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Microsoft Teams Blog
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Microsoft Teams Phone empowers frontline workers with smart and reliable communication

Francisco_Ortiz's avatar
Feb 27, 2024

Teams Phone is a cloud calling solution that equips your entire workforce with flexible, reliable, and smart calling capabilities, all within Microsoft Teams. Earlier this month, we introduced a new Teams Phone for Frontline Workers offer1 that enables frontline workers to securely communicate with customers, colleagues, or suppliers in Teams.


Teams Phone keeps frontline workers mobile and connected with dedicated numbers and devices, making it a versatile solution for employees in various industries and job functions. For instance, a retail store associate can easily respond to customer inquiries on product information, or nurses can directly connect with their patients from anywhere, across devices. With Teams Phone, you can:

  • Route calls to the right person at the right time with auto-attendants, call queues, and call delegation.
  • Communicate securely with patients with electronic health record application integration, call recording, and transcription.
  • Create meaningful customer engagements with CRM system integration, consultative transfers, and call park.
  • Set frontline teams up quickly with shared calling, allowing groups of users to make and receive calls with a shared phone number and calling plan.

 

Simplify communication with common area phones in shared spaces

In today’s fast-paced work environment, effective communication is essential for seamless operations. However, not all frontline workers need a dedicated phone number to perform their tasks. In some scenarios, they may only need to make or receive occasional calls on behalf of a department. Common area phones cater to this need and unlock easy to use calling capabilities for frontline workers. With common area phones, frontline workers can make and receive calls through a shared mobile Android device, or a desk phone assigned to their team or department.


Common area phones in shared spaces have several use cases. A shared device can help retail store associates who are managing incoming calls in the curbside pick-up department, or receptionists in a clinic who are managing appointment scheduling requests. With common area phones, you can:

  • Route incoming calls efficiently, easily, and exactly where you need them with auto-attendants, call queues, call transfer, shared line appearance, and call park.
  • Relay important information between teams in real time with Walkie Talkie in Teams as well as hotline phones programmed to dial one number.

 

How to Get Started

Teams Phone for individual users

Common area phones

¹ Microsoft Teams Phone Standard for Frontline Workers ($4 user/month) will be available as an add-on to Microsoft 365 F1 ($2.25 user/month) and F3 ($8 user/month). Listed pricing may vary due to currency, country, and regional variant factors. Contact your Microsoft sales representative to learn more.

 

Updated Feb 26, 2024
Version 1.0
  • MatthiasMichl's avatar
    MatthiasMichl
    Brass Contributor

    I wish it was just "as easy" as described here... 

     

    There are a bunch of drawbacks (not only with FL workers, but with Teams on Android as a whole)  that I have listed already several times, but it seems like an "eat or die"... Tickets i have opened as well as feedback so far did not go anywhere...

     

    • in case a Frontline worker does have an assigned user license (e. g. F3), there is no way to get the reduced interface like with a Shared Device License. Setting the IP Phone policy to CommonAreaPhone SignIn for F-licensed accounts seems to have a fully different "feature stack" than the Shared Device licensed accounts, where you only get the CommonAreaPhone SignIn by default.
    • Call Queue enabled Teams channels are not usable/not supported on Android and iOS devices
    • In somewhat noisy production areas, the regular Teams ringtone is not being heard (in our case - i had good number of complaints). There is no option (also not on Windows) to have an individual ringtone set on Android at all (and only a choice given by MS for a different ringtone on Windows, but no individual as well)
    • Names/Display Names are NOT searchable on Android devices in the "Make a call" screen -> Search, that contain a 'Comma' (","). The Comma is NOT accepted. Not having commas in display names is not an option given you have a setup like "Site 1, Production Hall A", "Site 1, Production Hall B", "Site 2, Production Hall A", "Site 2 Production Hall B" etc. That search with Commas however is possible from the "main screen".
    • not related to FL-workers only: For conference phones (e. .g Yealink CP965), to have the meeting interface shown, a user license is inappropriate, a Meeting Room license is overkill and a Shared Device License does NOT give you the Meeting Room View (calendar only to join a meeting via the phone).
    • in addition on my wish list: In case any user account (regardless of FL worker or not) would only need to call internal Teams users on a regular basis, a Phone System license is not required. However, due to the missing license and further setup, they are blocked from calling emergency services. Emergency services calling should in my mind NEVER ever require any license from any device/user and should be easily accessible (how that could work in the real world - no clue).

    My wish list is even longer for Teams telephony as a whole, but would in this case be off-topic.

     

    And - related to that article: This is the first time I hear about a phone system license for Frontline Workers. Is this a different license than the regular phone system license (which we are using up to now)? Is there then a difference in the feature set?