Teams phone demo

[Dedric Terry]

I work in the IS Department at a school and we (IS Dept) use Teams regularly and others are slowly getting around. Due to a mixed environment of Google Docs/Zoom users and M365 users, there is a lot of push back or silence whenever the topic of Teams comes up. It is my opinion that key to getting everyone to buy in is to add the calling feature to our system. We have an existing controller that will work with it (Mitel). Ideally we would not change our current phone system, instead we can just add our existing system to Teams adding the ability to call users extensions and outbound numbers. Is it possible to set up a demonstration or enable this ability for a small group? 

[#2]

Hi @Dedric Terry ,

Whilst this isn't a demonstration I can point you in the direction of a few resources regarding the subject of Direct Routing, which is what would enable you to utilise an existing Phone System within Teams:

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/MicrosoftTeams/direct-routing-configure

https://aka.ms/teams-phone-system

https://aka.ms/teams-dr-plan

https://aka.ms/teams-dr-config

https://aka.ms/teams-dr-migrate

I also imagine that one of the Session Border Controllers (SBC) vendors would probably be in a position to provide a demo. An SBC is what bridges the gap between your current phone system and teams, with Direct Routing.

Thanks

Henry

[#3 · Accepted solution]

@Dedric Terry 

Hi,

Some good links provided by the previous person but essentially, you will need an SBC. You would sit this in between your incoming SIP Trunk and your Mitel. Audiocodes\Ribbon would be the 2 main vendors.

You would then setup a Direct Routing connection between the SBC and Teams. When calls come into the SBC from the ITSP, you can then send the call to either Teams or the Mitel allowing you to demo calls and then eventually do a staged migrated approach.

A word of warning. If you've had no knowledge of SBC's then I would recommend engaging a 3rd party who's used to rolling out Direct Routing.  There's also a number of companies who offer hosted voice solutions for Teams PSTN to be demonstrated so you can test before purchasing an on-prem SBC.

Hope that helps.

[#4]

Thank you @HenryPhillipsNimbitech. I will share this information with my team. Your feedback is greatly appreciated.

[#5]

This is great information @fowler_23. Thank you, I'll share with my team and hopefully we can move forward on this. 

[#6]

@Dedric TerryYou can definitely fully integrate Mitel with MS Teams where it will allow you to dial in between and also allow Teams to call out your phone lines. How did your demo go?

[#7]

@kadenkelsey DO you have resources that show how the Mitel/Teams integration works so I can dial out of my deskphone fromv Teams app. Or see phone presence of my Mitel Phones in Teams. I would like to see that in action.