In this post I like to highlight a Microsoft Teams-integration for telephony based on Cisco Jabber. This time it not about native calling of Microsoft Teams but calling capabilities built upon the Microsoft Teams platform. The integration to create a seamless user experience for Cisco Jabber is provided via app which is added to Microsoft Teams.

When do you might need or utilize this kind of integration?

Usually, if you are using a third-party backend and services which you want to keep plus Microsoft Teams is or should be the primary platform for communication and collaboration. That’s why Microsoft Teams enables third-party integration to get what you need into Teams and supply a seamless user experience without the need to deal with different clients for communication and collaboration.

To put it in a nutshell, if you have a “Cisco Jabber backend” based on Cisco Unified Communications Manager (CUCM, aka Call Manager) which you want to leverage for telephony and calling and Microsoft Teams for collaboration you might want or consider to add Cisco Jabber to Microsoft Teams. This could help your users to adopt both while the backend for telephony is CUCM but the primary client is Microsoft Teams.

Some might wonder why should someone do this, still? Well, there might be several reasons to do this, e.g. protection of investment, single pane of glass for users, not yet ready/preparing for native Teams calling (quick win), advanced or special features which are required and might not be covered by Teams (Direct Routing, Operator Connect or Calling Plans) at a certain point of time.

Opinion, summary and conclusion

Microsoft Teams is rich communication and collaboration platform. Due to the fact that it is a platform it enables third-party vendors to add their tools and services to Microsoft Teams to finally make users’ life easier. The goal is to make an impact to users in order to achieve more. The Cisco Jabber integration is just one example which I want to bring up with this article because it’s about calling capabilities. A quick call can sometimes solve issues or eliminate uncertainty due to many (chat, text, mail) messages sent back and forth.

At the time of writing this post there are approx. more than 1100+ apps available in the Teams app store. So there are so many options available that it is good to know what you really need to enable your user’s to achieve more with the right amount of services (apps, tools) and training to adopt it.

Additional resources

• Cisco Jabber for Microsoft Teams
• Configure Cisco Jabber for Microsoft Teams
• Microsoft Teams Manage Apps
• Cisco Unified Communications Manager (CallManager)
• Enabling Cisco Enterprise Calling from Microsoft Teams and Slack Messaging
• Planning Guide for Cisco Jabber 12.5
• Preferred Architecture for Cisco Collaboration 12.x Enterprise On-Premises Deployments, CVD
• SAML SSO Microsoft Azure Identity Provider
• Webex Calling for Microsoft Teams