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The CoreView Teams Voice connector (formerly, Teams Advanced) now provides greater support for Direct Routing numbers.


Please note that the features below are only available in CoreView's new user interface.


Customers who have purchased "traditional" numbers (i.e., from a telco company) often face limitations when it comes to integrating them into Teams in a scalable and efficient manner. Many organizations resort to managing this process using spreadsheets, tracking the assignment of numbers to employees, and attempting to keep it updated as employees are onboarded and offboarded. This error-prone process can lead to misplaced and unused numbers, as well as employees having direct external numbers when they don't require them. Furthermore, it becomes challenging to correlate reporting on direct routing number usage within Teams with the users who currently have those numbers.


By uploading these numbers to CoreView, customers get the benefit of managing this “number inventory” much more effectively. They can 


  • Access reporting features on who is using their numbers 
  • Implement management actions that greatly reduce the risk of errors and increase speed 
  • Streamline workflows for onboarding and offboarding procedures 
  • Execute bulk actions to assign/unassign numbers  


Once numbers are uploaded, they can be edited and deleted and otherwise generally treated as inventory to be managed.  




Uploading Direct Routing numbers 


You can upload direct routing numbers into CoreView using the "Edit Direct Routing Numbers" management action. Within this action, CoreView provides a CSV template that allows you to import not only the numbers but also details on who the number is currently assigned to. By uploading details about number assignments, you can easily crosscheck between your local source of truth and what Microsoft is seeing. 


This is the list of the fields that can be uploaded: 


  • Phone Number: The phone number itself, the only mandatory field, E.164 format (with the international code preceded by "+" and no spaces, e.g. "+39xxxxxxxxxx") 
  • Extension: The phone number extension, not preceded by any sign or spaces, free text field 
  • Provider: The service provider for the specific number, free text field 
  • NAT/Proxy: In case any of this info needs to be associated with the number, free text field 
  • City: The city associated with the number, free text field 
  • Location Description: The emergency location associated with the number, free text field 
  • Country code: The code for the country associated with the number, the two-letter ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 format 
  • Assigned to on SBC: The UPN of the user the number appears to be assigned to on the legacy master data 
  • Blocked: The state of the number to be uploaded, if TRUE the uploaded number is not considered to be eligible for assigning to users 
  • Description: A general notes field 



Instructions


  1. Go to Actions > Management actions 
  2. Click “Edit direct routing numbers” 
  3. From within the action wizard, click “Download template” 
  4. Fill in the CSV template with your data 
  5. In the Edit direct routing number action, click “Upload from CSV” 
  6. Select your populated CSV  
  7. The file will be scanned for errors and inconsistencies, returning a list of data that needs to be corrected. The upload cannot proceed until issues have been resolved.  
  8. Once the upload file is free from errors, the numbers will be uploaded and visible in the “Phone numbers” report 


You can then see these numbers on the Teams Numbers report and use the “Mismatch between Teams and SBC assignee” field to find data conflicts.  




Editing Direct Routing numbers 


Once the direct routing numbers are uploaded, you can edit their attributes to reflect changes or correct mistakes made during the import phase. The only field that cannot be edited is the number itself. You can block a direct routing number, ensuring it is not considered when selecting numbers to assign. Additionally, you can edit the number assignee according to the local data source (i.e., the SBC), maintaining alignment between CoreView data sources.



Instructions


  1. Go to Actions > Management actions  
  2. Click “Edit direct routing numbers” 
  3. Select the number you want to edit 
  4. Edit the number properties and click Save. 


Once a number is uploaded, it can only be edited through the management action. A new CSV upload of the same number will be blocked by the checks in place for data consistency, unless the number is deleted first. 




Deleting Direct Routing numbers 


You can delete numbers from CoreView if they are no longer available or were entered incorrectly.  



Instructions


  1. Go to Actions > Management actions 
  2. Click “Delete direct routing number” 
  3. Select the number you want to delete and click Save 


If the number to be deleted is assigned to a user, the action will return an error prompting you to unassign the number before deleting it.  




Phone Number Report 


The Phone Number report has been updated to include all plan types: Teams Calling Plan, Operator Connect, and Direct Routing numbers. Additionally, it now includes the extra fields available when uploading direct routing numbers. Other improvements consist of the import update, which enables reporting on direct routing numbers assigned to Teams users. This means that even if you haven't uploaded your direct routing numbers for inventory purposes, you can still report on users who have a direct routing number assigned to them via Teams.




Assigning & Unassigning Direct Routing numbers  


We have combined the actions for assigning phone numbers, whether it's a direct routing number you have uploaded, a Teams phone number, or an Operator Connect number. You can only assign numbers to users who have a Teams Voice license. Other users won't be displayed as potential targets for the management action. 


Instructions


  1. Go to Actions > Management actions 
  2. Click “Assign phone number” 
  3. Select the user you want to assign a number to 
  4. Choose the plan type of the number you want to assign. The selected plan will determine the filtering on the dropdown list presented to you. It is only possible to select one plan at a time.
  5. Select a number from the dropdown list. Alternatively, activate the toggle "Use the first number starting with certain digits" and start typing the number you want to assign. For example, you could type just the country and city code (i.e., prefix), and the system will automatically assign the first number matching the criteria. If you specified a UPN and a location during the upload phase of your direct routing numbers, and there is a unique match, you will see them automatically suggested when performing the assign action.
  6. Assign an emergency location and click Save 


We have also introduced a separate management action to unassign a phone number. 



Instructions


  1. Go to Actions > Management actions 
  2. Select the user(s).
  3. Click “Unassign phone number” 
  4. Select the user that needs their number removed and click Save 




Setting up virtual tenants for numbers 


If you wish to delegate responsibility for managing numbers to delegated administrators, you can create or edit your virtual tenants to include number information. 


Please keep in mind that all phone number types can be delegated to virtual tenants, ensuring a comprehensive approach to number management.



Your V-tenants for users match your number distribution


If your virtual tenants for users match your number distribution, you can simply edit your existing virtual tenants. For example, you may break down your virtual tenants by country and want your numbers distributed by country, OR your virtual tenants are organized by department and your numbers will also be distributed to departments. However, if they don’t match, you can set up virtual tenants specifically for numbers. For example, you might want your phone numbers distributed by country, although your virtual tenants are broken down by Business Unit.   


You can populate your virtual tenants based on which users are already assigned direct routing numbers. When you upload the list of direct routing numbers, you can identify the user assigned to each number. If there is a conflict between the data provided by the SBC and the data contained within Teams you can see that on the Teams Numbers report. Use the “Mismatch between Teams and SBC assignee” field to find and resolve data conflicts. 


You can have a quick snapshot of your virtual tenant users who have a phone number assigned to them in a dedicated section. Please keep in mind that a user can be a part of multiple virtual tenants, in that the user and the number assigned to them will be visible in more than one virtual tenant. On the other hand, you can only distribute spare numbers to one virtual tenant, meaning that, depending on the scenario, the number assigned to a user can be allocated to your virtual tenant or not. 


You can then distribute the remaining inventory based on criteria with the ability to “cap” the number given to each virtual tenant. For example, you can allocate a virtual tenant 50 numbers from the remaining UK phone number inventory.  



Your V-tenants for numbers don't match your V-tenants for users


If your virtual tenants for numbers are not the same as your virtual tenants for users, an operator could have responsibility for managing a number but not the user who has the number. In this case, the operator would be able to do the following:     

  • Assign a number only to users matching delegation filters in the virtual tenant to which the operator delegated to managing the number is assigned. 
  • Unassign a number only to users matching delegation filters in the virtual tenant to which the operator delegated to managing number is assigned. 
  • View the User ID and UPN of the user assigned a number only to users matching the delegation filters set for users in the virtual tenant to which the operator delegated to managing number is assigned. This means that if a number that has been allocated to a virtual tenant is assigned, via means different than CoreView, to a user that is outside of the scope of that virtual tenant, the possibility to manage that number is lost until the number is unassigned from the “wrong” user. 



Instructions


  1. Go to Settings > Virtual Tenants 
  2. Create a new virtual tenant or access an already existing one 
  3. Go to the Phone number tab 
  4. Optional: Have a quick check of your configuration in the Overview tab, where you can see your number allocation rules and the amount of allocated and consumed numbers in your virtual tenant.
  5. Optional: Have a look at the Consumed tab to see which users assigned to your virtual tenant have a phone number assigned to them.
  6. Go to the Spare Numbers tab. Here, you can decide the criteria by which you want to allocate spare numbers (numbers that are not assigned to anyone or not part of any other virtual tenant) to your virtual tenant. You can decide to segregate based on a variety of attributes and, based on the amount of numbers that fit your criteria, decide to allocate all of the results or only a part of them. The filtering is dependent on the number plan type, so you can have different criteria for Teams numbers and direct routing numbers.
  7. Save and complete the configuration.