After a lengthy wait for this elusive announcement, two days ago Microsoft released the following two updates (both with the same, but from different perspectives).

• Teams Phone extensibility powered by Azure Communications Services
• Teams Phone extensibility for Dynamics 365 Contact Center and certified ISV solutions

They both lay the foundation of telephony being centralised in Microsoft Teams, being used by anything that is layered on top of Azure Communication Services, which includes Microsoft Dynamics 365 Contact Center as well as 3rd party contact centre solutions such as Luware Nimbus, ComputerTalk, and more.

Dynamics 365 Contact Center

Contact centre functionality is nothing new to Dynamics 365 in it's "Omnichannel for Customer Service" add-ons, that come in two flavours Dynamics 365 Customer Service Digital Messaging Add-on which supports chat, SMS, Teams, and social channels such as Facebook, LINE (which I'd never heard of anybody using), and WhatsApp (preview). And then there's Dynamics 365 Customer Service Digital Messaging and Voice Add-on which as the name suggests, adds voice to the lineup of available channels.

But that's all changed with the introduction of Dynamics 365 Contact Center in Jan 2024, providing a "Copilot-first" contact centre without the weighty requirements of already using Dynamics 365 for your CRM, instead was designed to be integrated with any 3rd party CRM through native integration (Salesforce) or Power Automate-based integrations for anything else. (as well as still working with Dynamics 365 obviously, well, perhaps not that obvious when you consider this is a Microsoft product).

Being able to embed Dynamics 365 Contact Center inside Salesforce or ServiceNow as well as having access to Copilot during a call and a whole host of other really cool features is a great step forward, but at a significant cost increase that you'd expect from anything with a name that contains the D-word.

Forrester's - Total Economic Impact

Judging by how well crafted and received the previous TEI reports have been previously on Skype for Business, Teams, and Teams Phone Mobile, I'm expecting this new diving into the benefits of "Teams Phone extensibility with Dynamics 365 Contact Center" to also make some waves (pun intended - iykyk).

So what's changed?

Perhaps this needs a little history lesson, in the beginning there were Trusted Application Servers, ah wait, that's too far back ⏳. When Microsoft announced the certification programme for Teams 'native' contact centres, there were 3 classifications...

Connect - Used Direct Routing (Teams SIP Trunk) to integrate a separate contact center, one that had its own SIP Stack and media muxing / MCU. This allowed simple 'PSTN' calls between this external contact center and Teams users acting as agents in this 3rd party system. Similar functionality to simply having 'PSTN Agents'.

These contact centre solutions still require their own PSTN connectivity, usually an additional SIP Trunk from a PSTN Gateway or your telco if supported.

Extend - Meant that the contact centre also used some level of Teams API, at a minimum it meant using the Presence API to see an agents availability to have more 'intelligent' features around selecting agents and queuing calls until somebody was available. Extend also covered more advanced scenarios where the call control was done by spinning up a Teams Meeting with an invisible bot in to orchestrate adding and removing participants.

These contact centre solutions utilised Teams accounts (voice applications) to receive the call as a 'bot'. Much more straightforward to integrate.

Power - These contact centres rely on Azure Communication Services. Up until now required a separate deployment of Azure Direct Routing, not to be confused with Teams Direct Routing. It meant that customers would need to setup two separate telephony services with their telco (if they supported both), or their own SBCs to be able to serve Teams as well as their contact center.

To quote the Microsoft Learn page, Power is about creating "Azure-based voice applications using Teams calling infrastructure" - which still says "coming soon" underneath.

Well, Fry, fear not.. the future is here, and "the future is calling"

I have to admit this is a shameless theft of my employers most pun-tastic tagline. Please don't sue. I personally think it's great.

Is this bad news for 3rd parties, like Luware and ComputerTalk?

I don't think so.

Wait, why is the scroll bar not at the bottom of the page if that's my answer? You honestly thought that was it, summed up in just 4 words? You must be new here 🙄. Let me elaborate...

This announcement is more about extending Teams Phone into Azure Communication Services than it is about Dynamics 365 Contact Center. So in reality everybody benefits since this is available to all (except the vendors that haven't built their solution on Azure Communication Services).

Who has the Power?

Ok, another admission to make, I thought of this heading before coming up with anything to write under it. Worth the risk? We'll see...

I think it's pretty fair to say that anybody that jumped on the bandwagon and lived through the early days and limited APIs when Azure Communication Services was originally announced, right through to what we have today where Microsoft are the driving force (or should I say power - no, perhaps not) behind ushering in this new era of Azure-first / AI-first contact centres that everybody can benefit from.

Despite the obvious elephant in the room, Microsoft doesn't seem interested in creating a monopoly (even just looking at their high licence costs), and always seem to try their best to create a thriving 3rd party ecosystem of application vendors and integrators.

Meaning that you, as the person responsible for your company's contact centre, have the power, the power to choose from a broad array of certified contact centre solutions, the power to leverage your existing Teams Phone solution maximising operational efficiencies, the power to... vomit. Sorry, I just can't keep up the 'art of the possible' business bullshit for too long.

Conclusion

I think Dynamics 365 Contact Center is a great way for Microsoft to achieve two things, firstly to showcase the best of what Copilot powered customer relations can do, and secondly to have a credible contact center solution for those with deep pockets and an unhealthy love of Power Platform and a fascination with the number of days in a normal year.

But, as I've found out recently with a short-lived foray towards Dynamics 365 Human Resources, not every company wants 'all the things', sometimes a simple solution is a better fit, and with contact centres, that's where 3rd party contact centres fit in, sorry, I meant to say Queues App with the Teams Premium licence fits in, then if you want more you have the freedom to select any of the 3rd party contact centres, sorry again, I meant to say Standalone Dynamics 365 Contact Center. Then beyond that, if you already have the collectors edition of all the Dynamics 365 business apps and licences, then you need to add Dynamics 365 Contact Center to complete the set.

In all seriousness, the space for 3rd party contact centres continues to shrink with every move Microsoft makes, but 3rd parties like Luware and ComputerTalk still have greater experience and more agility to cater for the niche scenarios and offer customisations and integrations beyond what Microsoft have. And likely going to be cheaper too.

Final Word

If you find yourself asking "which should I choose?". Well, since I'm a consultant at heart, my answer is... it depends. But whatever you choose, it's going to be easier than ever with the ability to use your Teams Phone deployment to get telephony in to any of the solutions out there that are built on Azure Communication Services.