Setting up Omnichannel Voice using Azure Communication Service

In my previous blog, I detailed how an Omnichannel trial could be created and shared how we could initiate a trial of the native voice experience. The native voice trial provides 60 minutes of voice calling minutes which can be used to evaluate the voice experience. This blog will detail how to configure a number via Azure Communication Service.

Azure Communication Service

Before I provide the steps, I’ll detail what Azure Communication Service is and how this works with Omnichannel. Azure Communication Service is a set of web services which expose the feature set available within Microsoft Teams.

Many contact centers may use a PSTN via a carrier which allows calls to be initiated and routed via a contact center solution to an agent. Microsoft themselves act as a PSTN carrier or allow companies to use third party carriers via a Session Border Controller when setting up their Teams voice experience and – also now the Omnichannel Voice experience.

There are two sides of configuring Omnichannel Voice using Azure Communication Services. If using Microsoft as a carrier, the configuration can be completed entirely in the azure portal. However, if using a third party carrier, ACS must be configured to use direct routing and this requires interaction with a carrier. Luckily, the experience is the same as if configuring Microsoft Teams for direct routing. Unluckily for me, this is beyond my scope. There are several blogs and documented guides that detail how to configure Microsoft Teams with direct routing. I would recommend reviewing this information.

The Setup

The video below shows the process of configuring Omnichannel’s native voice channel using the Azure Communication Service resource. I also demonstrate how to configure the Event Grid System Topic for the call recording and transcriptions functionality.

Note: You will need an Azure Subscription to complete this setup.