Microsoft Operator Connect: integrate your telephony into Teams

For Belgium, Microsoft has asked Proximus to provide Operator Connect for Teams customers. "Proximus is an important partner, offering national coverage. We have been working in close partnership for more than ten years. Whenever there are new developments at Microsoft, the Belgian legacy operator is aware of them even before they reach the market," says Patrick Viaene, Microsoft 365 BG Lead.

Migrate at your own pace

How does this work in practice? "Currently, customers use Teams to chat and meet remotely and rely on the 365 suite for e-mail, Office applications and online services. At the same time, they use separate fixed and mobile telephony solutions. From now on, customers can easily migrate all their telephony to Teams while keeping their numbers and contracts with Proximus. In short, at your own pace and more efficiently," says Virginie Seeuws, Microsoft Teams Product Manager for Proximus.

Virginie Seeuws, Microsoft Teams Product Manager for Proximus

The benefit to the user is immediate. "Companies can migrate their voice services instantly, in whole or only for certain teams if they wish, or even they can just as easily outsource this to an operator or an external party. We managed to simplify a technically complex solution," says Viaene.

Calling, chatting, and setting up meetings with Teams

Everything has been designed to make life easier for management and employees who need to keep adapting to new ways of collaborating and working in hybrid mode. National and international calls are made via Operator Connect in Teams after a standalone deployment that takes only a few minutes. Simply log in to Operator Connect via the Microsoft Teams administration portal and assign phone numbers to users from administrator access.

An end-to-end solution

Customers can rely on Proximus for ICT infrastructure and continuity, assistance, consultancy and technical support, and an adoption program for users. Not to mention full management and proactive monitoring of the application to ensure team productivity.

Virginie Seeuws, Microsoft Teams Product Manager for Proximus

"In Microsoft Teams, the PC is used as a phone to make and receive mobile and fixed calls. But we can also integrate a landline, a door intercom or an elevator phone, or even other analogue devices. Thanks to this collaboration between Proximus and Microsoft, we can bring together the best of old and new technologies in a unified and very intuitive experience," adds Virginie Seeuws.

Business continuity is assured

In addition to Teams, Proximus offers call management solutions from the cloud (Voice Managed Services). So even if something unexpected happens (such as a strike, flooding, or cables being pulled out) that make it impossible to work on premises, customers' business continuity is ensured by activating a Disaster Recovery Plan, which reroutes remote calls to another fixed or mobile number, so that the company and its employees can be reached remotely in exactly the same way as if they were on site.

Hybrid work and new modes of collaboration

This partnership provides customers with a great opportunity in terms of digital transformation: the solutions offered by Proximus are complementary to the Teams features. Multiple solutions can be set up to ensure hybrid work and new ways of collaboration in all circumstances, such as videoconferencing, contact center, receptionist features, call recording, integration of fixed and mobile telephony (Fixed Mobile Unification) and many others.