Reliability <\/strong>–\u00a0Measure the service in real-time, identify trouble spots and rapidly resolve issues, with an element of self-healing to deliver a utility style service to users. Users work without a break and so should the service \u2013 with good quality audio, limited dropped calls, and instantaneous video.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/i><\/div><\/div>On demand <\/strong>–\u00a0Customers now expect a complete self-service experience, from order through delivery through to day-to-day service management. Self-service requests are placed via an intuitive and non-technical portal with suitable security controls in place.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/i><\/div><\/div>Provisioning and management of enterprise voice with Direct Routing <\/strong>– Having deployed Microsoft Teams internally, organizations are eager to expand and connect to external parties \u2013 making and receiving calls to the public telephone network. This enables an organization to keep its numbers, has suitable call and dial plan controls, makes use of the native Teams dialer (to encourage usage), and allows on-net calling with existing systems.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/i><\/div><\/div>Dashboards and reporting<\/strong> – To gain actionable insights into the adoption, usage, performance, and user experience across the public cloud service (Microsoft Teams), on premise applications, and additional systems, the solution provides facilities such as telephony break-out, call recording, contact center and conferencing.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/i><\/div><\/div>Getting to Microsoft Teams in the first place<\/strong> – Many organizations have already invested in existing systems, so want to migrate users to Microsoft Teams at their own speed, whilst keeping users connected, which requires the right planning and tools.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>Benefits of a VOSS-managed collaboration solution<\/h3><\/div><\/div><\/div>![](\"https:\/\/www.voss-solutions.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/item-leaf.png\" "\\"item-leaf\\"")
<\/span><\/div> Extends the benefits of a VOSS-managed collaboration solution to departments and users with Microsoft Teams \u2013 providing a highly automated and agile single point of control for individual and bulk changes<\/span><\/p>\n<\/span><\/div> Delivers customer selfservice for fast resolution to service requests, with comprehensive controls to manage access and change across the solution<\/span><\/p>\n<\/span><\/div> Includes multi-step workflow automation, simplifying and streamlining requests, removing underlying complexity<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/span><\/div> Integrates enterprise voice with Cisco, Avaya, and MS Teams Direct Routing, with dial plan controls, so clients can freely communicate, including on-net calling<\/span><\/p>\n<\/span><\/div> Real-time dashboards to track status, health, usage, & user experience<\/span><\/p>\n<\/span><\/div> Contains self-healing rule set to automate corrective action and minimize delays to service recovery<\/span><\/p>\n<\/span><\/div> Provides a single and consistent integration point into high layer billing and reporting systems<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>A solution overview: VOSS Microsoft Teams<\/h3><\/div>VOSS Automate is a multi-node system with no single point of failure. It is hosted in either a public (Azure, AWS) or a private cloud data center and is integrated and fully synchronized with the existing Microsoft Teams collaboration service. VOSS provides a single point for control and management of the underlying collaboration service \u2013 through a web portal, bulk-loading facilities, or a REST API. The latter is suited where the system serves as an integration and automation layer \u2013 connecting into adjacent platforms, tools, and business processes (e.g., ITSM platforms such as ServiceNow). During deployment, critical business processes and workflows can be identified, and the system is adapted to satisfy these through template configuration; no traditional coding is required.<\/p>\n<\/div>
![\"extending](\"https:\/\/voss-media.imgix.net\/2024\/10\/Enterprise-voice-to-MSFT-Teams.png?auto=compress%2Cformat&ixlib=php-3.3.1\" "\\"Enterprise-voice-to-MSFT-Teams\\"")
<\/span><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>Deployment Models with Enterprise Voice<\/h3><\/div>Deployment models include \u2018Microsoft Only\u2019 or \u2018Hybrid\u2019, depending on the level of integration required with existing systems and applications. In either case, enterprise voice is enabled through suitable Microsoft licensing (E5 or the Microsoft Phone System license) and telephony break-out using Microsoft Direct Routing. This provides benefits in retaining the existing numbering plan (E164 telephony numbers and internal extensions) and commercial arrangements around call plans and tariffs.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div>
<\/i><\/div><\/div>Microsoft only<\/h4><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/i><\/div><\/div>Hybrid
\n(Integration with existing systems)<\/p><\/h4><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>
Users with enterprise voice enabled make use of the native Microsoft Teams dialer for incoming and external calls. This level of familiarity and use of the same tool (as for internal collaboration) makes the user experience intuitive, driving adoption. No new applications are required on the desktop, nor is there a need for further training. Users are configured with enterprise voice through the Quick Add Subscriber workflow \u2013 which automates the allocation of numbers, migration of existing services, and underlying set-up. Licensing can be enabled (optional) in the workflow (for example uplifting to E5 or allocating a Microsoft Phone System license), with the workflow managing the inherent delay across Microsoft AD (licensing) and the Teams portal itself.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div>
Many organizations that use MS Teams also have an investment in an existing telephony platform \u2013 Cisco, Avaya. A hybrid deployment delivers a tightly integrated service whereby:<\/p>\n
\n- Existing handsets can be retained alongside Microsoft Teams as the soft client of choice, allowing users access to a wide range of devices to suit their individual requirements. User profiles are available for Cisco (only), Microsoft (only), or multivendor (both Cisco and Microsoft devices and clients).<\/li>\n
- Users may freely communicate between any endpoint using either internal extension dialing, E164 or through a user\u2019s contact card. Calls are kept on-net as required, to avoid unnecessary call charges.<\/li>\n
- Existing dial plan controls and PSTN break-out points are maintained to provide consistent dialing (including emergency calls) and robustness on the solution.<\/li>\n
- Migration workflows can move users, as required, from the existing service and onto Microsoft Teams without any major disruption.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>
Single point of management with VOSS Automate<\/h3><\/div><\/div><\/div>![\"Microsoft](\"https:\/\/voss-media.imgix.net\/2024\/04\/VOSS-automate-logo-2024.png?auto=compress%2Cformat&fit=scale&h=300&ixlib=php-3.3.1&w=300&wpsize=medium\" "\\"VOSS-automate-logo-2024\\"")
<\/span><\/div><\/div><\/div>VOSS Automate provides a single point of control for fast and immediate access to manage Microsoft Teams, existing systems, Direct Routing, and supporting components (SBCs). This access is available through an intuitive web portal, via loaders for bulk operations or can be activated from the VOSS API. Access controls, branding, data visibility, and presentation are all configured to suit the various types of administrators, user, departmental manager, or persona that makes use of it.<\/p>\n
This interface also allows management of multiple customers through a single portal, controlling access to the required entities under a flexible management hierarchy.<\/p>\n
Multi-step workflows enable administration through a service desk without the need for advanced technical skills. Workflows are underpinned by automation and operate across several underlying sub-components, promoting driver flexibility.<\/p>\n<\/div>
On demand customer self-service<\/h5><\/div>With a management system in place, increasingly customers are looking to encourage end user self-service and delegate control to departmental managers, closer to where users consume a service. Self-service requests range from ordering new services through to the day-to-day management and change of services that are already in use. With an integration point into billing and charging (VOSS NBI) and a near real-time feed, a wide range of services can be accessed through the self-service portal, and customers are assured that any charges that are levied are accurate and up to date.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>
Reliability and delivery to commitments with VOSS Insights<\/h3><\/div><\/div><\/div>![\"Microsoft](\"https:\/\/www.voss-solutions.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/VOSS-insights.png\" "\\"VOSS")
<\/span><\/div><\/div><\/div>VOSS Insights offers an integrated solution providing advanced and actionable business intelligence and monitoring, covering voice and service quality used to operate the collaboration service against business service level agreements (SLAs). Data is contextualized on fully customizable dashboards along with dynamic reports for additional detail. For critical locations or proactive services, synthetic testing of endpoints can be deployed to generate test traffic, diagnose faults, and assure critical connections.<\/p>\n
The connection into Microsoft Teams is seen as particularly important given this part of the service operates over the Internet, providing end-to-end coverage of public cloud, on site, and data center services.<\/p>\n
End-to-end assurance data is collected and if proactively detected issues or events are found, corrective automated \u2018self-healing\u2019 action may be undertaken.<\/p>\n<\/div>
Accelerating adoption and usage<\/h5><\/div>VOSS Insights also provides powerful business context and visibility on usage of the Microsoft Teams services \u2013 calls, meetings, and chat \u2013 along with user experience, which can be tracked, monitored, and used for trend analysis to assist in improving the user experience and accelerating adoption across the organization.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>
VOSS Migration to Microsoft Teams<\/h3><\/div><\/div><\/div>![\"Microsoft](\"https:\/\/www.voss-solutions.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/VOSS-migrate.png\" "\\"VOSS")
<\/span><\/div><\/div><\/div>Once connected into both the existing telephony platform (Cisco, Avaya, Skype for Business) and Microsoft Teams, all users and associated numbers, services, and configuration can be synchronized and presented in a consistent way through VOSS. Workflows are provided to assist with the migration of users to Microsoft Teams with or without enterprise voice.<\/p>\n<\/div>
VOSS Phone Server<\/h5><\/div>VOSS Phone Server is a complementary application server, providing telephony registration and call handling features for devices that cannot easily connect into Microsoft Teams. These endpoints are part of the existing system, are in use by users, and the business case does not justify a replacement cost. During migration, the devices transfer onto VOSS Phone Server, which is connected (SIP trunking) into the existing SBC infrastructure and then managed through the VOSS web portal. Menu workflows are provided to make the deployment of devices fast, simple, and intuitive. New phone types can be easily added as required.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>
Technical details<\/h3><\/div><\/div><\/div>