Choosing a Microsoft Teams Direct Routing Provider: What You Need to Know

Microsoft Teams has become a popular communication and collaboration platform for businesses of all sizes. Among its standout features is Direct Routing as a Service, enabling organizations to seamlessly integrate their existing phone systems with Teams. This feature has opened up a world of possibilities for businesses looking to modernize their communication systems.

Nevertheless, the decision of which Microsoft Teams Direct Routing provider to opt for can be a complex one. In this article, we’ll assist you in understanding the crucial factors to consider when making this important choice.

What is Teams Direct Routing?

Direct Routing is a highly sought-after solution for companies seeking to maximize the benefits of the Microsoft Teams platform. Microsoft Teams Direct Routing is a feature that allows organizations to connect their Session Border Controllers (SBCs) to Microsoft Teams, enabling them to use their existing telephony infrastructure for external calls through the Teams platform. It offers cost savings, flexibility in choosing telephony providers, integration with collaboration tools, global reach for external communication, and potentially better call quality by leveraging existing infrastructure and networks. 

What to consider when choosing a Teams Direct Routing provider?

Given the extensive range of providers available, it’s essential to evaluate the vendor’s capabilities when considering Direct Routing solutions.

Does the provider have a proven track record in deploying telephony systems for Microsoft Teams? Can they offer the necessary coverage and scaling capacity to meet your service requirements across all locations?

This evaluation is particularly crucial for multinational companies, as well as organizations that may venture into new markets or experience workforce growth that necessitates greater capacity in the future.

1. Compliance and certification

Ensure that the provider is certified and compliant with Microsoft’s requirements for Direct Routing. Microsoft’s certification ensures that the provider’s services are reliable and secure. 

BlueSky UC is a certified Teams Direct Routing provider that has attained the Microsoft Solutions Partner designation for modern work and more than nine Microsoft Gold competencies as a certified partner.

2. Reliability

Experiencing downtime can have severe consequences for a business, causing revenue loss and creating a poor customer experience. Therefore, a reliable provider should have redundant data centers and failover solution to ensure service continuity in the event of a Microsoft Cloud outage.

3. Quality of Service (QoS)

Inquire about the provider’s QoS capabilities to ensure high call quality and ask about their network infrastructure and how they prioritize Teams traffic. Quality of service is a significant concern for any customer using Microsoft Teams. However, deploying QoS for Teams is not a simple task because Teams traffic is mostly encrypted, and network devices cannot identify the traffic type, such as ‘Audio, Video, or App sharing.’ The only way to achieve this is through network port assignment. To learn more about BlueSky UC’s QoS policies, read the following information.

4. Security

Security is a top priority for businesses; therefore, the vendor as well as the Direct Routing provider, should have robust security measures in place to protect your communication systems.

Microsoft Teams, as part of the Microsoft 365 and Office 365 services, follows all the security best practices and procedures such as service-level security through defense-in-depth, customer controls within the service, security hardening, and operational best practices.

With MS 365, your data is encrypted at rest and in transit, using several strong encryption protocols, and technologies that include Transport Layer Security/Secure Sockets Layer (TLS/SSL), Internet Protocol Security (IPSec), and Advanced Encryption Standard (AES).

5. Scalability

Ensure that the provider can scale with your organization’s growth. With BlueSky UC Direct Routing services it is easy to add more calling capacity or users as your business expands. Also, as a Microsoft UCaaS certified provider we offer premium supported features such as Microsoft Teams call analytics and reporting, enhanced Call Detail Records, Microsoft Teams Contact Center, call recording, and more.

6. Supported features

Confirm that the provider supports the specific calling features you need, such as call recording, voicemail, call forwarding, auto-attendant, and any industry-specific features your organization relies on.

These are some of the supported features you can find within BlueSky UC’s portfolio:

• Call Detail Recors (CDR): Get detailed reporting of your Microsoft Teams PSTN calls through our advanced client portal.
• Teams PowerPack – Call Analytics for Microsoft Teams: Monitor Microsoft Teams call performance and quality by user, auto attendant, or call queue.
• The BlueSky Contact Center for Microsoft Teams: Enable a modern communication management experience through the most requested features: Reporting, Call Routing, and Live Wallboards.
• Microsoft Teams Call Recording: Record your Microsoft Teams PSTN calls through our reliable cloud system for compliance or quality management purposes.
• Microsoft Teams Consulting Services: Cover all your Microsoft Teams needs with our professional and support services. Microsoft Teams design, migration, governance planning, admin and end-user training, as well as 24/7 critical admin support.
• Microsoft Teams Devices: Buy Microsoft Teams certified and compatible VoIP devices: desk phones, speakerphones, headsets, webcams, and meeting rooms.