Microsoft Office 365 is a subscription based office productivity solution, delivered from the cloud. In addition to the core productivity tools like Excel, Word, PowerPoint, Office 365 includes the fastest growing collaboration capability – Microsoft Teams.

Microsoft Teams is a chat based collaboration hub that lets users and groups, share files, carry out online meetings, video calling, desktop sharing and so much more. But there is one glaring gap. You can’t easily make or receive calls with external users.

There are ways to voice enable your Office 365 set up. Read on to learn more.

Unity Connected Solutions – the experts at Voice Enabling Office 365.

Unity SIP 365 direct connects external or PSTN SIP Trunks into your Microsoft Office 365 solution.

We use a Microsoft Certified Session Border Controller that lets users make and receive calls directly into their Office 365 or Teams client.

For those companies or users who are not yet fully embracing Teams, Unity SIP 365 allows them to leverage their existing PBX. Calls can ‘ring’ both the PBX Deskphone and/or the Office 365/Teams client. Unanswered calls go to a single, unified Microsoft Office mailbox.

This is the least expensive option. Unity SIP 365 is priced per organization not per user and leverages inexpensive SIP trunks.

If you have less than 300 Microsoft Office 365 users, you are eligible to use the Microsoft Business Voice licenses. These bundle Microsoft Phone System, 3,000 minutes of calling and DID audio conferencing for $25 per user.

Still more expensive than using a Direct Connect approach but it turns your Office 365 system into a full fledged Cloud PBX.

It has the advantage of creating a resilient voice solution that can be used by your staff anywhere – on the road, in the office or on your client’s premises.

For businesses under 300 users who have fully embraced Microsoft Teams, this is probably the best option.

For every work experience, for any space and any working style, there’s a Microsoft Teams device to choose from. Having Teams UI on desk phone delivers a seamless Teams experience across a variety of certified devices. Microsoft Teams Rooms brings a modern, easy to use and consistent experience to all meeting spaces with one touch join and a rich set of AI enabled capabilities.

We sell the Yealink series of handsets, for those looking for a traditional business calling experience, which are certified to work with Microsoft Teams.