What is Included with the Microsoft PBX?
What calling features are available within Operator Connect?
Microsoft Teams has undergone a remarkable surge in popularity over the past few years, establishing itself as the predominant communication and collaboration platform across much of the business landscape. Recent statistics highlight Teams' impressive reach with 270 million monthly active users, significantly surpassing its competitor Slack with 18 million monthly active users.
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While Teams offers an array of attractive features, its initial iteration lacked PSTN capabilities necessary for comprehensive business calling. Fortunately, Microsoft responded by introducing various enhancements, one of which is Operator Connect. Through the Microsoft Operator Connect Program, companies can seamlessly integrate a third-party provider into Teams to enable PSTN calling. This includes the flexibility to integrate any Microsoft-approved PSTN carrier, affording organizations the choice to retain their current carrier or opt for a new one offering favorable rates.
The expanded functionalities of Microsoft Teams have played a pivotal role in its widespread adoption within the modern workplace. Now, businesses can effectively keep remote and hybrid workers connected using business voice services, all within the Teams ecosystem.
However, a pivotal question arises: does embracing Microsoft Operator Connect entail sacrificing crucial calling features? Some mistakenly assume that this user-friendly PSTN integration might lead to feature limitations. Thankfully, this is not the case. The features essential to your business, such as call queues, voice routing, auto-attendant, and more, remain fully intact.
It's time to dispel this misconception and provide clarity about the comprehensive calling features and control that Operator Connect offers. Read on to discover the complete range of capabilities unlocked by Operator Connect.
A Private Branch Exchange (PBX) has been a fundamental component of voice calling services since the inception of telecommunications. It serves to link employees with telecom networks while also serving as a repository for business communication data. As such, PBXs are responsible for numerous essential calling features that businesses rely upon.
While legacy PBX systems have largely become outdated, they've given way to cloud PBXs—virtualized services that deliver equivalent functionalities. A significant advantage of cloud PBXs lies in their ability to cater to a wide spectrum of users, including those working remotely, in hybrid environments, or on the move, irrespective of their location.
What is a Cloud Private Branch Exchange (PBX)?
Essential PBX features provided with Operator Connect
Operator Connect providers handle your PSTN calls, which enables your business to make and receive external calls from traditional telephony networks. But once a call hits the cloud PBX from your provider, Teams takes over and abides by your configured calling features.
As your Operator Connect provider – First Technology us responsible for requesting and provisioning new phone numbers, while the Teams admin center interface handles all the calling features your business needs.
Every option on the left can be fully configured as necessary. So, let’s dive deeper into these features to determine any equipment required and how to configure them to fit your needs.
Who controls the PBX with Operator Connect?
Operator Connect allows you to bring your own provider for PSTN capabilities, so do they control the PBX?
No, the PBX is actually controlled by Microsoft. The Phone System add-on is part of the Teams license required to use Operator Connect, and the Phone System controls the PBX.
Essential PBX features provided with Operator Connect
The Operator Connect provider handles your PSTN calls, which enables your business to make and receive external calls from traditional telephony networks. Once a call hits the cloud PBX from your provider, Teams takes over and abides by your configured calling features.
Take a look at the screenshot from Teams’ Admin Center - you can see all the calling features available
Every option on the left can be fully configured as necessary.
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Auto-attendants
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Call queues
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Custom calling policies
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Caller ID policies
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Call hold policies
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Call park policies
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Voicemail policies
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Dial plans
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Mobility policies
So, let’s dive deeper into these features to determine any equipment required and how to configure them to fit your needs.
Auto-attendant
Most businesses will need an auto-attendant to process incoming calls, even those that don’t anticipate heavy call flow. The days of having a receptionist answer every incoming call are long gone, and an auto-attendant can help you greet and route calls.
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Let’s look at how you can configure a new call flow for your auto-attendant:
You can greet the customer with:
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Nothing
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An audio file
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Text-to-speech message.
From there, you determine how to route the call.
Most businesses want to play a menu, allowing you to upload a file or use another text-to-speech feature.
The ‘Advanced Settings (Optional)’ window allows you to further configure the following:
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Business hours
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After-hours call flow and routing
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Holiday call flows
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Dial scope, which determines who calls can reach from the auto-attendant
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Resource accounts, which allow you to assign specific numbers to accommodate complex scenarios
Holidays
This section works with the auto-attendant feature by allowing you to set up your own holidays. Once set up, you can use custom holidays to guide your auto attendant. This feature accommodates businesses globally rather than having pre-configured holidays that may not apply to everyone.
You can also use this feature if you’re having a day-long team-building event or any other scenario where nobody will be available to answer the phone.
Call queues
Call queues are the natural companion of an auto-attendant for many organizations. You’ll start with the attendant and then route them to the correct call queue, such as billing, customer support, and technical support. You have a wealth of options at your disposal to configure various call queues as necessary to allow your customers to reach enhanced support.
Here’s the initial screen when creating a new queue, and each option on the left moves you through the workflow to customize and finalize the queue:
You’ll be able to create specific greetings and music, which the caller will hear after being directed to the queue by the attendant.
Next, you’ll be able to set call answering policies, agent selection, overflow handling, and timeout handling. If you have an existing call queue, you’ll likely already know which settings to use, but if you’re starting fresh, think about your business objectives and available agents to guide your decisions.
Custom calling policies
The ‘Calling Policies’ window gives you immense control over various aspects of call handling for your organization.
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Here’s what you can control:
Your business has unique needs, requirements, and company policies that will dictate how you configure each option.
Notable options include:
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Allow private calls
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Transcription
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Cloud recording
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Forwarding and ringing
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Hold for PSTN calls
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Web PSTN calling
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Real-time captions
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Automatically answer
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Spam filtering
Your IT administrator may already know how to configure these policies to meet compliance and security requirements.
Otherwise, the default options will likely work unless otherwise specified by IT.
Caller ID policies
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Caller IDs are essential, but businesses have unique objectives and needs that often require greater control.
Configuring caller ID policies grants advanced control over how incoming and outgoing calls are displayed.
Here’s a look at the options available:
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You can see how you can block incoming IDs, allow for policy overrides, and specify calling parties’ names. Specifying party names is also known as CNAM, a service that will display the registered name for the number even if they are not a known contact. Unfortunately, the availability of CNAM services is limited by region.
The last two options give you control over outgoing calls. “Replace Caller ID with” gives you the following options:
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User’s number
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Service number
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Anonymous
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Resource account
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The last option allows you to specify the service number you want to display. For example, your inbound contact center may need to call customers back if the call drops. Instead of showing any specific information about the agent, you can display the public-facing customer support number.
Call hold policies
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The call hold policies section allows you to upload audio files to play while a user is on hold. This section is not for configuring complex policies for users’ hold capabilities, instead working in conjunction with call park policies and user management to dictate hold and transfer rules. You can upload a variety of options for later use.
Call park policies
Call park policies will be assigned to individual users or user groups based on your business needs. For example, a call park policy allows you to enable or disable parking, set timeout settings, along with start and end ranges for call pick-ups. In addition, these settings give administrators control over how long a user can be on hold, which is excellent for contact centers.
Voicemail policies
Voicemail is vital for most people in the business, but admins still need control over it to conserve resources or meet business needs.
These options determine the length of an individual message and enable or disable transcription capabilities. These policies are assigned to specific users or groups.
The two language prompt options allow callers to indicate their language — these options guide transcription services.
Mobility policies
Your mobility policies determine the availability of Teams Phone Mobile features to your users.
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In this window, you’ll name a policy, describe it, and specify the mobile dialer to handle the call.
Options for dialers are:
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Microsoft Teams, keeping the user within Teams to make their call
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Native Dialer, which is the standard dialer on the mobile phone
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User-controlled, giving users the option of which dialer to use
You’ll assign specific policies to users or groups in the user management area.
Dial plans
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Some organizations won’t need to configure dial plans, but others may wish to create them to meet specific needs.
A dial plan is a mechanism for translating the number dialed by an individual user into an alternate format, which is usually E.164, for authorization and routing.
Some organizations won’t need to configure dial plans, but others may wish to create them to meet specific needs.
A dial plan is a mechanism for translating the number dialed by an individual user into an alternate format, which is usually E.164, for authorization and routing.
The most common usage of dial plans is to create four-digit extension policies for users throughout your organization. However, you can also use them to route calls to a specific external number, for example, sending 0 to your Operator Connect provider’s helpline.
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There are two scopes available for dial plans: service-scoped and tenant-scoped. Tenant-scoped plans are specific to your organization, while service-scoped is pre-defined for every country. So you’ll only be configuring tenant-scoped plans, and service-scoped plans will supersede any tenant-scoped plans..
What is Operator Connect for Microsoft Teams?
Partner with First Technology for Operator Connect Solutions
Discover that embracing the Microsoft Operator Connect Program doesn't equate to relinquishing command over call management and vital functionalities. Instead, you'll retain full authority over auto-attendants, call queues, voicemails, and all the requisites for proficiently overseeing inbound and outbound calls.
Operator Connect empowers you to utilize Microsoft Teams as a comprehensive UCaaS solution through seamless integration of authentic business calling. First Technology isn an accredited Microsoft-approved Operator Connect provider, offering budget-friendly call rates, remarkable uptime, and prompt customer service whenever you require assistance.
Are you ready to see how Operator Connect can enhance your PSTN capabilities?