How to turn Office 365 into a phone system

Microsoft does not offer telephony… EVERYONE knows it! So how do you turn one of the world’s most ubiquitous software packages into a complete phone system for your business? With Lync, that’s how. By now you’ve probably heard of Microsoft Lync… the nickname given to Microsoft’s Office Communications Server (OCS) in 2010.

Lync Online, which is a component of many Office 365 licenses, is a powerful communications platform that offers presence, instant messaging, voice over IP (VoIP) calls, desktop sharing, and audio and video conferencing… all from a single interface. Lync makes it possible to handle almost all of your communications through a single desktop client, with one exception… voice… dial tone. Old school telephony.

Recognizing this limitation as a significant opportunity in the converging IT and telecom industries, which is an entirely separate topic that deserves additional attention… perhaps in a repeat article, a handful of vendors have developed a way to enable Office 365 (or O365) by voice. since almost everything in telecommunications boils down to an acronym). The mechanism to power the software package is Microsoft Lync.

As mentioned above, Lync is already a component of O365. However, what is missing is voice enablement. By replacing the Lync Online component with a voice-enabled Lync package, O365 becomes a comprehensive communications solution. So you can take advantage of your O365 purchase and get a phone system that’s fully integrated with everything you use on your desktop, including Exchange for email and calendaring, and even Microsoft SharePoint for shared document management. There are even call center components that can be incorporated for high volume phone operations. Customer value is the ability to replace a legacy phone system that is past or nearing the end of its useful life with a fully hosted phone system.

This unified communications platform behaves like the phone systems businesses rely on today for day-to-day operations, including receptionist switchboard features, call routing to “hunt groups,” and full IVR capabilities. Voice-enabled Lync can be configured to mirror the functionality of a legacy phone system, even to the point of powering an office-wide intercom system to announce calls waiting.

If it’s time for you or your customers to reassess the value of a legacy phone system, Microsoft Lync may be the answer. If you’ve purchased Office 365, you’re already halfway there!