Switch to Microsoft for all telephony

[rpain]

Hi

 

We’re looking to upgrade our phone system from Avaya ipoffice to something a little more friendly. We’re a Microsoft based school and have been using Teams a lot so I’m thinking that using it to handle our phones would be a reasonable idea. Does anyone just use Microsoft and Teams for their telephony and of so how well does it handle auto attendants and call routing?

 

Thanks

Richard

[snagrat]

I work with a school that does this.

 

It’s not a very cheap option. The licensing costs make it expensive.

 

They originally paid for a third part Attendant system but I don’t think they really use this.

 

What exactly do you want to know?

[rpain]

OK so I'm presuming that we will get Teams phones which will work based on users rather than extensions. How does licensing work - do we buy licenses for every member of the school that we want to have the ability to call outside lines? If we have standalone shared phones here and there for everyone to use, do I set up an office 365 account for the device then give it a license? If that phone won't necessarily need to call an outside line can we just get 'it' a standard O365 Teams license which is included in our school subscription?

 

Then there is the auto attendant side of things - can we set up the usual 'press 1 for office, 2 for etc.' and can we have hunt groups with timeouts set by ourselves (I saw a page from MS which talked about staying on one account for 20 seconds before moving onto the next one which would be far too long).

 

Thanks

[Cw2k]

Licensing is per user. You need the Microsoft Phone System license and a Calling Plan license for each user. Audio conferencing license is also an extra.

 

Other options are Microsoft Phone System with Direct Routing where the a third party provides the calling plan and lines. Can work out cheaper but varying quality of integration, some requiring addons.

[Rob_D]

I work with a school that does this.

It’s not a very cheap option. The licensing costs make it expensive.

When we looked at this last year the Teams calling plan came out about the same (per user) as a VOIP hosted solution.

[forkies]

I have just been looking at similar (moving from NEC). We have gone for 3cx as cost was too high for MS and didn’t fit the bill for our needs. I’d recommend looking at 3cx.

[lmrogers]

I started working at a school which had just adopted Microsoft Teams with Direct Routing as a phone system and it was possibly one of the worst experiences with a phone system I have ever had. Microsoft were unable to answer simple support tickets and then when looking at the Calling Plans it became far too expensive. I eventually took the hit and replaced it with 3CX and have never looked back. 3CX is perfect and simple to maintain. You can even get free 3CX certifications.

[jnfarmer]

We've just replaced our phone system and were considering the same thing, Teams vs 3CX. 3CX won hands down.

 

Teams was just far to expensive, we worked out it would cost £20,000 a year just for the licensing, so no call plans, no hardware. You can add common area phones which don't need a licence but even taking them in to consideration, it was to costly. 3CX is better value, so simple to use, even for the biggest technophobes. It's really flexible in what it can do for call routing and whilst you do have to pay £75.00 a support ticket for 3CX, you can find most of the answers on their community website.

[mwnci]

Same here - Teams was a nice tidy solution but the cost was prohibitive. We have lots of extensions in classrooms and shared areas, some of which get very little use. The licencing model for Teams is just not designed for this.

Went for a hosted 3CX solution and haven't looked back. It has proved it's worth in recent times - staff using the system from home to check up on vulnerable pupils.

[sted]

Licensing is per user. You need the Microsoft Phone System license and a Calling Plan license for each user. Audio conferencing license is also an extra.

 

Other options are Microsoft Phone System with Direct Routing where the a third party provides the calling plan and lines. Can work out cheaper but varying quality of integration, some requiring addons.

could you cheat it and have a school office user and other generic phone users?

[Domino]

Yes, you could break the licensing agreement and be subject to a hefty fine if caught

[VeryPC]

Hey EduGeeks,

 

If you need any support with 3CX then we're a proud partner and work closely with them to ensure you're getting the most out of it. We've also used it in-house here at VeryPC for over 15 years! We've got a whole dedicated web page too.

 

Drop us a PM if you need anymore info!

 

- Ryan

[kingoranks]

Hi All,

 

How cheap is this, anyone care to help with a figure. We are looking at this right now.