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Set up Microsoft Teams Direct Routing

Connect your Microsoft Teams tenant to Phonovo, so Teams users can make and take calls on your Phonovo phone numbers.

This is the account-level setup, done once. Once it's finished you link individual extensions to Teams users. See Connect an extension to Microsoft Teams.

Who this is for: admins, working with your Microsoft 365 administrator

Start early: one step can take 24 hours

Step 3 requires Microsoft to provision a domain, which can take up to 24 hours. You can't add the connection in step 4 until it finishes. If you have a deadline, do steps 1 to 3 first. Steps 5 and 6 can be done while you wait.

Before you start

  • A Microsoft 365 subscription with a Teams Phone licence (included in E5, or an add-on for E1/E3)
  • Access to both the Microsoft 365 admin centre and the Teams admin centre
  • Someone comfortable with PowerShell: parts of the Teams setup can only be done there
  • Your Phonovo phone numbers already provisioned, in E.164 format (e.g. +441234567890)
  • If your organisation already makes Teams calls through another provider (a Microsoft Calling Plan or another Direct Routing service), tell Phonovo before you start. Only the users you choose in step 6 are moved to Phonovo, but each of them loses their current Teams phone number when you assign a Phonovo one

How the connection is named

Your Microsoft 365 tenant connects to Phonovo through a name under phonovo.com. Phonovo allocates it and tells you what it is. Use it exactly as given: a name that looks right but wasn't allocated to you won't connect, and nothing will report an error.

You verify the name in your own tenant, because Microsoft only lets a domain be verified in one Microsoft 365 tenant. Phonovo publishes the DNS record that proves ownership, because Phonovo controls that domain.

Steps

1. Ask Phonovo to enable Direct Routing

Contact Phonovo support or your account manager. They will allocate your name, create the DNS record, and enable Teams on your account.

2. Add the name as a domain in your Microsoft 365 tenant

  1. Open the Microsoft 365 admin centre → Settings → Domains → Add domain. If you can't see Settings, select Show all at the bottom of the left-hand menu
  2. Enter the name Phonovo gave you
  3. Choose TXT record verification. Microsoft shows a value like MS=ms12345678
  4. Send that value to Phonovo. They publish it for you. You can't, because you don't control that domain
  5. When Phonovo confirms it's live, select Verify
  6. When asked which services to use the domain for, choose none. If Microsoft offers to add DNS records for Exchange and Exchange Online Protection, untick it and continue without adding records. The domain is only for Teams calling, and those records would set up email for it

3. Create a user in the new domain, then wait

Microsoft won't finish preparing the domain until a licensed user exists in it.

  1. Create a user whose sign-in name uses the new domain, for example sbc@ followed by the name Phonovo gave you. It never signs in and needs no mailbox
  2. Give that user a licence that includes Microsoft Teams, for example Office 365 E1 or Microsoft 365 Business Basic. This user doesn't need Teams Phone. Teams Phone on its own is refused with "To assign a license that contains Microsoft 365 Phone System, you must also assign one of the following service plans: Microsoft Teams…", because it's an add-on that needs one of those licences alongside it
  3. Keep the licence on this user at least until the connection in step 4 shows as healthy
  4. Wait. Microsoft says this can take up to 24 hours

This is the step people get caught by

Until it finishes, adding the connection in step 4 fails with "Can't use the … domain as it wasn't configured for this tenant", even though the admin centre shows the domain as Verified. The message is misleading. Nothing is wrong; it just isn't ready yet. Waiting is the fix.

4. Add the connection in the Teams admin centre

  1. Open the Teams admin centre → Voice → Direct Routing → SBCs → Add
  2. Enter the name Phonovo gave you as the FQDN
  3. Set SIP signalling port to 5061
  4. Turn on Enabled, Send SIP options, Forward call history and Forward P-Asserted-Identity (PAI) header
  5. Set Failover response codes to 408, 503, 504 and Failover time to 10 seconds. Set Concurrent call capacity to the most calls you expect at once
  6. Select Save

Microsoft then starts health-checking the connection. It can take up to 30 minutes to show as healthy.

5. Set up call routing

In PowerShell, connected with Connect-MicrosoftTeams:

Set-CsOnlinePstnUsage -Identity Global -Usage @{Add="Phonovo-Usage"}

New-CsOnlineVoiceRoute -Identity "Phonovo-Route" `
  -NumberPattern ".*" `
  -OnlinePstnGatewayList "contoso.phonovo.com" `
  -OnlinePstnUsages "Phonovo-Usage" `
  -Priority 1

New-CsOnlineVoiceRoutingPolicy -Identity "Phonovo-Policy" `
  -OnlinePstnUsages "Phonovo-Usage"

Replace contoso.phonovo.com with the name Phonovo gave you.

6. Give a user a phone number

For each Teams user who should make and take calls, first check whether they already have a phone number. A number from another provider is replaced when you assign a Phonovo one:

Get-CsOnlineUser -Identity "alice@contoso.com" |
  Select-Object LineUri, OnlineVoiceRoutingPolicy

Each user also needs a Teams Phone licence alongside their normal licence that includes Teams. Then:

Set-CsPhoneNumberAssignment -Identity "alice@contoso.com" `
  -PhoneNumber "+441234567890" -PhoneNumberType DirectRouting

Grant-CsOnlineVoiceRoutingPolicy -Identity "alice@contoso.com" `
  -PolicyName "Phonovo-Policy"

Set-CsPhoneNumberAssignment -Identity "alice@contoso.com" `
  -EnterpriseVoiceEnabled $true

Numbers must be E.164 with the + prefix, and must exactly match the numbers on your Phonovo account.

7. Test

Open Teams and check the user has a dial pad under Calls. Make a call out and take one in, and check you can hear each other both ways.

No dial pad?

Policy changes can take 15 to 30 minutes to reach the client, occasionally longer. Sign out of Teams and back in before assuming something is wrong.

If something doesn't work

What you see What it usually means
"Can't use the … domain as it wasn't configured for this tenant" Step 3 hasn't finished. Wait: the domain showing as Verified isn't enough on its own
"To assign a license that contains Microsoft 365 Phone System, you must also assign…" Teams Phone was assigned without a licence that includes Teams. See step 3
The connection never becomes healthy, or the Teams admin centre says no TLS connection attempt was detected Check you entered the name exactly as Phonovo gave it, then contact Phonovo with that name
No dial pad in Teams Teams Phone licence not assigned, or step 6 not completed for that user
Calls fail immediately The voice routing policy isn't assigned to that user (step 6)
Call connects but no audio, or only one way A media problem. Contact Phonovo, and mention it connects but has no audio

Raise Direct Routing problems with Phonovo, not Microsoft

Phonovo's connection isn't one of the devices on Microsoft's certified list, so Microsoft may close a ticket raised directly with them on that basis. Phonovo can investigate and escalate properly if needed. Contact Phonovo first: it's usually much quicker.

When contacting Phonovo, include the name allocated to you, the affected user's email, the phone number, and the time of the call with timezone.

Ask Olivia

You can also ask Olivia, the in-portal assistant, about Teams setup.