Teams PBX
IP Telephony with Microsoft PBX, Teams and Phone System
Microsoft 365 doesn’t stop at company-wide online storage, user identity services, online communications, and a complete software ecosystem. With Microsoft Teams Phone, Phone System, and Calling Plans, your entire telephone system can move to the cloud.
As part of its cloud-based VoIP telephony services, Microsoft can provide national and international numbers, sophisticated phone menu systems, secure call recording, and more. Everything integrates seamlessly into Teams and Outlook, and help4IT is on hand to advise, configure and deploy your new VoIP system.
What Microsoft Teams and Phone System PBX can do for you
Microsoft built its Teams unified communications platform for flexibility, so it’s your choice how you deploy and connect it. For ultimate integration and ease-of-use, Microsoft Phone System is a complete, cloud-based PBX, handling all your internal and external call routing.
If you already have a telephony solution you’re happy with, Direct Routing allows Microsoft Phone System to communicate with a PSTN (public switched telephone network) by connecting Phone System to your office phone network’s Session Border Controller (SBC).
If you make a full switch to Microsoft’s cloud telephony services, you can port existing numbers, assign new ones, add dial-in freephone numbers for your customers and, with correctly assigned locations for each user, ensure that emergency services numbers will work for everyone just as for any other phone connection.
Microsoft Teams Phone scales to the size of your business, with its entry-level Business Voice for Teams service starting from £9 per user, per month. It’s ideal for SMEs and includes 1,200 minutes of monthly UK calls for each user, as well as dial-in audio conferencing for up to 250 people.
For larger enterprises, the Microsoft 365 E5 tier includes a full Phone System PBX (Private Branch Exchange) as standard, either ready to link up to your on-premises phone system or via optional Microsoft Calling Plans for national or international dialling.
A communication credits system adds even more flexibility, allowing you to add funds to cover international calls and freephone dial-ins for audio conferences, while still keeping strict control over your balance.
Why choose Microsoft Phone System?
If your business infrastructure lives in the Microsoft 365 cloud, then it makes sense to keep your entire telephony system there with it. Microsoft Phone System is a comprehensive solution, with ability to make and receive calls, transfer them to colleagues, mute and unmute calls.
Phone System can be configured with features including call queues, name and extension based call direction, voicemail systems, hold music, caller ID, call parking, call recording, and auto attendants that can direct callers to an appropriate department based on vocal or phone keypad commands. Users can be given access to these features individually or in groups and sophisticated call routing flows are supported.
Within your organisation, calls are routed entirely within your Phone System without passing through an external PTSN, even if the caller and recipient are physically located in different countries. Internal calls never count against your users’ calling plan minutes.
Your users can place calls via Teams, Outlook or Microsoft Teams Mobile, or via a hardware VoIP desk phone. However you do it, there’s no divide between remote and office-based staff. Colleagues can use their mobile phone, or a desktop or laptop PC with any combination of headphones and mic. Supported operating systems include Windows, macOS, Linux, iOS and Android, with other platforms supported via a web interface.
A range of hardware VoIP desk phones are certified for Microsoft Teams and Phone System, including major brands such as Poly, Yealink and Audiocodes. Just plug in and sign in to securely connect any desk phone to your Microsoft Phone System, no matter where your team works.
For firms redeploying existing hardware assets, a new SIP Gateway, currently in the Teams public preview channel, adds support for an increasing number of SIP desk phones, including Cisco and older Polycom devices.
The help4IT advantage
With well over a decade of experience in designing and deploying IP PBX and VoIP solutions, from Asterisk to Lync, help4IT’s experts know their way around IP telephony.
As a certified Microsoft Partner, we can handle number porting and provisioning, design your auto attendant menu systems, configure audio meeting and call recording policies, roll out hardware and bring your staff up to speed.
Whether you’re looking for honest advice on the best phone system for your business, migrating your entire infrastructure to Microsoft 365, or connecting Microsoft 365 and Teams to your existing telephony system, help4IT has the know-how and the solutions to support you.
