Go as an add-on to a Call2Teams PBX license
2. As a third party client companion – Use Call2Teams Go to boost the power of an existing 3rd third party client
3. Third party application – Use the Call2Teams Go APIs to create your own offering
Call2Teams Go is currently available for PBX users only, it is not available for Trunks users but why not have a conversation with your account manager about whether Call2Teams Go could help your organization to save money by switching to a PBX based solution?
Call2Teams Go is native middleware, not an app. This means that every action and voice experience stays wholly within Teams. Unlike other similar products, with Call2Teams Go no cross launch is necessary.
One of the core drivers in developing of Call2Teams Go has been to create a future-proof product that is both robust and carries minimal risk. As such we have ensured that Call2Teams Go is fully supported by Microsoft.
There are only a couple of differences between Call2Teams and Call2Teams Go. Unlike Call2Teams, Call2Teams Go is not capable of consultative transfer to PSTN, Call parking or call forwarding to another number. You can however mix and match Call2Teams and Call2Teams Go licenses if certain users need these advanced functions.
The prerequisites for Call2Teams Go include the following:
• Customers must have at least one available Microsoft Teams Phone Resource Account license in the tenant
• Within the Microsoft Tenant, customers must have at least a single Paid phone service to obtain and maintain a resource account license
• Customers must have sufficient Call2Teams licensing. When a user is added they consume one standard Call2Teams PBX license and one Call2Teams Go license
Enabling Call2Teams Go as an existing Call2Teams user is straightforward: Simply let your account manager know you’re ready to start, our teams will enable the feature on your account, then just follow the setup guide on our knowledgebase.
Just like Call2Teams for PBX, Call2Teams Go has global availability. Call2Teams Go operates in Microsoft’s Azure cloud and is served from super-clusters across four continents.