You’ve probably heard of VoIP, basically VoIP is running your phones over the internet rather than using a traditional phone line. This can be slightly confusing as historically you’ve needed a phone line to use phones which makes perfect sense, now however the best way to use company phones if via your internet connection.
But now with BT switching off the analog phone service shortly, businesses are now forced if they haven’t already, to switch to a VoIP service. As many companies already utilise Microsoft 365 for their business communications it makes sense to also use Teams for company phones in some cases.
If you want to stop right here, give us a call, and have us set up your company phones on Teams then please get in touch, otherwise below is how to get started.
Microsoft Teams is a versatile communication and collaboration tool that can be used as a company phone platform. By leveraging its capabilities, businesses can streamline communication, improve productivity, and reduce costs. In this article, we will cover a high-level guide on setting up Microsoft Teams as your company phone platform.
This article assumes you already have Microsoft 365 as an organisation and want to add Business phones to your Teams users.
Requirements:
- Microsoft 365 Business Voice or Enterprise E5 plan subscription
- Microsoft Teams
- Admin access to the Microsoft 365 admin center
Step 1: Set up a Phone System
- Sign in to the Microsoft 365 admin center with your admin account.
- Go to ‘Billing’ > ‘Purchase services’.
- Look for the ‘Microsoft 365 Business Voice’ plan or ‘Microsoft 365 Enterprise E5’ plan, and purchase it if you haven’t already.
- Assign licenses to users who will be using the phone system. To do this, go to ‘Users’ > ‘Active users’, select the users, and assign the appropriate licenses.
Step 2: Set up the Calling Plan
- In the Microsoft 365 admin center, go to ‘Billing’ > ‘Purchase services’.
- Purchase the ‘Calling Plan’ that best fits your organization’s needs. There are different options available based on the number of minutes and locations you require.
- Assign ‘Calling Plan’ licenses to users who need to make and receive phone calls. Repeat the process from Step 1.4, but this time assign the ‘Calling Plan’ license.
Step 3: Configure emergency addresses and locations
- In the Microsoft Teams admin center, go to ‘Voice’ > ‘Emergency policies’.
- Click ‘Add’, and enter the required information for your organization’s emergency address and location.
- Assign the emergency address to users. Go to ‘Users’, select the users, and click ‘Edit settings’. Under the ‘Emergency address’ section, choose the appropriate address for each user.
Step 4: Obtain and assign phone numbers
- In the Microsoft Teams admin center, go to ‘Voice’ > ‘Phone numbers’.
- Click ‘Add’, and then ‘New service numbers’ or ‘New user (subscriber) numbers’, depending on your requirements.
- Follow the prompts to obtain new phone numbers.
- Assign the phone numbers to users. Go to ‘Users’, select the users, and click ‘Edit settings’. Under the ‘Phone System’ section, choose the appropriate phone number for each user.
Step 5: Set up auto attendants and call queues (Optional)
- In the Microsoft Teams admin center, go to ‘Voice’ > ‘Auto attendants’, and click ‘Add’ to create a new auto attendant.
- Follow the prompts to configure your auto attendant, including routing rules, greetings, and business hours.
- Go to ‘Voice’ > ‘Call queues’, and click ‘Add’ to create a new call queue.
- Follow the prompts to configure your call queue, including routing rules and agent assignments.
Step 6: Configure dial plans and voice policies (Optional)
- In the Microsoft Teams admin center, go to ‘Voice’ > ‘Dial plans’, and click ‘Add’ to create a new dial plan.
- Follow the prompts to configure your dial plan, including normalization rules and dialing patterns.
- Go to ‘Voice’ > ‘Voice policies’, and click ‘Add’ to create a new voice policy.
- Follow the prompts to configure your voice policy, including call permissions and settings.
