Anyone here using Teams VoIP integration

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hairy1

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#272808 17-Jul-2020 09:35

I run IT for a small non profit which is now fully Office 365 and using Teams heavily.

With COVID and working from home it makes sense to port our existing Spark VoIP to Teams. Is anyone here using it?
Is it worth the hassle and how did you go about it?

Cheers, Matt.

My views (except when I am looking out their windows) are not those of my employer.

nztim

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#2524563 17-Jul-2020 09:44

*Watches with Interest*

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tanivula

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#2524575 17-Jul-2020 10:06

nztim:

*Watches with Interest*

me too!

OmniouS

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#2524579 17-Jul-2020 10:17

I believe Spark offers a per-user based license for fully/mostly managed Teams/voice integration. Alternatively, you could purchase or virtualise a SBC and some Spark Voice Connect SIP trunks and manage the integration yourself.

We have mostly migrated to Teams but still use Skype for Business for voice calls (using Spark SIP trunks + Virtual SBCs). We'll be trialling Teams voice integration soon (via both options above). Once major concern that we have is around voice quality as I believe the voice traffic would need to go via Microsoft's servers in Australia (I guess until the NZ datacenter opens in a couple of years).

hairy1

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#2524585 17-Jul-2020 10:28

Calling @hio77

Would you be able to put me in touch with someone at Spark who knows about Teams?

Cheers, Matt.

My views (except when I am looking out their windows) are not those of my employer.

ResponseMediaNZ

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#2524592 17-Jul-2020 10:58

I also know Kordia are now doing this as well

https://www.kordia.co.nz/news-and-views/kordia-introduces-direct-routing-for-microsoft-teams

Remember you will need to be on a Microsoft Office 365 Premium and Enterprise 3 (and higher)

backwards

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#2524608 17-Jul-2020 11:11

We've priced it out for a few people and the cost of the licenses to enable the voice calling using PSTN with Teams is quite high. There are also only a few providers that are configured to work with Teams as well. We've done one deployment for a larger outfit but most smaller to medium workplaces find that things like 3cx work just as well to enable remote working with their robust mobile and Chrome apps.

Nate001

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#2524656 17-Jul-2020 12:12

Our company said they would be moving from VoIP Skype for Business to Teams (>1000 people). We are well past the initial change over date given so I imagine something in the backend is more complicated than anticipated.

speed

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#2524687 17-Jul-2020 12:56

Unsolicited suggestion of other integration options for teams:

https://hero.co.nz/teams.html

https://www.2talk.co.nz/director

Having said that, I have zero expertese with teams and have tried neither solution.

hio77

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#2524694 17-Jul-2020 13:09

hairy1: Calling @hio77

Would you be able to put me in touch with someone at Spark who knows about Teams?

Cheers, Matt.

I'll ask, i don't engauge much with that area of the business I'm more cloesr to the Cloudphone stuff...

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Any comments made are personal opinion and do not reflect directly on the position my current or past employers may have.

CYaBro

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#2524695 17-Jul-2020 13:15

Yup I am via 2talk and their DirectoR product.

It does cost a bit, as you need to have the appropriate license for each user in your tenant that needs to use it, and there's also a cost for each number/trunk you want to use with Teams via 2talk.

Was a bit of fun getting it set up originally as you do need to run some Powershell scripts on your 365 tenant to get it all configured, but 2talk have a wizard with videos that walks you through the process.

It works great as I've got my main business number on there now so any incoming calls ring the normal VoIP desk phone as well as in Teams so I can answer the call from anywhere as I have the Teams app on my iPhone.
Teams also prompts with the incoming call on my desktop and laptop but I don't answer on those as I don't have a headset. :)

Teams has voicemail with transcription which is great as I can read any messages left rather than having to listen to them, although it makes for some funny reading at times.

If you use Teams a lot like I do it's great having the calling in there as well.

Opinions are my own and not the views of my employer.

bender

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#2526328 21-Jul-2020 07:47

We (Vorco) have a Teams calling product. Our SBC’s are located in Auckland and we have media bypass so media remains in NZ.

Setup is very fast, around 1-2 hours (once an account is setup). We have a free trial as well.

More info here https://www.vorco.net/voice/microsoft-teams/

Most customers go with just using the Teams software clients on desktop/mobile. Some buy Polycom or Yealink handsets. I’d recommend Polycom over Yealink - my experience with the Yealink ones is the touchscreen is horrible and they are laggy.

Also you don’t need to have E1/3/5 licenses there is also the Business Voice add-on for the Business plans as of April.

Hit me with any technical questions.

djmoz

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#2526749 21-Jul-2020 20:16

Sounds good - any one had any success with sending text to mobiles from Teams in NZ?

bender

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#2527016 22-Jul-2020 12:09

Not natively, but Teams does let you integrate websites into the tabs at the top of a channel so if you can pull together a third party solution then that'd be the way to do it. I think any native SMS integration for NZ would be unlikely just on the basis that landline texting never happened here... See https://microsoftteams.uservoice.com/forums/555103-public/suggestions/38034796-sms-mms-in-teams-phone-system there's some a comment from someone who has integrated Twilio/SignalWire (and upvote the suggestion if SMS is important to you).