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As a Microsoft Partner, you’re already know the power of Microsoft Teams. It may already be a cornerstone of your managed services practice.
With over 270 million daily active users, Teams is almost the corporate standard, globally known for conferencing and messaging.
But what about for business calling?
While calling might sound basic, it is a critical requirement for small business and enterprise. Millions of Australian businesses still rely on phone calls to serve their customers.
Being able to deliver calling in Teams is therefore a natural way to value-add your Partner services. And being able to do this quickly and at scale could supercharge your ICT business.
One of the lesser-known features of Microsoft Teams is ‘Direct Routing’ – the ability to switch on external calling. Such as calls with customers and suppliers, or anyone outside of a business.
With Direct Routing enabled, Teams users can make and receive phone calls using their established business phone numbers. In effect, this transforms Teams into a business phone system (PBX).
This simple – but critical – capability means that your customers can bring all their communication services into Teams.
That also means bringing more of their services to you as their Microsoft Partner.
The process of deploying Direct Routing can be daunting for Microsoft Partners who are unfamiliar with the telecom environment.
Direct Routing connects the Microsoft 365 environment, via Teams, with the Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN).
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To keep it high level, Direct Routing requires four elements:
Let’s explore each of these in turn:
Microsoft provides an excellent guide on the required user licensing for Teams Direct Routing (you can read it here).
As a rule of thumb, users should have premium Business or Enterprise licenses, plus separate ‘Teams phone’ and ‘audio conferencing’ licenses.
As a Microsoft Partner, you will benefit from upgrading your clients to higher value licenses. Teams-based calling may be a compelling reason for your clients to consider upgrading.
By choosing white label SIP provider you will be able to create your own SIP calling plans, so you earn recurring revenue each month.
Be aware that if you choose to refer your customers to a Big Telco, there are risks. Many Australian telcos are also Microsoft Partners and may compete against you for your customers’ business.
Session border controllers (SBCs) act as a ‘virtual border’ between your Teams environment and the PSTN, allowing only authorised communication sessions to pass through.
The challenge is: Teams-certified SBCs are expensive and complex to deploy. They are generally the domain of Microsoft Partners with significant experience in IP communications and call routing.
The alternative is a managed SBC-as-a-Service, which can be delivered as part of a white label Direct Routing solution. This eliminates the need to purchase and manage an on-premises SBC so you can deliver calling services faster, and with less upfront cost.
PowerShell is essential for delivering Direct Routing. It is required for service and number provisioning, for dial plan configuration, as well as routine Adds / Moves / Changes.
Many Microsoft Partners are familiar with the required scripting. But few are prepared for the time and manual effort required when using to manage phone services.
Even seemingly simple changes require a (costly) PowerShell expert, and many lines of script. This is one of the reasons that Direct Routing is far more complex than it seems.
But what if we told you there was a way to automate and simplify this busywork?
We created Unite Calling so that MSPs and Microsoft Partners could design and deliver Direct Routing services without engineers.
No infrastructure. No PowerShell. No wasted time.
Unite Calling is a 100% automated, white label platform that makes it easy for Microsoft Partners to sell and deliver Teams calling.
So quick and easy you can deliver Direct Routing in as little as 15 minutes.
Our ‘secret sauce’ is a native Microsoft Teams app. This gives you a user-friendly, automated portal to log in, setup and manage your Teams Direct Routing services.
In Asia-Pacific, Unite Calling is one of a handful of Direct Routing apps approved by Microsoft and able to be used natively within Microsoft Teams.
We understand that telecom isn’t the natural domain of Microsoft Partners. That’s why Unite Calling handles every aspect of PSTN connectivity and phone number management.
Telcoinabox is unique among Direct Routing providers because we have end-to-end ownership and control over our entire solution. That means you do too.
The app is our proprietary technology, developed in-house, plus we manage our own SBCs, and as a multi-regional carrier, we have full ownership of our network and phone numbers.
Other vendors may be reliant upon third-party carrier networks, or use leased SBCs, which means they can only control a small part of the solution.
Instead of wrangling PowerShell, you can provision and control your client services through a beautiful, visual management portal right within Teams. It feels fast and intuitive, because it is.
Under the hood, Unite Calling is fully managed, including SBC-as-a-Service and carrier interconnect. Microsoft Partners never need to worry about telecom services. It is all taken care of for you.
Our infrastructure is built around best-in-class Metaswitch SBCs. (Metaswitch is owned and approved by Microsoft, and a preferred vendor for Teams Direct).
Unite Calling is built with service providers in mind. Our network infrastructure is extensively tested and highly scalable, so you have peace of mind.
In addition to all the capabilities available today, Unite Calling is continuously updated to keep pace with the market. This means you stay one step ahead of competitors too.
In the near term we are planning for:
Teams Direct Routing is a natural addition to any IT or Managed Services business, especially for Microsoft Partners.
If you’re interested in exploring the possibilities of automated Teams Direct Routing, contact us to arrange a 1-1 demonstration and product trial.
