Integrating Teams with Legacy PBX and IP Phone Systems

IP Phone Systems

In large, multi-site companies, a variety of telephone applications across locations means the need for a feature-rich voice solution. A one-size communications service cannot meet the needs of the entire organization and can end up costing more than expected, with the added layers of complexity that come with multiple requirements. With a variety of business needs for IP phone systems, from knowledge workers to warehouse phones, audio and video conferencing, instant messaging, chat, and collaboration, each company has different requirements for their day-to-day business functions. Flexible, scalable and easily managed VoIP solutions are a must for these businesses.

Microsoft Teams is on many people’s minds lately.  Teams is the ultimate chat and collaboration app, for communication, meetings, conferences, and file and app sharing. But what about voice? What if you have to effectively deliver voice to a common area, a hazardous location like a manufacturing floor, or a building that requires overhead paging?  What if you have people and applications that leverage analog modems or advanced telephony features enabled by your PBX? Not to mention the investment you made in your IP handsets and existing PBX.

Can IP Phone Systems integrate with Microsoft Teams?

In a word, yes. While Microsoft Teams is a one-size-fits-all solution, a trusted VoIP integration partner can help you navigate the complexities of your systems without losing features that work for you.

VoIP Optimization with PBX Phones

If your PBX is here to stay, but you want to take advantage of the chat-collaboration features of Teams, T2M Works has a solution that can seamlessly integrate the two platforms.  This means that you can have the cost savings of keeping your existing PBX, handsets, and all of the features you love while leveraging the power of Teams as your chat-collaboration tool and conferencing bridge.  In addition to all of the chat-collaboration functions of Teams, Teams also becomes your soft client for your PBX. Incoming calls will ring your phone just like they used to, but now your Teams client rings as well, no matter where you are.  This means work calls can go directly to any device logged into your Teams account for seamless communication whenever, wherever.

VoIP Optimization without PBX Phones

If it’s time to retire your PBX, T2M’s Voice2Teams can optimize your experience by seamlessly integrating a robust VoIP call control cloud service to your Teams deployment, maintaining all the telecom calling features you love, supporting analog devices, faxing, and your existing phones.  In addition, by moving your call control to the cloud, you can take advantage of all of the benefits of cloud solutions: no CapEx, instant scalability (up and down), high availability, global expandability, and no hardware or software to deploy and maintain.

VoIP Optimization Using the Cloud

Leveraging the power of the Cloud, T2M Voice2Teams also optimizes Teams deployments with a highly-available and resilient communications platform that seamlessly integrates Microsoft Teams with your on-premise PBX or cloud solution (T2M Voice); providing you with all of the telephony features you require.  Using our intuitive portal, Voice2Teams can be added to your Office365 Tenant and telecom system in minutes. This enables traditional telecommunications features in your Teams experience, allowing you to extend your enterprise voice systems to make a call from anywhere using your Teams client.

Simplicity and Scalability

Solutions like these optimize your VoIP experience using existing IP phone systems, mitigating the expense of purchasing native Teams phones. Many of today’s existing VoIP phones can be configured to integrate with Voice2Teams.  Whether you call out using your Teams client or your telephone, your caller ID will be the same. These features and the simplicity of a centralized portal allows enterprises to scale their voice systems with the easy provisioning of new phones.

The Portal: The Ultimate Optimization Tool

Voice2Teams optimizes VoIP using an intuitive portal that makes it incredibly easy to manage your enterprise voice solution.  The portal has tools for MACD, fault and performance monitoring, and troubleshooting common incidents. However, when the issue is beyond your scope, you can easily contact knowledgeable T2M Works subject matter experts with a click of the mouse. 

Provisioning and managing phones can also be performed within the portal where your entire pool of PSTN numbers is organized. This allows you to streamline the management of your DID pool of numbers. If you run out of numbers, you can order one at a time or in blocks.  When you have to ship a new phone and or place a number back in the pool of available numbers, you can do either with just a few clicks. The rest of the provisioning process is plug-and-play since the phone is configured from a central repository of standard configurations.  In addition, with Voice2Teams, phones are automatically updated with the latest firmware version that you choose.

Cost-Effectiveness 

Integrating VoIP systems with the power of Teams seems expensive, but T2M ensures a cost-effective solution, using assets your business already owns and avoiding Capital Expenditures. Additionally, T2M’s calling plans cost less overall than Microsoft’s calling plans.

Best of all, the features and flexibility are wrapped in world-class professional services.  Whether you need help planning your Teams deployment, configuring your Office 365 tenant, migrating users to Teams, troubleshooting call quality, or you require a custom app developed to extend Teams, we have you covered.  You can receive a hassle-free, turnkey solution to plan, design, migrate and maintain a comprehensive enterprise voice solution that integrates all of the benefits of Microsoft Teams with traditional telecommunications solutions.

5 Things You Should Know about VoIP and Teams:

  • VoIP integration to Teams can be streamlined, seamless, and cost-efficient when using the right partner.
  • VoIP integration to Teams can be leveraged either your existing PBX phones or cost-effective IP phones.
  • Traditional telephony features can be seamlessly integrated with Microsoft Teams, taking the best of both services and creating an enterprise solution without compromise.
  • Moving call control to the cloud can avoid high costs including CapEx and maintenance of hardware and software.
  • Hands-on service and support is crucial when extending your enterprise communications with Microsoft Teams