Intelligent Communications takes the next step with calling in Teams
Published Dec 12 2017 11:25 AM 87.9K Views
Microsoft

In September, we introduced a new vision for intelligent communications including plans to evolve Microsoft Teams into the primary client for calling and meetings in Office 365. As part of this, we are bringing comprehensive calling and meetings capabilities into Microsoft Teams, along with data and insights from the Microsoft Graph, and a strong roadmap of innovation to empower teams to achieve more.

  Easily view your calling historyEasily view your calling historyToday we are releasing new calling capabilities in Teams, providing full featured dialing capabilities, complete with call history, hold/resume, speed dial, transfer, forwarding, caller ID masking, extension dialing, multi-call handling, simultaneous ringing, voicemail, and text telephone (TTY) support. You can expect this to roll out over the next few hours and should come soon to your tenant.


To add calling in Teams for your users, the first thing you need is Phone System (formerly Cloud PBX), which is included with Office 365 E5 and available as an add-on to other Office 365 plans. From there, you can subscribe to a Calling Plan (formerly known as PSTN Calling) for any number of users in your organization.


Together, a Calling Plan and Phone System in Office 365 create a phone system for your organization, giving each user a primary phone number and letting them make and receive phone calls to and from outside of your organization. This solution also allows your organization to shift away from expensive telephony hardware and simplifying by centralizing the management of your phone system.


With the addition of calling, Teams is an even more robust hub for teamwork -- the single place for your content, contacts and communications including chat, meetings and calling in a modern, collaboration experience.


Getting started with calling in Teams
To get started with calling in Teams, please review our quick start guide. You can learn more about geographic availability of Calling Plans here.  We also invite you to join us live December 18, at 9 AM PDT on Teams On Air to hear guest Marc Pottier, Principal Program Manager discuss and demo calling plans in Microsoft Teams in more detail.

 

70 Comments
Deleted
Not applicable

404 Error on quick start guide FYI, awesome news though!

Silver Contributor

Fantastic update, really excited about this and how it's all coming together.  It would be great if we could get an update to the public roadmap document, so it's easy for customers to track progress, with whats been delivered as we go into the new year!

Microsoft

Apologies @Deleted and other first readers - all of our documentation systems move at different speeds and timing them is tough :-). The links should be live shortly.

Deleted
Not applicable

Thanks @Paul Cannon !

Great news!

 

how are we going to choose between Skype or Teams for delivering pstn calls? 

Copper Contributor

Hi Teams Team! Will there be options for Teams to integrate with other phone systems from other vendors? My company is currently potentially looking into a Cisco phone system, but Microsoft Teams as our workspace chat client.

Iron Contributor

In addition to Erwins point in my testing inward dialing from the PSTN to Teams doesnt ring my Teams client although my SfB clients ring no problem?

@shawn harry did you change the client calling preference in Teams to ring you there?teamscalling.PNG you on Teams?

Iron Contributor

Thanks for the tip Dino! I was just about to do the same from the shell but this is much easier!

This is great news! 

 

Having said that, for customers that have on-prem SfB only, it looks like the lack of hybrid voice support in teams means they're forced to do a two-step migration: move all SfB users to SfB Online, then move them again to Teams. Is there a way around that limitation or should I just be telling people to wait for hybrid support?

Steel Contributor

 @Dino Caputo Thanks Dino, but I don't see that option on my MS Teams app... I have the latest version, and I have the Calls tab now. I'm running a hybrid SFB/SFBO environment and my user account has Phone System and a Calling Plan, works just fine from SFBO / SFB client. I can make an outbound call from MS Teams client now, but I can't receive it (only rings in SFB client, and if SFB client is off just goes straight to voicemail). 

 

Is there something to tell my account that I want PSTN calls to come to Teams instead  of SFBO? 

Copper Contributor

Dino, what version of Teams do you have? I'm on 1.0.00.33658 and I don't have that option to set the preferred app for incoming calls. I'm also on the targeted release track, so I'd think I'd have the most recent version.

@kevin and Chris - I suspect your client will be updating soon and providing you have the appropriate licenses then you will see the calling options.  They don't show unless its appropriately enabled in Office365 for the user (license and calling plan assigned)  Only then will it appear.  If you are appropriately licensed then its just a matter of the client getting updated which I hope will happen shortly.  Try checking for updates and see if that helps. 

@Chris Smith See previous response to Shawn.  If you have calling tab then you should also have the preference option I took a screen shot of above.  

Great news !

Copper Contributor

@Dino Caputo, can you confirm your version number? This is what my call settings look like on version 1.0.00.33658...

 

Capture.PNG

 

I am also set for targeted release (I'm the canary in the coal mine for the company) so I should have the newer versions.

 

Aside from that, how do you like the integration?

Microsoft

@Kevin, please review the quick start guide. For you to be able to change the preferred calling option, you need to apply the correct TeamsInteropPolicy to your user

@Paul Robichaux that will depend on many factors but mainly feature parity.  Currently Teams does not have all the features of SfB on-prem which will be a deciding factor for many larger enterprises doing EV today.  Migration options today are limited to a side by side method which assumes that users are already in the cloud (see https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/skypehybridguy/2017/10/24/journey-to-success-with-microsoft-team...)

 

I would expect/hope that  there will be more options coming for SfB on-prem EV customers but for now its a wait and see approach especially until feature parity is met.   If all the calling features you need are present today you would have to start moving users to SfB Online first and then simply change their calling capability to Teams in the client calling preference.  You can still run both SfB and Teams side by side as users get confortable changing over to just using Teams.  There isn't a physical move you need to perform per se from SfB to Teams but expect that there will be more information coming on controlling the user experience when it comes time to stop allowing users to have both SfB and Teams client running side by side. 

Microsoft

Awesome

Quick Start link now working https://docs.microsoft.com/en-ca/MicrosoftTeams/configuring-teams-calling-quickstartguide 

It explains the options you have to make that option available including allowing users to change their preferred calling experience if you don't want to force it on everyone. 

Microsoft

Samir - This is announcement only covers Calling In Teams at this time. When we have further news we will share here.

Copper Contributor

Is there a timeline for the iOS app to have the calling features similar to Skype for Business?

The iOS app can do basic calling now but full functionality is road mapped for Q4 of 2017 which I believe will slip into 2018.  See https://skypeandteams.blob.core.windows.net/artefacts/Skype%20for%20Business%20to%20Teams%20Capabili... for the current roadmap.

Copper Contributor

I don't yet see the Calls tab, when will it appear for those that have the licenses and user configuration in place (already using SfB Online calling)?

This could be a versioning issue.  Try doing a "check for updates" on the teams client.  If the user currently has a Calling Plan and appropriate license and calling works in SfB Online, I would expect it to appear in Teams.  I would also check your Office 365 Admin Center under Services and Add-ins to ensure nothing has been disabled as far as calling goes.

Copper Contributor

I was trying through the web interface, perhaps it's only in the Windows "latest" client? I'll check tomorrow and see what goodies await... 

Copper Contributor

Is it possible or in the roadmap to link cell phones or other numbers to Teams? We have a lot of people in our organization working off of company cell phones with barely any hard lines in the office at all.

Copper Contributor

Unfortunately I'm not as well-versed in PowerShell as I probably should be for this. PowerShell is both a blessing and a curse in that I completely see the power it can yield, but not knowing exactly how to use it makes it very cumbersome at the moment, and most instructions on how to use it pretty much assume you know the basics (which I don't, unfortunately). With that said, I was able to get Teams to start ringing for inbound calls with the instructions in this guide. However, when I go to run the following command to get the option to set the "Preferred calling application", I get an error (both listed below):

 

Command:

New-CsTeamsInteropPolicy -PolicyName tag:CustomPolicy -AllowEndUserClientOverride:$True -CallingDefaultClient:Default -ChatDefaultClient:Default

Error:

New-CsTeamsInteropPolicy : The term 'New-CsTeamsInteropPolicy' is not recognized as the name of a cmdlet, function,
script file, or operable program. Check the spelling of the name, or if a path was included, verify that the path is
correct and try again.
At line:1 char:1
+ New-CsTeamsInteropPolicy -PolicyName tag:CustomPolicy -AllowEndUserCl ...
+ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
    + CategoryInfo          : ObjectNotFound: (New-CsTeamsInteropPolicy:String) [], CommandNotFoundException
    + FullyQualifiedErrorId : CommandNotFoundException

While I wish it were as simple as going into an administration panel, for now it is what it is. Does anyone know how I can get past this in order to create and apply the custom Teams interop policy?

Iron Contributor

Is the new teams calling facility able to terminate an inbound call routed through a call queue ?? or do my users that are call queue agents need to stick to the SfB client for now ?

I facing the same issue @Dino Caputo as @Greg Besso my Teams client is running: 1.0.00.34151 so i guess the feature is still rolling out. 

Iron Contributor

@Erwin Bierens It was in my build last night but checking this morning it has since gone. So you're likely correct. Although im running build 1.0.00.33658

@shawn harry hmm.. maybe some major bugs or something? did you have the time to test or not?

Iron Contributor

@Erwin Bierens I enabled forwarding calls to Teams instead of the default which was SfB but PSTN calls were still going to SfB. So i figured maybe there was a delay/replication etc with the setting. On checking this morning its not there now. TBF though i didnt create a custom policy as per the howto guide which is a requisite for this setting.

Iron Contributor

@Nicholas Plant Teams cannot be used as an endpoint for Call Queues at this time. You'll need to remain on Skype for Business if you make use of Auto Attendant and Call Queues at this time.

 

Iron Contributor

@shawn harry Took just under an hour for my custom policy to take affect, and the 'Preferred calling application' option to appear in my settings.

Iron Contributor

@Ben Donaldson Thanks for the tip. My custom policy took about 5 minutes from granting it to taking effect. Just checked and the 'Preferred calling application' option is there now.

Microsoft

@Kevin McCarthy, the command example at the time of quick start guide publication was incorrect. It was supposed to be New-CsTeamsInteropPolicy -Identity tag:CustomPolicy-AllowEndUserClientOverride:$True -CallingDefaultClient:Default -ChatDefaultClient:Default

Deleted
Not applicable

this is great news hope to test it soon.

Brass Contributor

The roadmap lists calling from supported phones early next year - is there any way for organization to enroll in a beta or preview?

Iron Contributor

Does anybody have any insight as to whether it will be possible to see incoming call alerts on the PC lock screen ? I just checked win 10 settings and there doesn't appear to be any way to add either quick status or detailed status to the lock screen from Teams. Obviously in the context of Teams being an end point for PSTN originated calls that would be an important feature.

Brass Contributor

Am i right in thinking this only works with Office 365 Phone System and not on-prem S4B/Lync Server?

Iron Contributor

@Phillip Shilling Correct, Teams PSTN connectivity can only be provided through Office 365 Calling Plans at this time.

Iron Contributor

First of all it is great to hear we are getting these Calling features. Just like other people I can't wait to start using it.


I am very curious how you manage contacts within Microsoft Teams. From both an end user perspective as well as an administrator perspective. 

Copper Contributor

There's some great info here!

 

I have a business case where we are exploring Microsoft Teams as well as a phone system through a couple of vendors (Microsoft among them, but also Cisco). I'm not sure I've seen an answer here that directly answers my question: Is it on the Roadmap for Microsoft Teams to provide integration with a phone system from another vendor?

 

I ask this specifically because in early 2018, my company will be having this conversation and Microsoft's intent of inter-operability may be a deciding factor for us to invest in an Office 365 E5 plan/Phone System/Teams, or look at another product suite.

 

Any insight for me?

Copper Contributor

You cannot add another number in existing call, only existing users can bee added in an on going call.

Teams CallTeams Call

Steel Contributor

@Nicholas Plant I can confirm that an incoming call to Teams running on a locked PC does indeed ring but there is no visual indication and no way to answer it without unlocking the PC

Brass Contributor

I'm looking at the October 24th Roadmap document, and comparing what was listed there to what was delivered Tuesday. Features in the roadmap that I'm not yet seeing mentioned include:

 

  • Blind Transfer
  • Call Blocking
  • Call Fowarding
  • Translate user input to standard format phone #
  • Call Quality Diagnostic Portal

Unfortunately, my own tenancy doesn't including Calling (straight E3). Can someone with Calling Plan on their tenancy confirm whether or not those features are available with Calling in Teams?

Brass Contributor

great news! I lke to move it, move it(c) ups: I like to call it, call it!

@Deleted -- Contacts (a speed dial list and an A-Z list) are stored in Office 365 for every user of Teams - and in addition the A-Z list also surfaces any existing contacts that have a phone number from Exchange Online. I'm the PM for contacts in MS Teams - happy to answer more specific questions if you have any.

Iron Contributor

@Krishnan Raghupathi thanks for your reply!

That was the first question which came to mind when I saw the screenshot. Thanks for answering it.

I probably have some other questions when I start using the new features :)

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