This article provides guidance to organisations wishing to onboard to the NHS.net Teams Phone System using the Calling Plans PSTN connectivity option. Calling Plan is Microsoft’s all-in-the-cloud voice solution for NHS.net Teams users. It connects Microsoft Phone System to the Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) enabling calls to landlines and mobile phones around the world.
Prerequisites
Licensing
There are several purchase options for Microsoft Calling Plans, and these should be discussed with your licensing reseller. Organisations are responsible for the procurement, onboarding, and assignment of the licenses to users via the NHSmail portal.
To enable Microsoft Calling Plans on the NHS.net tenant, administrators, and users with F3 or E3 base licenses are also required to have:
- A Teams Phone System add-on license
AND
- A Calling Plan license
Administrators and users with O365 E5 and M365 E5 licenses are also required to have:
- A Calling Plan license
Onboarding Considerations
The following considerations are important for all organisations wishing to onboard to the NHS.net Teams Phone System. Please review these and make any required internal plans to facilitate an easy transition to using and managing NHS.net Teams Phone System for your organisation.
- Trial: Organisations should trial a small volume of users before proceeding with the migration of their mass user base.
- Complexity: Consider the current complexity of your organisation’s existing telephony ecosystem and how this may shape your migration journey.
- Onboarding Readiness: Ensure your organisation is not only technically ready, but also business ready, before onboarding to the central offering (e.g., Number Porting).
- Contractual Agreements: Any existing contractual agreements (for example with current third-party providers) will need to be considered.
- Long Term Considerations: Review the overarching objectives of your organisation to ensure the solution is future-proofed and fit for your purposes.
- Disruption, Risk and Compliance: Plan accordingly to ensure that any disruption is mitigated, while making ample considerations for any risk and compliance related issues.
Onboarding
Local Administrators from organisations wishing to use NHS.net Teams Phone System will first need to submit an Onboarding Request Form via Helpdesk Self-Service (HSS). Once this has been submitted, the Phone System Service Team will allocate your organisation an onboarding slot. These are available each month on a first come, first served basis. To submit an Onboarding Request for NHS.net Teams Phone System, please follow these steps:
1. Log into HSS, select ‘Raise a Request’ and navigate to ‘Phone System Request Form’.
2. On the Phone System Request Form, select ‘Onboarding to Phone System request’ for request type. The ‘Requested for’ and ‘Email address’ fields will be prepopulated with your details.
Important Note: Only one Onboarding Request form needs to be submitted per ODS mapping. For example, if your organisation will be managing Phone System for your own organisation and a further two organisations, you only need to submit one form within which you should state the 3 separate ODS codes of each organisation.
Complete the rest of the fields of the form. You will be asked to confirm the PSTN connection strategy that will be used, the organisation ODS code/s you wish to onboard, the email of the LA who will be granted Portal permissions for Phone System Admin role assignment and then the emails of the users who will be assigned Phone System Admin roles via the NHSmail Portal once your organisation’s onboarding request has been approved.
You will also be asked to confirm that your organisation has the required licensing in place for your chosen connectivity strategy (Calling Plans or Direct Routing) and (for Direct Routing only) if you have completed the prerequisites.
3. Once the Onboarding Request form has been submitted, your organisation will be allocated a slot to onboard to the service. Confirmation of this will be sent to the LA who submitted the Onboarding Request.
The LA requested to be granted Portal permissions to assign Phone System Admin roles will be informed via email that the two Phone System Admin roles should be visible to them in the NHSmail Portal.
4. The Local Administrator should assign the new Phone System Admin roles to the users at their organisation they would like to manage the service.
5. Once the Local Administrator has assigned these roles, the newly designated Phone System Admins will receive a confirmation email providing them with access to the Phone System Power App. Phone System Admins should follow the instructions outlined in the email to access the Power App for the first time.
Important Note: Teams Phone System Admins from each onboarded organisation will be required to have all necessary licences including a free Power BI licence to access the reporting capability within the Phone System Power App.
Calling Plan Number Management
If you are using Calling Plans, you will be able to purchase new numbers from Microsoft via the Phone System Power App. Alternatively, any existing numbers can be ported over from an existing service provider to Microsoft (the new provider) to be used with Calling Plans.
If your Calling Plan licences are owned by another organisation (your Parent organisation for example) a Primary Phone System Admin from that organisation will need to request new numbers for your organisation. They can then assign the new numbers to your organisation.
Request Numbers from Microsoft (batches of up to 200 numbers)
1. Log in to the NHSmail Teams Phone System Power App. On the Home screen, select ‘Request Numbers (Calling Plans).
2. You will need to complete the fields provided on this screen to request your numbers. Gauges on the right-hand of the screen will let you know if you have enough licences to request the quantity of numbers you need. Select ‘Next’ once you have completed these fields.
Important Note: If you are a Primary Phone System Admin and you are managing more than 1 organisation, you can choose which organisation to request numbers for. Numbers can only be requested by an organisation who owns the licences. A Primary Phone System Admin can then select to assign the numbers to another organisation within their ODS mapping.
3. On the next screen, select ‘View Numbers’ to view the numbers that have been allocated to you. If there are numbers available, these will be displayed beneath ‘Reserved Numbers’. The numbers will be reserved for 8 minutes while you confirm your order – a countdown timer will be shown at the bottom of the screen. To finalise your order, click ‘Submit’.
4. Your number order will be processed automatically, and you will be directed to a Success screen which will confirm that your order was successful. To view a list of the newly available numbers to be assigned, select ‘Go to Numbers’.
5. You can view all previous number requests by navigating back to the Home screen of the Power App, selecting ‘Manage Numbers’ and then ‘Order History’.
Requesting Numbers from Microsoft (more than 500 numbers
1. Large quantity number requests (over 500 numbers) will need to be processed by the Phone System service team. To submit a request for over 500 numbers at once, complete all required fields on the ‘Request Numbers’ screen.
Important Note: You will need enough numbers remaining (as calculated from licences) to be able to proceed.
2. If you have enough numbers, select ‘Next’. You should then see a success screen confirming that the request has been passed onto the Phone System service team to complete on your behalf with Microsoft.
3. You will receive an email, detailing that your request has been submitted, along with your request reference. Once your request has been actioned, you will receive the list of numbers as an attachment via email. Your request will then be closed, and you will receive a closure email.
4. Once the numbers have been provided via email, navigate to ‘Upload Numbers’ from the Home screen.
5. Select ‘Calling Plan (numbers from bulk purchase or porting request only)’.
6. Further fields will appear on the webpage, which you will need to complete before progressing. Provide your ServiceNow request item (RITM) number, and then download the template provided. Populate the template with the requested numbers and upload. Attach the completed template and then select ‘Submit’.
7. Once the numbers have been uploaded, you should see a screen confirming that your numbers have been uploaded. By navigating to ‘Manage Numbers’ from the Home screen / navigation bar, you will be able to view the full available list of numbers.
Porting Numbers
1. To port numbers into the NHSmail Teams Phone System application from an existing provider to Microsoft, navigate to the Home screen and select ‘Port Numbers (Calling Plans)’.
2. On the ‘Port Numbers’ screen, you will need to complete all the fields in order for your porting request to be completed. You will need to scroll down to view all of the fields and will need to provide your current service provider’s details as well as a porting date.
When providing your current service provider’s details, please ensure that you have inputted these correctly, as providing incorrect details is likely to delay the porting process.
Important Note: You will need to have enough numbers remaining (as calculated from licences). Please ensure that you have enough licences and numbers to align with the total numbers you are planning to port.
3. At the bottom of the screen, there is an attachment box. You will need to provide a list of the numbers to be ported. Download the template provided and populate it, ensuring that all numbers are in E164 format. Select ‘Submit’.
4. Your number porting request will be submitted to Microsoft on your behalf via the NHSmail Phone System service team. All subsequent communications on the progress of your porting request will be sent to the email address confirmed in the ‘Notification emails’ field via email.
5. As part of the porting process, organisations will need to provide Microsoft with a Letter of Authorisation (LOA).
Important Note: It will be the organisation’s responsibility to enlist a Local or Phone System Administrator to:
- Hand-sign the LOA authorising Microsoft to request and transfer, on your behalf, those existing numbers from a different service provider into Teams. This step of the process will be communicated to you via the NHSmail Phone System service team, who will manage the end-to-end completion of this step.
Please note, that upon providing the signed Letter of Authorisation, Microsoft will require at least 16 days to complete the request as they will need to contact your service provider to finalise a porting date.
6. You will receive confirmation via email from the Phone System Service Team once the numbers have been successfully added to the tenant.
You will then need to licence and assign these numbers to respective users and / or Auto Attendants / Call Queues as per the porting plan to avoid any service outage after porting.