Six months ago we announced that we’re reviewing our Teams integration as it was difficult to support. We announced that there might be major changes to the integration. After careful review, we’re now pleased to report that we’re going to keep the integration largely as is!

What Teams Integration Is Intended For

The 3CX Teams integration is intended for installations so that 3CX and Teams users can coexist. i.e. installs that have a number of users that prefer to use Teams rather than 3CX. In these cases, inbound calls from 3CX Trunks can be forwarded to Teams users and 3CX users can call Teams users and vice versa.

What It's Not Intended For

3CX as backend only

The 3CX integration is not meant so that 3CX can be used as a backend and allow for all users to use the Teams client instead of 3CX. For companies that wish to use Teams as a front end for all users, we recommend that you choose a Teams calling plan instead of using 3CX.

Configuration of Teams IVR, queues, etc., is more complicated, but if it's Teams you want, it's best to get to grips with Teams and stick to that solution all the way. From a support and interop perspective, it's not worthwhile for 3CX or for the customer to have to guarantee and support the interop over time and for us to support all the features in the Teams client.

Take your pick for each call

It's not meant to allow users to use both 3CX and Teams at the same time. The integration is envisaged that a user will choose whether to use Teams or 3CX and then stick to that client. That said, it is technically possible to do this, but there will be situations where this might not work correctly and we will not troubleshoot such situations. Aside from that there are practical issues such as two clients trying to access the headset at the same time etc.

What Will Change?

A completely new call manager will be introduced in the coming months. The current integration will be ported to the new call manager. The prerequisites and functionality will remain the same:

  1. You need a correctly configured “Microsoft Approved” SSL certificate.
  2. You must configure E164 numbers (+1-234 etc.) correctly for all Teams users.
  3. You must sync all Teams users to 3CX.
  4. You must configure the Teams dial plans correctly. We provide a script to do so, but because of the many possible Teams configurations, it might require troubleshooting on the Teams side by the admin or partner.

What Will Be Improved?

Better Microsoft 365 integration eases setup

We are currently reworking the Microsoft 365 integration with a view to making the sync process easier and more reliable. Reliable synchronization of the users is the biggest part of the Teams integration so this is key.

Syncing of Teams presence

With the reworking of the Microsoft 365 integration, we are moving up to the latest APIs and it will become possible to sync the Teams presence to 3CX.

Better documented and supported Teams configuration scripts

We will try to reduce and improve the scripts that need to be run on the Teams side.

Licensing

Currently, every enterprise edition has Teams integration. Teams integration is more complex to support and only worthwhile for larger 3CX installs. Therefore, expect that a minimum license size will be required when the new integration is released. If as a partner you are selling the Teams integration, please make customers aware that it is likely to require at least a 16SC or a 24SC license.