Polycom Phones for Microsoft Teams

As customers consider their options for migration to Microsoft Teams modern Phone System it’s worth observing that Polycom, Microsoft leading AV partner, have made several key announcements recently. 

All Polycom devices certified for Skype for Business online are supported by Teams. So Teams will support both the VVX range of business media phones and the Trio 8800 & 8500 conference phones. Although the Trio can be considered an audio video conference device it was only ever certified on Microsoft’s audio track. If ordering new devices it is best to procure the “Microsoft edition” versions as these will arrive preinstalled with the correct profile and license (SKU’s ending with 019.)

Polycom did originally announce that LPE phones would also be supported but this is now no longer the case for several reasons; mainstream support has already ended for LPE and O365 enforces TSL 1.2 from November this year. Polycom will release new software for existing phones and a Teams native mode for the Trio 8800 conference phone was presented at partner connect in March, see graphic below.

The user experience will remain the same when a user is migrated from Skype to Teams with the following points: 

Polycom Trio 8800 - Teams (Landis Technologies LLC (c))

·       All Skype for Business sign-in capabilities will remain unchanged

·       Skype for Business users will be able to make and receive calls on their phones with no change to their current experience

·       Presence information will work

·       Users will still have access to their corporate and local directories 

·       All existing Skype for Business meeting capabilities will continue to work

Microsoft have announced that when a user is migrated additional features will be realised:

·       Incoming/outgoing P2P calls (when calling a Teams-enabled Skype for Business phone user)

·       In-call controls via UI (mute, hold/resume, transfer, end call)

·       Phone notifications about upcoming meetings

·       Calendar access and meeting details

·       One-click join for prescheduled meetings

·       Mute/unmute for conferences

·       List of meeting participants

·       Hold/resume for conferences

·       Hang up from conference calls

·       Ability for IP phones to add another Skype for Business user to an ongoing meeting   by using the ‘Add Participant’ feature

In addition to the existing line-up already Teams ready, Polycom will introduce a new range of desk phones for Teams in 2019. These will be designed with the features that are on the Microsoft roadmap in mind and provide a similar user experience to that of the Teams mobile client, specifically touch driven input.

Anywhere 365 Contact Centre for Microsoft Phone System Architecture

Anywhere365 Universal Contact Centre is a native Skype for Business on premise and Cloud PBX (Modern Phone System) solution. It’s a great product and the guys at Workstream People are developing it rapidly so we have answers for every request that our customers can make.

For deployments against on premise Skype for Business the GoLive section of their website features detailed architectural reference models which are extremely useful but for deployments against Microsoft Modern Phone System things aren’t so clear.

An Anywhere UCC is deployed into the Skype for Business topology as a trusted application server and for Skype for Business online the topology is controlled by Microsoft so we can’t do this therefore pure public cloud solutions are not supported. This is important when we think to the future and Direct Routing with Teams. 

So how do we approach the increasing number of customers wanting to migrate into Microsoft cloud for a range of services including Phone System to maximise their E5 usage but also require cloud contact centre in as neat a packaged service as possible?

Although Cloud Connector Edition (CCE) is supported as far as the PSTN routing is concerned, CCE does not contain a front end server and while Audiocodes CloudBond OPCH does and may seem like an option it’s not. Both active and queued calls in Anywhere, like most Skype for Business native contact centres, are delivered as audio conferences. This consumes resources that the lightweight OPCH appliance does not have.

Anywhere365 Cloud Model

The solution is to deploy a Skype for Business topology within the datacentre as a hosted solution that can be scaled as required. This topology will not home any users and can be used for multiple UCC customers. This is because UCC supports federated agents, yes there are a few minor feature limitations, but this allows the customers to migrate to Microsoft cloud voice and still adopt Anywhere as their contact centre solution. Each customer can be provisioned with one or more UCC servers as required against the single Skype for Business topology and their data kept separate within dedicated SQL databases for each UCC. Simply add the required Skype online federated users to the required UCC’s and its ready to go. Each UCC will operate independently and be configured from its own SharePoint site.

There is still the issue of the Interceptor to address. This is an Anywhere application service installed onto the Front end server designed to hook any direct inbound or outbound calls to agent SIP URI’s and initiate call recording. Only with Microsoft Phone System the agents are Skype for Business online users so the Interceptor will not know if calls are made to or by them. Luckily there is a workaround, Anywhere can be used exclusively by agents from the Skype for Business soft client – chat commands control agent sign-in / out and status etc. But Workstream have built the inflight Snapper which can be run on any agent’s machine. The snapper can show a mini wallboard, various stats, includes buttons for reason codes, sign-in / out but also a dialler. If the agents use this dialler for outbound calls they will be captured and recorded. So we are only left with direct incoming calls to agents that cannot be recorded and most customers tend to exclude these from their compliance requirements anyway.

If Anywhere is needed for just a single customer then a consolidated Skype for Business deployment could be considered using Standard Edition to keep the server count and cost much lower.

For now, it seems we have a workable solution for many customers moving to Microsoft cloud voice, but with no more active development for their online Skype for Business service and Teams being positioned as the future for communications and collaboration how will both Microsoft and the Contact Centre partners ensure customer are investing in a future fit service?