How To Integrate Microsoft Teams With Zoom Phone

If you're looking to integrate Microsoft Teams with Zoom Phone, this post shows you where to find the integration, how to set up the two, and the benefits of taking such an action.

Why would you want to integrate Zoom Phone and Microsoft Teams in the first place?

There are a number of reasons:

1. You're a Zoom Phone customer for external calling but use Microsoft Teams for collaboration.
2. You want to try out the integration to see if it's easy to use Zoom Phone with Microsoft Teams.
3. You're looking at options to use Microsoft Teams for external calling and heard that Zoom Phone has now sold over two million seats.

Whichever category you fall into, the setup for Zoom Phone and Microsoft Teams is the same. The only restriction is if you're a Microsoft 365 Government GCC customer. As of October 2021, the Zoom app is not supported.

Here's what you can do when you integrate Zoom Phone with Microsoft Teams:

Follow these steps to get started.

1 - Download the Zoom integration from the Microsoft Teams app store

Assuming you have both a Zoom account (with a Zoom Phone plan) and Microsoft Teams account, your first step is to install the Zoom app from the Microsoft Teams app store.

If you're not signed up to Zoom Phone, you'll need to do this before going any further.

Just search Zoom and it's the first option if the app has been pre-approved. If it has not been pre-approved, speak to your Microsoft Teams admin to allow.

If you are the Teams admin, log in as an administrator and navigate to Teams Apps then Manage apps.

Search for Zoom then toggle permissions to Allowed.

Note: the next steps are simple if you have already configured phone numbers in Azure Active Directory or Zoom Phone system.

It is important you select Add to team as the Zoom app works on a per team basis. Lots of people get stuck when installing Microsoft Teams integrations as they try to add an integration.

Next, navigate to the team you wish to add the Zoom integration to, then @-mention Zoom.

Select from the menu of options that appears.

If this is your first time installing the Zoom integration on Microsoft Teams, you will be asked to provide your Zoom login credentials.

2 - Configure Zoom Phone for first use

First, open the Zoom web portal and log in as a Zoom administrator.

Navigate to Account Management > Account Settings > Zoom Phone.

Toggle Automatically Call From 3rd Party Apps to Enable.

In Teams, you can force the settings you need to configure to pop up by trying to place a call.

Click the video icon and choose Meet now.

You may be asked to sign in and confirm you want to login to both/either Zoom and Teams. In this step, you must be logged in as an administrator so you can grant consent on behalf of your organization.

Once set up, each time you make a call, you will have the option to use Zoom Phone instead of Microsoft Teams. This applies to channels, DMs, and group chats.

3 - Using Zoom Phone for external calls in Microsoft Teams

Once you've configured Zoom Phone in Teams, you'll notice a Zoom tab in your Teams sidebar. It's here that you can start to use Zoom Phone for external calling.

By default, you'll land on the Chat tab. Instead, click the Phone tab to be presented with your dial pad, voicemail, and call history.

At this point, you can now make external calls using your Zoom Phone PSTN connectivity.

Just dial the number from the pad or call your most recent contacts from the call history section.

You also have access to features like speech to text (in voicemail) as you would in the native Zoom app.

That's it! You've set up Zoom Phone for Microsoft Teams.

What if I only want Zoom Phone in Teams?

If you only plan to use Zoom Phone as your PSTN operator in Teams, there is another option that removes the Chat and Meetings tab from the Zoom app in Teams.

The image below shows a "Zoom Phone" tab in the Team sidebar.

When using this option, you only get Phone and About. There's no option for Chat or Meetings.

This app requires a custom install and you'll need the ZIP file from your Zoom representative in order to get access.

Integrating Zoom Team Chat and Microsoft Teams

When you've cracked integrating Zoom Phone with Microsoft Teams, what's next?

If some of your users prefer using Teams as their messaging app but others prefer Zoom Team Chat, how do you ensure that everyone stays productive and doesn't ignore the other set of users?

If you leave it to chance, that's how workplace silos form.

Rather than risking one group missing notifications and generally being unproductive, you can use message interoperability to connect Microsoft Teams and Zoom Team Chat.

With Mio in the background, you can select channels and users to have access to cross-platform messages.

This means you’ll be able to stay in Microsoft Teams and send messages to users in Zoom Team Chat.

And the same is true vice versa! Your users who prefer Zoom Team Chat can stay in Zoom and message users on Microsoft Teams.

Learn more about Zoom Chat interop here.