A Business Communication System Customized for You

Our leadership in Hosted services since 2003 provides you with the experience to achieve your goals in communications. The breadth in the types of companies we serve means we’ve created the solutions you may also be seeking including Contact Center and integration with Microsoft Teams. Multi-state companies utilize our network of dedicated fiber providers to achieve integrated voice and data services.

Our Services

Consolidate Your Current Communication Tools to One Solution Suite and Replace Your Business Phone with the Cloud

Microsoft Teams has become ubiquitous throughout business and government. In the process, Teams Phone System has solved the need for remote access to a company’s communication system. The revolutionary aspect is Teams’ ability to replace your entire business phone system with a managed cloud service. Combining our Direct Routing to the Teams network and its voice capability, called Phone System, enables business telephony capabilities from within Office 365. This feature allows employees to be much more productive for a much lower expense.

You may already be aware that anyone in your organization using Microsoft Teams can make calls to any other team member using a Windows PC, Apple Mac/iPhone/iPad, or Google Android device via the Microsoft Teams app. Without a connection to ‘the outside world’ otherwise known as the PSTN (Public Switched Telephone Network), these VoIP calls can only be made within the company’s network. Adding a Phone System license and the Team8 service will give you access to outside calls. Doing so allows you to avoid using Teams as well as a separate phone system.

Business Need and Impact

Adopting Teams as your Unified Communications system will increase user communications productivity by allowing every user to utilize the same tools for chat, video, team collaboration, meetings, video conferencing, and voice communications. The process to communicate across multiple channels will be the same whether the user is at their desk, remote, or in a conference room.

While Teams calling looks a little different when you choose to use a mobile phone app or an app on your computer, you can use a traditional phone as well!

RazorLine is used to innovation and upgrades and has dealt with change since we first introduced Hosted VoIP in 2003. The increase in options and capabilities is well worth the effort. The same features used in a traditional system are available from Microsoft, and with professional, experienced help from RazorLine, it is very well-suited for the corporate setting it was designed for.

The benefits provided by RazorLine are an experienced staff to quickly convert your Teams users to Teams Phone System, deliver PSTN connectivity at a low price, and be there at a moment’s notice to address problems and perform training. Our customers will tell you that the onboarding experience was way above expectations. We will provide help and suggestions on setting up how you want calls to navigate your system. Response time for service issues is measured in minutes rather than days.

What Devices Can Be Used for Teams Phone System?

As mentioned above, there are a wide array of devices to use as your ‘phone’. There are regular desk phones as well as an app for your other devices. Both Polycom and Yealink provide Teams certified phones and two are shown below.
Apps are shown on the next page.

Poly CCX 500

Yealink MP58

Example of a Teams call on the desktop app

How to Accomplish PSTN Access Component Within Teams

A Phone System license from Microsoft is required and Microsoft 365 users can add that to their cloud-based system. Other licenses for Automated Attendants, Audio Conferencing, and Call Queueing are available. Teams is a pure cloud service and there are no on-premise Teams servers. Most of the Voice configurations must be performed in the O365 tenant using PowerShell which RazorLine does for you or can train you to do.

FAQs

What problems can be solved when moving to Teams Phone System?

The user no longer needs multiple vendors for chat, video, voice, and conference calling. Companies using Teams Phone System can eliminate a costly phone service and simply activate Phone System on their Teams app.

What can Teams Phone System do that other VoIP phone systems can’t do?
Every ‘endpoint’ within the system operates more effectively and consistently than any SIP-based system end point. Teams’ superior mobile client enables the user to always get phone calls versus VoIP mobile apps which ‘go to sleep’ on most cell phones. Microsoft has a superior infrastructure which makes their security and redundancy more effective. Teams phones and apps navigate home and other remote networks with no firewall/router configuration needed.
Do you have to have special hardware or other equipment?
Users can use the Teams app on computers, tablets, and cell phones as the Phone System is a part of the Teams app. As shown above, there are Microsoft certified phones that work with Teams as well. SIP-based phones that worked on VoIP networks will not work on Teams.
Is Teams Phone System hard to learn?

If you’ve been using Teams, you most likely already have used the ‘Calls’ icon for internal calls. If the user wants to call someone externally, they would use the same basic method. Adding Phone System gives the user a keypad to use, plus they can click-to-call from their Outlook contacts. The call history is also shown from which one can make calls as well. Each user has a settings button to set their own answering criteria and establish voicemail recordings and other operations. Finally, RazorLine provides training tools and engages in training sessions prior to installation.

How secure is Teams Phone System?

Teams data is encrypted in transit and at rest in Microsoft services, between services, and between clients and services. Microsoft does this using industry standard technologies such as TLS and SRTP to encrypt all data in transit. Data in transit includes messages, files, meetings, and other content. Enterprise data is also encrypted at rest in Microsoft services so that organizations can decrypt the content if needed, to meet security and compliance obligations through methods such as eDiscovery. For more information about encryption in
Microsoft 365, see Encryption in Microsoft 365.

What is SMS for Business Phone Numbers?

SMS for business, also known as business texting, lets the user send and receive text messages from the Teams business phone number rather than your personal number. Provide quick updates to customers, confirm appointments, and reply back to inbound text messages using the same Teams phone number you take business calls on, all within your Teams app.

How to Get Started

You may think changing out a phone system isn’t worth the effort, but like many other endeavors, you’ll be glad you took it on. You simply add a Phone System License for every user. If you have an E5 you’re all set as far as the Microsoft side goes as it includes the Phone System License. Pretty easy so far?

On the RazorLine side, you’ll have to share your current phone bills so we can start the process of discovering all the phone numbers you have and how they’re used. We’ll use that information to port the numbers during the process to change your phone system.

We work with you to plan how you want calls answered and routed, and we do all the work to achieve that plan. If you want to change it once you go live, we’ll do that as many times as you want. There is some work to do in coordination with your IT department or MSP to route calls through the Teams cloud. We’ll help with that process and make sure the programming is complete.

You will incur a small, one-time charge for SBC access and provisioning, as well as equipment you may want to use such as phones, headsets, and other devices for special needs. We support and provide both Poly CCX and Yealink phones. There are many models of headsets people use if you choose to use the app on one or more of your devices. Poly and Yealink have a huge selection at various price-points. We will provide a quote based on your needs.

We’ve always charged a per-user amount for our Hosted VoIP service and we’re continuing that model. Any Teams user can access the PSTN for local and domestic long-distance calls, as well as all of our technical people for just $8 per month or almost 1/3 less than a Microsoft Calling Plan. We are happy to quote for any VoIP or analog users separately that may be part of the overall design.

As always, there is no charge to try it first.

Contact:

Gene R Dry
Managing Partner
504.274.1717
gdry@razorlinecloud.com
www.razorline.com

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Metairie, LA 70002

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