Typically, an organization’s contact center solution is in a silo. Living aside from the organizational PBX and relying on people like you to manage the two separate communication platforms. This separation manifests in a few challenges, leading to poor customer and employee experiences.
Some key challenges and issues arise from this separation:
Fragmented Communication Tools
Only the traditional agents in the contact center have access to IVR, queuing, reporting or other contact center capabilities. Other employees within the company are limited to basic PBX functionalities such as basic call routing, hunt groups and voicemail.
Increased Security Risks
Separate infrastructures require their own dedicated maintenance, access and security handling. This setup requires organizations to have network protection from threats originating through two sources: the PBX and the contact center. This is asking for trouble.
Disruption in the Customer Experience
The service workflow is disjointed. If a call to a traditional agent needs to be escalated to a back-office expert or internal agent, the transfer is blind and results in the loss of important data and reporting associated with the call. The back-office expert or internal agent may not have access to the call history, customer information or any notes made by the contact center agent, which hampers their ability to provide quick, personalized service.
Life After Consolidation
Contact center integration presents an exciting opportunity to use Microsoft Teams as the vessel for a contact center.
When you deploy a contact center solution on top of Teams, every Teams user becomes a potential agent.
This is especially relevant for departments beyond the contact center, which provide internal and external-facing services too.
For example:
- IT Helpdesk
- Sales teams
- HR desks
- Security teams
- Legal team
- Travel desks
We refer to the people who sit in these departments as internal agents.
Departments Beyond the Contact Center Benefit from CCaaS Capabilities
Microsoft Teams users situated within these departments (e.g. IT Helpdesk, Travel Desk, and HR Benefits) provide ongoing service to individuals in and out of the organization. Now they can leverage CX capabilities like intelligent routing, after-hour call handling, IVR, queuing and reporting.
When you have a contact center as a service (CCaaS) that rides Teams, those capabilities are available to every user in your company – and this is the real power of Teams and contact center integration.
The 3 CCaaS Integration Models for Microsoft Teams
Organizations face hurdles when they try to combine elements designed in different eras, and with different connectivity methods.
Microsoft offers three models to integrate contact centers with Microsoft Teams: the Connect, the Extend and the Unify (coming mid-summer 2025) model.
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The Connect Model
According to Microsoft, “The Connect integration model uses Microsoft certified SBCs and Direct Routing to connect contact center solutions to Teams phone system infrastructure, enabling enhanced routing, configuration and system insights.”
This is a viable integration model if you are looking to connect with Teams through an SBC and Direct Routing.
You’ll be able to see when agents are available in Teams, use Office 365 authentication for agents to connect with their Teams tenant, transfer and group calls with Teams, and use Graph APIs and Cloud Communication APIs for integrations with Teams.
Depending on your use case, the Connect model may entail few challenges:
- Your Microsoft Teams and contact center environments are separate and isolated
- Calls connect over a blind SIP transfer
- Use Graph API for presence-based routing, with throttling limitations
- Calls and media are handled outside of Microsoft Teams
- Reports are glued together from multiple sources of data (contact center and Microsoft Teams)
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The Extend Model
Microsoft states, “The Extend integration model integrates with the Teams client using the Teams client platform, Teams Graph APIs and Cloud Communications API in Microsoft Graph. The Extend integration model also uses the Teams Phone system for all contact center calls and call control experiences, and the contact center solution provider acts as a telephony carrier alongside Microsoft 365”
The Extend model is a big step forward from the Connect model, namely in how it integrates with Microsoft Teams Phone. Contact center calls are brought into Microsoft Teams over Graph API, and optionally via Microsoft Calling Plans or Operator Connect, with full call media handling within the Microsoft Teams ecosystem.
Organizations can design workflows and advanced routing configurations down to the individual and measure the quality of their system and interactions, with full visibility of agents and other Teams users' availability and 100% authentic reporting data arriving from a single calling source.
Key challenges associated with the Extend model are related to both infrastructure as well as UI flexibility and consistency of the agent experience.
The Extend model relies on Graph API for presence and Microsoft Teams Phone as the core calling and routing elements for the contact center solution. Some vendors are also utilizing the Azure Calling Bot to leverage Microsoft Calling Plans or Operator Connect.
This architecture may introduce additional routing paths and latency associated with the multiple underlying infrastructure elements, resulting in the accuracy and responsiveness of real-time routing data.
Effective June 2025, Microsoft is enforcing users' need for a Teams Phone license for Extend Contact Centers and Attendant Consoles.
Teams users will still have the option to transfer calls to other Teams users manually, even if they don’t have a Teams Phone license but Bot-initiated transfers and add participant requests to non-Teams Phone licensed users will be blocked.
Additionally, the Extend model entails using a Microsoft Teams-native application only. This presents difficulties in creating a fully flexible UI and in ensuring a consistent agent and supervisor application experience across multiple devices, operating systems or screens (for example: CRM screen, iOS/Android, Desktop Web, Mobile Web, etc.).
Highlights of the Extend Model:
- CCaaS on top of Microsoft Teams Phone infrastructure
- The call is handled purely within the Microsoft Teams ecosystem
- Azure Calling Bot for Microsoft Calling Plans & Operator Connect
- Single source of call data
- Multiple real-time API interactions
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The Unify Model
Microsoft lists, “The Unify integration model enables solution providers to develop native Azure Communication Service (ACS) based CCaaS applications using Teams calling infrastructure.”
The Unify integration uses ACS and relies on Teams Phone extensibility, the technology that a 3rd party CCaaS vendor can use to integrate with Teams.
Here are the Teams Phone capabilities that extend into CCaaS:
- Azure Communications Services – Call Automation
- Azure Communications Services – Calling Software Development Kit (SDK)
- Azure AI Services
- Other Microsoft tools
Think of it like this: ACS is the underlying communication technology; Teams Phone extensibility is the integration method and the Unify certification is Microsoft’s stamp of approval.
By using the ACS Calling SDK, 99.999% uptime for voice extends to 3rd-party CCaaS vendors.
This approach creates intelligent CCaaS solutions that enhance interactions between customers and contact center agents.
The Unify Model Features:
- Microsoft Teams contact center on top of Azure Communication Services
- Use your Teams phone telephony investment for contact center deployments
- Segregate between UCaaS & CCaaS personas with the choice of ringing either the Teams client or CCaaS app
- Contact center agents' & supervisors' desktop UI is built as an extension to the Microsoft Teams Phone core
- Native call data and a single source of reporting
- Makes AI a first-class citizen and easier to use
- Direct connectivity to all the organization’s Microsoft Teams users
AudioCodes Voca Conversational Interaction Center Brings Modern Contact Center Capabilities to Microsoft Teams
Voca CIC, a Microsoft Teams omnichannel contact center with built-in conversational AI, offers customer service lines the same 99.999% uptime and reliability as Microsoft Teams thanks to its Microsoft Azure infrastructure.
The fast and scalable design enables rapid deployment and growth across departments, along with the flexibility of a concurrent channel subscription model.
Voca CIC effortlessly extends CX capabilities to every Teams user within the company, whether they are part of the main service desk or other departments beyond the traditional contact center.
Voca CIC is available as a 30-day free trial on the AudioCodes website, as a native app on the Microsoft Teams Store or Microsoft AppSource.
1 How and When to Use a Contact Center in Microsoft Teams, Gartner Report
