In this MidDay Café we cover connecting to existing phone carriers with Microsoft Operator Connect.
Covered in this session:
- Show Operator Connect in my Lab Tenant
- Show Operators and Provisioning process with Operators
- Show Numbers After they are provisioned by Operators
- Show Assignment process
- Show comparison slide of Operator Connect compared to Direct Routing for Pitch Deck (public approved)
- Panel Discussion
This session features Microsoft's Scott Moore, Sue Vencill, Kendra Burgess, and Michael Gannotti. Connect with us on LinkedIn.
Resources:
- Download slides in PDF format
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- https://aka.ms/e5trial (>300 users)
- https://aka.ms/BusinessVoiceTrial (<300 users)
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- Check out Calling customer stories
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Thanks for visiting – Michael Gannotti LinkedIn | Twitter
Auto generated transcript:
00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:21.670
Michael Gannotti
Alright, so we are back at mid day cafe. Not welcome everyone. My name is Mike Gannotti. I'm a principle technology specialist here for Microsoft and I am joined by my colleagues today. I will go in the order of presentation slash participation. So Scott, you want to introduce yourself?
00:00:22.140 --> 00:00:24.330
Scott Moore
I'm Scott Moore. I'm a teams technical specialist.
00:00:26.230 --> 00:00:28.770
Sue Vencill
So Wenzel, still a team specialist?
00:00:29.060 --> 00:00:30.710
Michael Gannotti
Still, Kendra.
00:00:31.700 --> 00:00:34.740
Kendra Burgess
Kendra Burgess I'm a business intelligence specialist.
00:00:35.440 --> 00:00:51.080
Michael Gannotti
So we have got a great topic today. I'm very excited about this. It's going to be a single topic. Focus around operator connect. But before we do I thought we would start off our session with providing some people something very useful.
00:00:51.800 --> 00:00:56.730
Michael Gannotti
So this comes to us from the book of Useless Information.
00:00:59.910 --> 00:01:01.270
Kendra Burgess
Bring it on Daddy O.
00:01:00.740 --> 00:01:07.620
Michael Gannotti
We're gonna we're gonna bring on a little useless info each week we're going to give you something useful we gotta do something useless.
00:01:01.580 --> 00:01:02.260
Sue Vencill
Travel.
00:01:01.930 --> 00:01:02.480
Scott Moore
It's here.
00:01:04.260 --> 00:01:04.850
Scott Moore
Let's hear it.
00:01:08.470 --> 00:01:19.820
Michael Gannotti
Which, alright, so keeping your cool and I did not know this rubber bands last longer when refrigerated.
00:01:21.590 --> 00:01:23.550
Kendra Burgess
How long do they last when they're not?
00:01:21.640 --> 00:01:22.430
Michael Gannotti
Did not know.
00:01:24.610 --> 00:01:28.630
Kendra Burgess
Because and they must last a very long time when they're not refrigerated.
00:01:24.660 --> 00:01:25.080
Michael Gannotti
Huh?
00:01:29.390 --> 00:01:45.640
Michael Gannotti
Well they yeah they last a long time but when you put him in the refrigerator the last even longer it says. And then lastly on the keeping your cool. It says some Eskimos have been. You have been known to use refrigerators to keep their food from freezing.
00:01:47.660 --> 00:01:50.540
Michael Gannotti
There's your useless information for this week.
00:01:50.780 --> 00:01:51.850
Sue Vencill
Yeah, you can't do that.
00:01:51.380 --> 00:01:51.970
Scott Moore
So.
00:01:51.830 --> 00:01:52.270
Michael Gannotti
Ghost.
00:01:52.740 --> 00:01:58.700
Scott Moore
I wonder if the refrigerator the band aids in the refrigerator has something to do with moisture 'cause she know typically.
00:01:59.250 --> 00:02:04.660
Scott Moore
Band aid say you know there. I guess the bane of mandate or not being it's rubber bands as they get dry, right?
00:02:05.110 --> 00:02:10.840
Michael Gannotti
Yeah, yeah, that that's what I'm thinking. This is the anti dry rot.
00:02:10.930 --> 00:02:11.960
Scott Moore
I the moisture.
00:02:11.350 --> 00:02:20.450
Kendra Burgess
OK I wanna raise of hands out there. Any woman that's going to put rubber bands in the refrigerator. Please raise your hand because it's not here.
00:02:22.340 --> 00:02:31.700
Michael Gannotti
I see all men in my shop refrigerator. All my rubber bands are going in without with my cheerwine to keep me happy.
00:02:31.880 --> 00:02:49.760
Kendra Burgess
When will Samsung come out with a little compartment for rubber bands? I doubt now. Maybe that's the next innovative activity it's Home Office supply lifetime extension program in the refrigerator.
00:02:37.530 --> 00:02:37.890
Michael Gannotti
3.
00:02:40.600 --> 00:02:41.080
Scott Moore
Yeah.
00:02:41.320 --> 00:02:43.250
Michael Gannotti
I, I think there's a market.
00:02:49.010 --> 00:02:58.070
Michael Gannotti
And you're an adult. Forget if you live up in the Arctic Circle during winter. Get your food warmer refrigerator.
00:02:58.550 --> 00:03:02.240
Kendra Burgess
Well, 'cause you can control the temperature, sure I can see that.
00:03:02.920 --> 00:03:03.490
Scott Moore
There you go.
00:03:03.580 --> 00:03:30.770
Michael Gannotti
Alright, so enough of our useless knowledge we have, uh, some really useful info today and this is really focusing going out into that whole teams voice for calls and all that. And it's around operator connect. So with that I'm going to shut my mouth 'cause I am useful as I'm going to hand that over Scott. You want to pick that up and start talking? I'm going to mute myself while I eat. I've had no breaks today so.
00:03:25.780 --> 00:03:27.420
Scott Moore
Sure, so we.
00:03:31.460 --> 00:03:37.810
Scott Moore
So we wanted to talk about operator connect today, so I'm going to share my tenant and give a little preamble.
00:03:38.540 --> 00:03:45.240
Scott Moore
Uh, around what operator connect is so operator connect it just you know it's it's in public preview now.
00:03:46.490 --> 00:04:16.420
Scott Moore
It's a new way to get downtown, you know, in the phone system in your tenant. So we know previously you have the ability to do. You know, Calling Plans and then direct routing, but operator connect is really kind of a combination of both. So it really boils down to where your carrier's actually have the ability to do that, doesn't it as a go between this some carriers of already been doing their version of direct routing as a service as well as carrying into being a sip trunk carrier.
00:04:16.620 --> 00:04:40.470
Scott Moore
But now they have that ability that you can port numbers to them or provision numbers from them from area codes and number availability that they have in your in your location. And it's now. Basically, it automatically shows up in your tenant so originally, and I'm going to show you guys, so when you now there's a new tab under your voice tab in the 365 tenant so you can click on that.
00:04:41.100 --> 00:05:01.870
Scott Moore
And it's already grown, so this this was announced a couple weeks ago. I believe there were seven carriers out there. Then it's already grown to 11 now. So you see, these carriers that are out there today. So all of these carriers on the back end? They've partnered with Microsoft to be able to provide downtown services. As I mentioned before in your care in your tenant.
00:05:03.020 --> 00:05:32.630
Sue Vencill
So I'd like to just give some real world examples. For example, for those customers that are for example with NTT an, maybe they have a Cisco IP phone before we would have to bring in direct routing which required some hardware configuration. So that way you continue to use as is. But now if you want to replace the Cisco with Microsoft Teams, you can still continue to function with NTT I I do think, and this will be my one was the most of.
00:05:03.190 --> 00:05:03.650
Scott Moore
Uh.
00:05:32.680 --> 00:05:33.390
Sue Vencill
My one.
00:05:34.470 --> 00:05:55.300
Sue Vencill
Probably the most profound thing I'm going to say today is that I do wish they would have named it something differently. You know, operating connect did not get me excited at all. Had they called it carrier connect that would have been a whole different game. I think there are some people probably watching this that might not have given at the time of day because of the name, but this is based on carriers.
00:05:55.600 --> 00:05:59.580
Scott Moore
Right, uh, I tend to agree definitely so.
00:06:01.060 --> 00:06:09.330
Scott Moore
We do have these carriers, so ash operators that they have availability now. There will be new carriers that will be coming into the fold.
00:06:11.160 --> 00:06:15.930
Scott Moore
So this is what we have now. I'm going to kind of walk through a little bit of a demo of how you actually.
00:06:16.250 --> 00:06:23.010
Scott Moore
Uh, sign your your tenant up for for working with these carriers. I've actually already done this with a couple of carriers.
00:06:23.970 --> 00:06:35.010
Scott Moore
I'm going to pick one that I haven't worked. This is actually one of the newer carrier's that showing up more recently, so typically what you'll do is you'll just click on that carrier, click on the name you see that's bolted.
00:06:35.740 --> 00:06:40.730
Scott Moore
A minion that will take you to another screen specifically for that carrier is going to show you.
00:06:41.730 --> 00:06:53.980
Scott Moore
The availability of where those carriers, what countries they can provide carrier services for safer here for instance, will click on United States and then you're going to click on the operator can contact me.
00:06:54.620 --> 00:07:02.050
Scott Moore
So you definitely want to put your name in. Put your name there, uh, populate. You know, I've already got my information populated in edge.
00:07:03.490 --> 00:07:30.220
Scott Moore
Yeah, with Microsoft as my domain because I'm actually wanted to be contacted through here since this is actually a demo tenant phone number and you can put in your company size. I'm just going to put in 10 to 24 people. Click on this, agree to the terms an ad as my operator and you'll see once I click on that it's actually going to show that under my operators, so I've already done this for a couple of other carriers that are out there now.
00:07:30.860 --> 00:07:50.010
Scott Moore
So you'll sleep European try to NTT. A new wave is now one of the newer ones that I just added there. So what's going to happen on the back end is is these carriers will get a notification from that and then they will do it out. Reach out to that name in a dentity that I provided.
00:07:50.410 --> 00:08:04.830
Scott Moore
Uh, and outreach and what's happening on the back end is they will. They will reach out. They will, you know, start a sales conversation with that person who's made the contact and kind of gather requirements. Talk through their specific.
00:08:05.670 --> 00:08:24.580
Scott Moore
Uh, offerings because you will actually see each carrier does actually has already been doing this for awhile, so they're going to be able to do some trunking services. As I mentioned before. They could also do direct routing as a service. Now they can do operator connect. I've also seen and and in my conversations with some of these other carriers.
00:08:25.270 --> 00:08:28.260
Scott Moore
They can do some things around Onprem integration.
00:08:29.250 --> 00:08:42.370
Scott Moore
So some of these guys do have capabilities around on Prem integration for legacy scenarios where you may still have analog. So we do know that some of these carriers do have other relationships in place with on premises spaced SBC's.
00:08:43.220 --> 00:08:49.030
Scott Moore
So they can also do turnkey deployments of the actual transformation process.
00:08:50.150 --> 00:08:59.040
Scott Moore
And actually also call out. They also have as part of this as part of porting. They also have project management importing coordination as part of this.
00:09:00.070 --> 00:09:00.980
Scott Moore
This service
00:09:02.430 --> 00:09:26.200
Scott Moore
they also have. These guys can also do many services from a day two perspective, so they also as part of the portfolio have that ability that once you transfer these telephone numbers or you provision telephone numbers from them, they also have that ability to manage that on the back end as part of a day. Too many services agreement. So that's all handled through those guys so it's all part of the conversations that you have with them.
00:09:26.750 --> 00:09:41.590
Scott Moore
We try to stay agnostic and just say all these carriers have different capabilities, so it's definitely work the word to the wise of speak with these carriers. See what their services are and see where they can fit with the requirements of the customers have.
00:09:42.030 --> 00:09:46.330
Sue Vencill
Yeah, the big thing that we did was adding it to the team's administration.
00:09:47.330 --> 00:09:48.590
Scott Moore
Definitely, and I.
00:09:48.260 --> 00:09:49.430
Sue Vencill
That's the big deal.
00:09:51.810 --> 00:09:54.550
Scott Moore
I do have a slide deck I'm going to share after we go through this.
00:09:55.620 --> 00:10:03.350
Scott Moore
And I'll go through some of those different comparison points between direct routing and operator connect couple other things that.
00:10:02.360 --> 00:10:02.920
Michael Gannotti
But
00:10:03.900 --> 00:10:16.540
Michael Gannotti
real quick, it sounds like since we have the hookups and it's now in the admin. Really you set this up. They contact you when they like the services up on there and then it's just let correct.
00:10:08.990 --> 00:10:09.420
Scott Moore
Yeah.
00:10:16.910 --> 00:10:29.770
Scott Moore
Pretty much it's. It's basically, you know once. Once they do that because they have access to the tenant on the back end, they're actually doing this to Azure on the back end. That's part of the their requirements to be an operator connect carrier.
00:10:31.600 --> 00:10:43.630
Scott Moore
Is there's very minimal information that they need as far as a demo environment naturally for production environment there would be some deeper conversations around porting and coordination of porting and D idees telephone numbers.
00:10:45.160 --> 00:10:49.660
Scott Moore
But from a demo perspective, it's very easy and it's also pretty easy for production.
00:10:50.150 --> 00:10:54.290
Michael Gannotti
So what would be the use case where people would?
00:10:50.230 --> 00:10:50.810
Scott Moore
Uh.
00:10:55.130 --> 00:10:58.620
Michael Gannotti
Want to set this up? What's that specific?
00:10:59.240 --> 00:11:21.240
Scott Moore
So really, the round the use cases, there's actually a couple of different use cases here. It really boils down to where customers get to a point where they say where we're ready for technology refresh of going to a different technology for our dial tone. However, they would like to do teams as that primary mechanism for telephony capabilities.
00:11:21.800 --> 00:11:30.150
Scott Moore
And we see a lot of customers now today, so I don't want to make that investment with anymore on premises hardware. So we may have a legacy PBX.
00:11:31.260 --> 00:11:40.480
Scott Moore
We may not want to invest in on premises based SBC's, or even especies. You know in the cloud 'cause you can. Do you know cloud based species as well?
00:11:42.210 --> 00:11:45.950
Scott Moore
I work with some customers prior to coming to Microsoft and they said we.
00:11:46.620 --> 00:11:53.370
Scott Moore
We don't want to have to manage species we don't want to do that, we just want to be able to have a a pure cloud based service.
00:11:54.070 --> 00:11:59.490
Scott Moore
Where we may, we may pay a fee an it's managed in the cloud, so that's really the best use case.
00:12:00.150 --> 00:12:13.450
Sue Vencill
Yeah, I think early on the the uh commodis case I think we're going to see is what I mentioned at the beginning. Somebody wants to migrate to Microsoft Teams for voice. This allows him to keep the same delta and they've been using.
00:12:11.060 --> 00:12:11.430
Scott Moore
Yes.
00:12:13.060 --> 00:12:13.680
Michael Gannotti
Gotcha.
00:12:13.950 --> 00:12:17.380
Scott Moore
That's true, I was working with another customer earlier this year.
00:12:17.790 --> 00:12:32.110
Scott Moore
Uh, there working with the carrier they were actually on a on a competing platform and doing some investigation to come into teams and that carrier actually told them we can actually just go ahead and give you direct routing as a service.
00:12:32.850 --> 00:12:40.030
Scott Moore
Uh, and just repoint the existing numbers that we actually managed for you, where I would say that are bounded to us.
00:12:40.690 --> 00:12:41.830
Scott Moore
As an alternative.
00:12:42.470 --> 00:12:53.220
Scott Moore
So they were actually had that ability to pivot them off of a different on premise based PBX platform and basically re point those numbers as as a direct routing as a service model.
00:12:54.040 --> 00:13:02.540
Scott Moore
So that's a different different but similar scenario, and that just kind of dovetails into what's coming now with operator connect, same same scenario.
00:13:04.350 --> 00:13:04.900
Michael Gannotti
Alright.
00:13:04.990 --> 00:13:36.410
Scott Moore
So, so let me let me kind of walk through a couple of other things here in the tenant. So as you can see here, a couple of numbers we have phone numbers already provisioned. Once the numbers show up, they're actually going to show up under phone numbers, so you'll actually. This is really cool, so this is also the same place where you would say you're calling plan numbers. You also see numbers that are populated from the carrier set of already been provisioned through those carriers, so it's pretty simple. All you have to do is basically click on the number.
00:13:36.870 --> 00:13:41.590
Scott Moore
You can see it, I've already assigned some of these numbers to end users, so you just click on the number.
00:13:42.310 --> 00:13:44.380
Scott Moore
Go to the provisioning process here.
00:13:45.020 --> 00:13:52.240
Scott Moore
And you can manually do this. You know in the tenant you can see actually assigned this number to my demo at identity in the tenant.
00:13:53.350 --> 00:14:00.120
Scott Moore
Pretty much the only prerequisites as part of the provisioning process with the carrier is is they need to know.
00:14:00.680 --> 00:14:09.920
Scott Moore
Uh, Area Code City an also is to make sure that there is an emergency location that's already defined for these locations.
00:14:10.890 --> 00:14:15.430
Scott Moore
I will say another thing is is there is a cost savings. It's kind of a hidden cost savings.
00:14:16.790 --> 00:14:23.250
Scott Moore
Because with direct routing urine, if you're going with SIP trunking, you typically have to work with a third party inama one provider.
00:14:24.460 --> 00:14:32.520
Scott Moore
With operator connect these operators already bundling third party E911 on the back end.
00:14:33.340 --> 00:14:40.880
Scott Moore
So it's already bundled into their services, so you would still need to go through location identification that you would need to.
00:14:41.800 --> 00:14:49.080
Scott Moore
As part of a direct routing deployment into your LS integration to identify locations and networks for those locations.
00:14:50.570 --> 00:14:55.600
Scott Moore
But they carry a lot of that burden on the back end already in their infrastructure.
00:14:57.070 --> 00:15:03.580
Scott Moore
So, but as you can see here, I've already assigned this number. It's pretty easy. You can unassign reassign.
00:15:04.690 --> 00:15:09.290
Scott Moore
Do all that from the teams admin center. It's very easy to do so you can do this.
00:15:08.840 --> 00:15:09.510
Michael Gannotti
Hey Scott.
00:15:10.840 --> 00:15:11.560
Michael Gannotti
Quick question.
00:15:11.080 --> 00:15:11.510
Scott Moore
Sure.
00:15:12.050 --> 00:15:24.520
Michael Gannotti
Uh, so you're showing it here in the admin console, which is great, but if I'm doing like a mass piece, do we have is there like a scripting available for that? How do we do that in bulk?
00:15:25.040 --> 00:15:28.700
Scott Moore
So you, as far as I know, I believe you can also do that through PowerShell.
00:15:28.830 --> 00:15:29.340
Michael Gannotti
OK.
00:15:29.470 --> 00:15:53.970
Scott Moore
So you should be able to get through PowerShell, but that's also another great question. The carriers themselves also have the ability to do some master visioning on their end as well. So I do know that some of the key areas that we're working with they have their own provisioning capabilities that they can do as part of part of mass migration, but they will that will differ per carrier because they've they've developed their own provisioning mechanisms to do that.
00:15:39.460 --> 00:15:40.590
Michael Gannotti
Oh, OK.
00:15:55.140 --> 00:15:55.620
Scott Moore
So.
00:15:59.620 --> 00:16:03.570
Scott Moore
Trying to think of other things to show it's pretty. It's so straightforward it's it's very easy.
00:16:05.050 --> 00:16:11.120
Scott Moore
Maybe the best thing to do is to segue to the PowerPoint presentation. Or do you guys have any other questions so far?
00:16:13.830 --> 00:16:14.480
Michael Gannotti
I'm good.
00:16:16.330 --> 00:16:19.830
Scott Moore
So let me stop presenting here and I'll I'll I'll do my presentation.
00:16:21.500 --> 00:16:25.780
Scott Moore
And these are what I'm going to show you is just a couple of slides that we have as part of our.
00:16:26.890 --> 00:16:29.440
Scott Moore
Our internal pitches around operator connect.
00:16:35.130 --> 00:16:36.400
Scott Moore
But I walked through these.
00:16:39.350 --> 00:16:40.070
Scott Moore
So.
00:16:40.880 --> 00:16:44.430
Scott Moore
This is the first slide, so it's really a comparison around.
00:16:45.330 --> 00:16:46.450
Scott Moore
Direct routing.
00:16:47.440 --> 00:16:48.180
Scott Moore
And.
00:16:49.150 --> 00:16:50.170
Scott Moore
Uh, calling plan?
00:16:51.120 --> 00:17:00.300
Scott Moore
So I'm going to go through these one by one and kind of talk through the nuances of how these things are approached from an operator connect perspective as well as how they approached from a direct routing perspective.
00:17:01.510 --> 00:17:15.340
Scott Moore
So the first thing definitely take note, uh, from the program type as we mentioned before, operator connect is a programmatic approach. You know two operator provided calling rather than. With direct routing, there's no program involved, it's really around.
00:17:16.110 --> 00:17:21.410
Scott Moore
Direct routing is done through certified ESPECIES, whether that's an on premises based SBC.
00:17:22.090 --> 00:17:27.730
Scott Moore
Or it's a cloud based SBC or direct routing as a service, so it's not as programmatic.
00:17:28.900 --> 00:17:34.140
Scott Moore
And it's a little more manual. There are so, so at more manual things that you definitely have to set up as part of a direct routing employment.
00:17:34.820 --> 00:17:39.970
Scott Moore
Rather than it being programmatically done on the back end with teams and operator connect.
00:17:42.350 --> 00:17:45.560
Scott Moore
Yes, have any additional feedback there, any thoughts?
00:17:45.890 --> 00:17:46.960
Sue Vencill
Straightforward.
00:17:47.760 --> 00:18:06.880
Scott Moore
Pretty straightforward as far as interconnection we talked about that. So with operator connect it's actually done through the Azure peering services for voice. There are some as I mentioned before. There's also some dedicated APIs with each carrier. The carrier actually interoperates with with Microsoft Teams Admin center.
00:18:07.780 --> 00:18:10.180
Scott Moore
So they actually set up the trunk on the back end.
00:18:11.490 --> 00:18:12.850
Scott Moore
Do all the validation.
00:18:13.630 --> 00:18:23.150
Scott Moore
Whereas with direct routing you do have to do that TLS connection over the Internet from the on premise assess PC or the cloud based SBC 2 teams.
00:18:24.000 --> 00:18:27.410
Scott Moore
There's a carrier tenant for setting that up as what we call a super trunk.
00:18:28.390 --> 00:18:32.350
Scott Moore
And there's definitely a little bit of customer configuration in direct routing.
00:18:34.250 --> 00:18:44.250
Scott Moore
Uh, next thing is around number provisioning. We talked about that so provisioning is through the APIs as we mentioned before. You can see those numbers that are provisioned in the tenant.
00:18:45.620 --> 00:19:15.230
Scott Moore
So you have that capability to provision in the tenant also through a carrier APIs. They can do some provisioning as part of their services, though in direct routing that is actually done through PowerShell as part of that. So when you do provision numbers for direct routing it is done via PowerShell. It's not heavy, but it's definitely there. You can gives you a lot of flexibility with PowerShell, 'cause I've seen a lot of mass transformations where we can do PowerShell.
00:19:15.530 --> 00:19:22.280
Scott Moore
And we can do boom boom, boom and do. I've seen thousands of people actually being provisioned through PowerShell with direct routing.
00:19:23.000 --> 00:19:27.630
Scott Moore
Just a matter of the comfort level with with the technology and your comfort level with PowerShell.
00:19:31.040 --> 00:19:39.220
Scott Moore
Capabilities in teams admin center. As you saw before, I showed you that we have that presence in the portal. You can select the operator we walk through that.
00:19:40.290 --> 00:19:46.000
Scott Moore
And direct routing that is not available. That's not there today, so there is a distinction there.
00:19:47.570 --> 00:19:57.660
Scott Moore
From a customer experience perspective, we mentioned that the numbers are visualized in the portal as the operator numbers, you can assign them, you know through the portal.
00:19:58.680 --> 00:20:12.320
Scott Moore
However, in direct routing you do have to do that through PowerShell and you also do need to create some voice policies that are that would need to be additional configuration with direct routing as part of your voice policies.
00:20:15.260 --> 00:20:16.180
Scott Moore
Any thoughts there?
00:20:17.050 --> 00:20:19.440
Scott Moore
Additions data sharing.
00:20:18.630 --> 00:20:18.650
Sue Vencill
Uh.
00:20:20.510 --> 00:20:22.940
Scott Moore
So with data sharing all these, all this.
00:20:24.910 --> 00:20:54.680
Scott Moore
Analytics therefore for numbers, so your Cdr CQ CQ D That's there is part of operator connect or the APIs. The carriers also have some capabilities around some of the CRC QD data that they can actually see from their perspective, so you know a good example there is. You'd say, well, I'm working with NTT or peer IP and I'd like to see how much consumption I'm coming through. Then they can provide you reports of of the carrier utilization.
00:20:55.100 --> 00:20:56.530
Scott Moore
Naturally for them.
00:20:57.410 --> 00:21:04.390
Scott Moore
Uh, for direct routing then you are. Then append the Cdr and SQD data that's natively there in the tenant today.
00:21:05.610 --> 00:21:07.560
Scott Moore
Rather than getting that from your carrier.
00:21:10.490 --> 00:21:41.180
Scott Moore
From a support perspective, you know your your first line of support for these numbers is your tier one is going to go through your operator connect model, so if you're if there were some issues then you would escalate to the carrier to the operator and then they would be that first line of support and then they can handle any any change management and updates through their channels as well as any Slas. They will have their own Slas between them. There's also Slas between that operator, an Microsoft for that availability.
00:21:42.540 --> 00:21:51.370
Scott Moore
With direct routing, the URL on Appan naturally working through your sip carrier or your PSTN carrier for any issues there as well as.
00:21:52.910 --> 00:21:57.240
Scott Moore
Possibly a managed services provider that may be managing that where you're managing that on your own.
00:21:58.270 --> 00:22:12.290
Scott Moore
As well as your SBC manufacturer for support for the SBC and you do have capabilities of escalations through M365 support or premier support, if there's any issues for numbers through direct routing.
00:22:12.890 --> 00:22:13.340
Michael Gannotti
That
00:22:12.920 --> 00:22:16.030
Scott Moore
And there's no mess always in place for direct routing.
00:22:16.420 --> 00:22:31.260
Michael Gannotti
that that seems to me a biggie right? Specially as we look at mission critical large enterprise. If there's no SLA. This is kind of that really your role in your own, so it's best effort.
00:22:30.080 --> 00:22:30.580
Scott Moore
Well.
00:22:31.380 --> 00:22:40.180
Scott Moore
There there are Slas for M365 and Office 365. There's just, there's nothing specifically around right definitely.
00:22:37.670 --> 00:22:38.380
Michael Gannotti
For this.
00:22:39.650 --> 00:22:44.090
Michael Gannotti
For this piece, which is, which is a vital point of connection, right?
00:22:45.550 --> 00:22:58.700
Scott Moore
So we we do see that this is definitely much more advantageous operator connect perspective. It definitely gives you that capability. Then if there were some issues then you can actually engage and escalate through the operator.
00:22:59.580 --> 00:23:01.430
Scott Moore
So they definitely have some skin in the game there.
00:23:01.830 --> 00:23:02.290
Michael Gannotti
Good.
00:23:02.370 --> 00:23:02.820
Scott Moore
So.
00:23:05.570 --> 00:23:10.100
Scott Moore
From a management perspective, we we talked about the dedicated management capabilities there in the portal.
00:23:10.760 --> 00:23:17.090
Scott Moore
Uh, so you do have that there that also you have those portal and API capabilities when it becomes generally available.
00:23:17.880 --> 00:23:39.600
Scott Moore
Uh, for direct routing you do have some you know delegated admin capabilities as well as our bot capabilities. Today with access you know required in the tenant so that certain arbok users have the ability to provision telephone numbers or they'd have teams administrator which would basically be global admin for everything.
00:23:40.830 --> 00:23:41.330
Scott Moore
Uh.
00:23:42.420 --> 00:23:54.060
Scott Moore
Total cost of ownership, so it is as a service with operator connect, so it's definitely modeled. You know it's delivered by the operator. You will see some different pricing models from each operator.
00:23:55.100 --> 00:23:59.550
Scott Moore
Due to the, you know the the breath of the services that they offer around that.
00:24:00.150 --> 00:24:00.750
Scott Moore
Uhm?
00:24:01.710 --> 00:24:14.320
Scott Moore
But you will see that uh, with direct routing, the total cost of ownership is going to be the own premises based SBC as well as operated by the customer and or the hosted managed service for the operator.
00:24:08.910 --> 00:24:08.930
Sue Vencill
Uh.
00:24:16.370 --> 00:24:17.930
Sue Vencill
For a cloud solution.
00:24:18.100 --> 00:24:20.150
Scott Moore
They they really are and.
00:24:19.670 --> 00:24:22.780
Sue Vencill
And we have to have some a piece of hardware on Prem.
00:24:23.710 --> 00:24:25.340
Sue Vencill
Kind of put the damper on things.
00:24:25.820 --> 00:24:39.900
Scott Moore
An and and I'll talk about these a couple a couple data points on. Make sure that you know there's still a lot of requirements around, and there's still a lot of benefits of having on premises based SBC's you know. I do see a lot of customers I've been doing this for a long time.
00:24:41.540 --> 00:24:52.010
Scott Moore
Some customers still have legacy PBX is they may still have and a lot of things also boil down to still having you know, own premises analog requirements so that.
00:24:52.650 --> 00:24:59.460
Scott Moore
That's where the SBC's will shine, because the SP zone on premises based species still have capabilities around.
00:24:59.820 --> 00:25:05.600
Scott Moore
Uh, analogue, whether it's you're talking doorbell systems, elevator systems, alarm systems.
00:25:06.290 --> 00:25:12.580
Scott Moore
Paging in PA systems. They have those capabilities of of being able to enter interconnect with them.
00:25:13.260 --> 00:25:18.720
Scott Moore
I also see some carriers or I actually some customers. They may still have pris.
00:25:19.550 --> 00:25:37.710
Scott Moore
So the SBC S is basically it's a voice T1, so your old primary rate interface. So some customers may still be on TDM or voice pris rather than already converting over to SIP trunking. And the best analogy is it's basically Dow up.
00:25:20.340 --> 00:25:20.960
Michael Gannotti
WhatsApp?
00:25:35.390 --> 00:25:35.680
Sue Vencill
Thank you.
00:25:38.100 --> 00:25:38.610
Sue Vencill
Yeah.
00:25:38.400 --> 00:25:43.810
Scott Moore
Uh, for voice. Rather than being on, you know, Sipos. Almost like a broadband connection.
00:25:44.120 --> 00:25:45.330
Sue Vencill
Right I.
00:25:44.780 --> 00:25:45.510
Scott Moore
So you have.
00:25:47.140 --> 00:25:55.230
Scott Moore
So especies do have the ability, if they're properly ordered in, configured to be able to support interconnectivity of both.
00:25:56.510 --> 00:26:02.600
Scott Moore
Yeah, that's PC manufacturers. Make those that have PRI interfaces, but they all support native sip integration as well.
00:26:04.160 --> 00:26:07.790
Scott Moore
So you'll still see some customers do their part of that transition.
00:26:09.620 --> 00:26:12.630
Scott Moore
And they may have SBC's in those locations where they have.
00:26:13.900 --> 00:26:38.230
Scott Moore
PSTN integration, what we call local breakout. I work with a lot of customers who have. I've seen customers may have 900 locations and they still put an SBC in those locations, but there's also opportunities of consolidating those. I've also worked with customers who have gone through the process of consolidating that footprint of having 900 PSTN locations down to regional locations with SIP.
00:26:38.950 --> 00:26:42.870
Scott Moore
So it's all based on where they are in that in that road map.
00:26:43.750 --> 00:26:44.890
Scott Moore
For their own infrastructure.
00:26:46.020 --> 00:26:54.770
Scott Moore
But I've also seen a lot of customers, you know, make the conscious decision. Hey, we're ready to, you know. Start looking at something that's a little more cloud based.
00:26:55.980 --> 00:27:04.410
Scott Moore
And and, you know, shifting the paradigm and moving towards something that's really more cloud based. And this is where operator connect does fit in.
00:27:05.560 --> 00:27:06.870
Scott Moore
An another
00:27:07.710 --> 00:27:17.540
Scott Moore
another thing to think about that 'cause I've what were some other customers once they start to look at the workloads for end users and you kind of separate what I call your user based workloads.
00:27:18.700 --> 00:27:24.670
Scott Moore
Your user based workloads are more appropriate for these operator connects scenarios, whereas your facilities based workloads.
00:27:25.950 --> 00:27:35.420
Scott Moore
That's where the SBC's can still shine until you can look at other alternative solutions around those things around where you still have analog requirements.
00:27:35.440 --> 00:27:58.490
Michael Gannotti
So what I'm hearing at, you know, correct me if I'm wrong, but it sounds like really where we're going to see we're direct routing. Is there really hinges on the SPC where if you still have analog, you haven't moved some of those systems are still out there, not updated, and you need to connect and also where they're just.
00:27:59.730 --> 00:28:19.090
Michael Gannotti
Doing their return on investment, you know they have capital investment. They say over where writing it for X period. That's our budgetary cycle for this until we look to move out. You know we have to gain. I forget what do you? What do they call that? Again, I'm not the financial guy.
00:28:02.110 --> 00:28:02.420
Scott Moore
Right?
00:28:19.060 --> 00:28:20.350
Scott Moore
Uh, capitalization.
00:28:20.330 --> 00:28:23.980
Michael Gannotti
Cat, Yeah capital is zaddy capitalization.
00:28:21.510 --> 00:28:22.850
Scott Moore
Capitalization, yeah.
00:28:24.580 --> 00:28:37.220
Scott Moore
Definitely we have been working with a lot of customers where they they basically say, well, you know, we just invested in another PBX platform. So it may be you know 4-6 years before we're ready for a refresh and we have to capitalize that and write it off.
00:28:24.590 --> 00:28:25.030
Sue Vencill
My cat.
00:28:37.930 --> 00:28:38.430
Scott Moore
Uh.
00:28:38.080 --> 00:28:48.280
Michael Gannotti
I I do have to point this out. I thought this was fun. Sue, did you see in the transcript when you said the cap it said my cat?
00:28:49.540 --> 00:28:50.910
Sue Vencill
I said capax.
00:28:50.650 --> 00:29:03.620
Michael Gannotti
So now we know direct routing. If you have a cat, there's a impetus for that. Whoa, where'd he go he left. He couldn't stand that. I said, I joked in Scott left. He couldn't take that.
00:29:04.290 --> 00:29:05.160
Sue Vencill
They come out.
00:29:05.570 --> 00:29:06.170
Scott Moore
I'm back.
00:29:06.450 --> 00:29:07.800
Michael Gannotti
So real quickly.
00:29:09.170 --> 00:29:31.830
Michael Gannotti
You know from a so Scott that's great and you you're bringing this with your perspective from coming from the consulting field. Sue, you were at a competitor. And so where you had a lot of customers who again had on Prem and all that. So what are some of the key takeaways that you've seen with this or that you're thinking about?
00:29:32.360 --> 00:29:34.630
Sue Vencill
Well, I a lot of my customers.
00:29:34.680 --> 00:29:55.490
Sue Vencill
Uh, at the majority that are on Prem but a lot of them and it has a lot to do with money from a cap ex expenditure to they want to be more of an operational expense trip. You know, just from a finance accounting perspective. The way things work and that means that they want to move to more to a monthly subscription.
00:29:56.590 --> 00:30:22.280
Sue Vencill
Right versus paying for it all up front, but then that aside, there also has been a huge driver to push to the cloud for many reasons. The pandemic is the one that really pushed that to make that happen for a lot of our customers. So a lot of the customers were looking for a purely cloud solution, but also maintain the same features that they know and love with on Prem.
00:29:58.040 --> 00:29:58.410
Michael Gannotti
Yeah.
00:30:22.850 --> 00:30:27.430
Sue Vencill
You know, so be able to call Park. Being able to page being able to.
00:30:28.580 --> 00:30:36.720
Sue Vencill
Transfer consult transfer blind transfer all that still having those features and functionality but an all cloud solution.
00:30:37.320 --> 00:30:44.080
Michael Gannotti
So two quick things. One of them is I'm going to call on Kendra in a second and it's about the data sharing.
00:30:37.500 --> 00:30:37.890
Scott Moore
Right?
00:30:45.860 --> 00:31:04.330
Michael Gannotti
But the first thing is when you did something just like a little light bulb in my head, I'm slow to the table, so it takes me a little. But when you were talking when you were talking about wanting to move to the cloud based and liking a monthly subscription.
00:31:05.340 --> 00:31:24.320
Michael Gannotti
And then this combined with what you know talking about earlier by having that single, you know that carrier that you're connecting to it would seem that if you're a customer who's like look we need to hedge our bets because Microsoft yeah, we love you today, but we may not tomorrow.
00:31:25.640 --> 00:31:49.450
Michael Gannotti
This gives me some flexibility, right? Because now if I decide to go with another solutions cloud base, it's providing similar capability. It would be a much easier proposition to move. Keep those numbers, do all that, it's just a re look once I'm in the cloud now I don't have that huge investment on the cap, ex. That's what I was looking for and you said it.
00:31:50.480 --> 00:31:59.090
Michael Gannotti
I don't have that big cap, ex. I gotta, you know, even count over time. I can be flexible. It can be monthly and if I you know.
00:31:59.990 --> 00:32:06.970
Michael Gannotti
If they tire with us, they could move to a competitor who's doing something similar in the cloud. That's my first.
00:32:07.330 --> 00:32:37.680
Kendra Burgess
That's even true. I'm just going to add this 'cause you're hitting so many notes that even from an analytics perspective, I think about one it when you're in the cloud, you can move to any BI tool. When you push your data into your source systems, you can move to any tool, so that's some good things about being mindful about where you might want to be in 10 years, and we're here to help you be where you need to be, not necessarily to lock you into one of our products.
00:32:09.980 --> 00:32:10.330
Michael Gannotti
Yeah.
00:32:21.340 --> 00:32:21.690
Michael Gannotti
Yeah.
00:32:37.730 --> 00:32:59.790
Kendra Burgess
I think that's important to call out as a trusted advisor to my customers. I do think that way too, and the other is data security. People are moving to cloud because they don't have the costs. Of course, of hardware on Prem. But also there are things that Microsoft provides that you don't have to think about, and some of those are application management and.
00:33:00.490 --> 00:33:19.360
Kendra Burgess
And assessing security risk and mitigating for security risk and whether that's in an application or on a server or in data and how we manage that. We're constantly thinking about that kind of stuff too, so I just wanted to mention that data security cost cloud good.
00:33:16.770 --> 00:33:17.080
Sue Vencill
It's.
00:33:19.180 --> 00:33:37.730
Michael Gannotti
Well, and I had a question for you Kendra because you know that number, well, there's not. They're not number, but under data sharing they talk about having the different data that's available provided for the operators, and also that you can. You know both direct and operator connect.
00:33:20.880 --> 00:33:21.620
Kendra Burgess
Well, we're going to.
00:33:32.000 --> 00:33:33.400
Kendra Burgess
Yeah, so that.
00:33:38.120 --> 00:33:38.670
Kendra Burgess
Yeah.
00:33:39.320 --> 00:33:45.680
Michael Gannotti
Can you speak to that just a bit about? You know if you want to do any kind of analytics to open APIs?
00:33:47.620 --> 00:33:48.220
Michael Gannotti
General.
00:33:49.210 --> 00:34:19.340
Kendra Burgess
I have not actually seen this yet, so I don't have a hands on oh or even conceptual idea of this particular capability. I'm going to guess, though, that there's a database, probably SQL Server, housing this information, and because of that with power BI, if you wanted to and you had access to it, you could use one of the native connectors in power BI point to that data source in the cloud, which doesn't require a gateway, so it's easy peasy.
00:33:54.160 --> 00:33:54.610
Michael Gannotti
Yeah.
00:33:56.390 --> 00:33:56.930
Michael Gannotti
OK.
00:34:19.790 --> 00:34:38.150
Kendra Burgess
Uh, and then pull that data in and do your analytics. In fact, one of the slides that was shown earlier had a couple of key and analytics there in the form of a card that had a total number of customers and my customers and I remember looking at that going. Oh, there's some Alex built in here that's great.
00:34:38.600 --> 00:35:05.660
Kendra Burgess
Uh, so I would imagine that you can not only point to those data sources and create analytics fairly easily and you could possibly even share those analytics out as well. As long as you use some government approach for that, you wouldn't want to share that across your whole organization, but we have capabilities to be able to lock that down for you and bubble it up to your executives and create some prescriptive plans based on that data.
00:35:05.110 --> 00:35:13.490
Michael Gannotti
No, that's great. That's exactly I was getting that that you know if there are APIs that are open and they providing some of this data.
00:35:06.880 --> 00:35:07.130
Kendra Burgess
Yeah.
00:35:11.970 --> 00:35:12.400
Kendra Burgess
Yep.
00:35:14.060 --> 00:35:21.670
Michael Gannotti
You don't just have to take any canned reports, there's the opportunity to possibly create, you know custom ones for you.
00:35:18.630 --> 00:35:18.950
Kendra Burgess
Yeah.
00:35:20.300 --> 00:35:20.690
Kendra Burgess
Yeah.
00:35:21.170 --> 00:35:21.600
Scott Moore
Right?
00:35:22.290 --> 00:35:29.020
Kendra Burgess
That's and a lot of our product Stew. You can tap into just about anything dynamics on the back end.
00:35:22.500 --> 00:35:22.840
Scott Moore
I.
00:35:29.670 --> 00:35:33.220
Kendra Burgess
Yeah, Azure features. Of course. Anything you want really.
00:35:34.120 --> 00:35:42.100
Scott Moore
So that's that's probably a great we probably down the road. Might want to do a deeper dive on the city or CTD things.
00:35:42.350 --> 00:35:43.320
Kendra Burgess
Sure, yeah.
00:35:42.700 --> 00:35:47.690
Scott Moore
So Microsoft has been investing in this for awhile with the call detail records in the body dashboard.
00:35:48.390 --> 00:35:51.790
Scott Moore
So those analytics do exist today natively in teams.
00:35:53.110 --> 00:35:59.680
Scott Moore
So in it, and they're often used for troubleshooting. Oh my call, this wasn't great. Why was it not great? And it gives you that ability?
00:36:00.420 --> 00:36:04.550
Scott Moore
That you can go in and look at those analytics and and be deterministic.
00:36:05.190 --> 00:36:36.580
Scott Moore
Or at least get some information on whether it could have been, you know, network issue or a device issue. Whether it's something stimach for multiple users, so that's been there for awhile and there's been a lot of investments there and also mentioned that there are some third parties out there that have been in this space for many years, so there are some third party analytics providers specifically in the voice quality space, so they do exist and they also consume this data and have the ability to represent this data.
00:36:36.920 --> 00:36:42.240
Scott Moore
And and their lens and optics so that that also exists as well.
00:36:42.670 --> 00:36:46.710
Kendra Burgess
Can you give a couple of examples if you know of any just off the top of your head?
00:36:47.580 --> 00:36:59.750
Scott Moore
Sure, there's really. There's really three main in this space. It's really IR IR prognosis, nectar and unify square. So those are the three main voice analytics.
00:37:01.320 --> 00:37:11.140
Scott Moore
Uh, vendors out there providers and now have capabilities of being able to analyze previous Skype for business data and now teams data around voice analytics.
00:37:11.500 --> 00:37:12.100
Michael Gannotti
Nice.
00:37:11.520 --> 00:37:12.450
Kendra Burgess
That's interesting.
00:37:14.210 --> 00:37:21.090
Michael Gannotti
Alright, so if people want to get more information around operator connect.
00:37:22.220 --> 00:37:23.120
Michael Gannotti
What should they do?
00:37:23.720 --> 00:37:41.770
Scott Moore
So there's actually a slide here that I'll talk about, so we we do have a slide so you can go to AK Dot Ms forward Slash Microsoft Teams calling. There's also a couple of free trials out there. You know there for greater than 300 users for slash D5 trial.
00:37:42.350 --> 00:37:46.910
Scott Moore
As well as forward slash business voice trial for under 300 users.
00:37:47.550 --> 00:37:52.440
Scott Moore
There's also some things around fast track, so you can also go to AK Dot Ms.
00:37:53.150 --> 00:37:55.220
Scott Moore
Forward slash fast track voice.
00:37:55.820 --> 00:38:03.040
Scott Moore
And then we also have some customer scenarios that you can actually look at. Some references around forward slash teams calling customers.
00:38:03.960 --> 00:38:04.600
Michael Gannotti
Awesome.
00:38:05.680 --> 00:38:08.300
Michael Gannotti
Well, it's great. Any last comments?
00:38:06.630 --> 00:38:06.840
Sue Vencill
I.
00:38:08.440 --> 00:38:12.000
Sue Vencill
If I remember right, this was announced at Ignite, wasn't it?
00:38:13.490 --> 00:38:34.330
Scott Moore
It was announced at Ignite that this was coming and then they and then it became in preview a couple weeks ago, so I guess about a beginning of June so I know as soon as it became available I started hitting up and soon as it started getting populated because it was getting populated in peoples tenants with the operator.
00:38:17.120 --> 00:38:17.400
Sue Vencill
OK.
00:38:23.180 --> 00:38:23.640
Sue Vencill
Yeah.
00:38:34.920 --> 00:38:38.940
Scott Moore
Uh, voice played under your voice on Blade.
00:38:40.010 --> 00:38:44.770
Scott Moore
I started to communicate with some of these guys that were part of the first wave and say hey.
00:38:46.080 --> 00:38:48.780
Scott Moore
Let's talk, let's see if we can get some demo you know.
00:38:49.500 --> 00:38:55.960
Scott Moore
Get some demo numbers so that I can play with my tenant and also you know market ACIS and go where we are. Yeah.
00:38:56.280 --> 00:39:01.940
Sue Vencill
I just wasn't sure if Ignite would be another place for people to go and get some more training. That's why I asked.
00:38:56.440 --> 00:38:56.830
Michael Gannotti
9.
00:39:01.710 --> 00:39:19.040
Scott Moore
There there would be some information around the initial communications around operator connects, so you know it's been out there for awhile, so you'll see that there's also out of the third party as well as a lot of the MDP guys, and they've been blogging about this while since it Ignite, so there's a lot of information that's up.
00:39:22.040 --> 00:39:25.030
Michael Gannotti
Excellent, any last things before we wrap up.
00:39:26.960 --> 00:39:27.500
Sue Vencill
I'm good.
00:39:29.690 --> 00:40:00.370
Michael Gannotti
Good, I got food waiting so I want to thank I gotta eat before my next Viva presentation. Want to thank everybody. You know our panel. This is great and you know certainly take a look at the slide. Will have those posted up. As always you can find us not only on our blog at AKA DOT Ms Slash HLS blog that's AKA Dot Ms Slash HLS blog but if you want to take mid day cafe on the go.
00:40:19.700 --> 00:40:19.720
Sue Vencill
Uh.
00:40:19.760 --> 00:40:26.320
Michael Gannotti
We will see you next week. We're going to be doing a multi prong with everybody kind of getting a little.
00:40:27.550 --> 00:40:32.320
Michael Gannotti
Taste of something in there. I'm gonna leave it at that but look for that.
00:40:31.480 --> 00:40:33.930
Sue Vencill
It's like awesome. It's going to be great though.
00:40:33.010 --> 00:40:33.460
Michael Gannotti
It'll be.
00:40:34.210 --> 00:40:35.030
Michael Gannotti
Be awesome.
00:40:35.260 --> 00:40:36.480
Sue Vencill
It's got a great yeah.
00:40:36.240 --> 00:40:37.250
Michael Gannotti
It's always awesome.
00:40:38.500 --> 00:40:41.530
Michael Gannotti
And with that, this is Mike and.
00:40:42.230 --> 00:40:42.800
Scott Moore
Scott
00:40:43.290 --> 00:40:43.920
Sue Vencill
Sue
00:40:44.870 --> 00:40:45.500
Kendra Burgess
Kendra.
00:40:46.150 --> 00:40:50.800
Michael Gannotti
Being a have a great day, take care of 1 and is always Joe.
00:40:51.420 --> 00:40:51.880
Scott Moore
so yeah.
00:40:51.590 --> 00:40:51.940
Sue Vencill
thanks.
00:40:53.130 --> 00:40:53.540
Kendra Burgess
Bye.
