What is Direct Routing in Microsoft Teams?

Introduction

Direct Routing means bringing all the benefits of your branch’s private telephone exchange (PBX) or existing phone lines into your Microsoft Teams environment, letting you combine both solutions into a complete telecoms solution and make external calls instantly through the Teams app.  As well as consolidating a business’ comms, Direct Routing creates a faster, more fluid solution that makes managing telephony much easier and more efficient.

With the World’s businesses and institutions become increasingly Cloud reliant, many are exploring how to leverage its transformative capacity for communications. Whether keeping users connected worldwide via Cloud VoIP, or enabling collaborative working with burgeoning software such as Microsoft Teams, the Cloud is proving invaluable in keeping people connected.

For some, however, the change is still transitional. There are certain features and benefits that they might be missing – or worse yet, forfeiting – as they move their telephony to the Cloud. With Microsoft Teams’ Direct Routing, however, businesses can seamlessly bridge the gap between the technical and the traditional.

Direct Routing explained

While it’s true that Teams has long supported business telephony, with features such as Teams Phone and Teams Voice having been available for the past year, the solution hasn’t always been complete. Microsoft’s Calling Plans scheme doesn’t offer the cost flexibility of traditional telephony providers, and its range is often limited to select countries or call pooling plans.

Direct Routing is different. With Direct Routing, your telephony is seamlessly integrated with Teams without sacrificing the cost-efficiency and capabilities of your current comms provider. That way, you’re not limited by calling packages, location or, in some cases, licensing costs. Your existing telephony is unchanged except for the added functionality of Microsoft Teams calling.

What are the benefits of Direct Routing?

Direct Routing provides coherence and cost-efficiency to your overall business comms, but the wider benefits are even more transformative.