Now in public preview: User-managed call queue and auto attendant greetings

[Jan_Steberl]

Description

Microsoft Teams now supports scenarios where call queue agents or designated auto attendant users need to adjust their greetings more frequently than a typical IT helpdesk could handle. The new feature to support user-managed call queue and auto attendant greetings allows Teams tenant admins to designate authorized users who are empowered to change greetings for call queues and auto attendants. The authorized users can update greetings without having to leave their Teams client.

As background, in Microsoft Teams, call queues are waiting areas for callers, who are put on hold until an agent assigned to the queue is available to take their call.  Auto attendants allow you to set up menu options to route calls based on caller input. Used together, auto attendants and call queues can easily route callers to the appropriate person or department in your organization.

And now, designated authorized users can manage greetings from their Teams client, making the system even more flexible for your changing needs.

Flighting status

Available to everyone in Public Preview channel.

 

How to enable

1. A Microsoft Teams tenant admin must first designate Authorized users for the call queues and/or auto attendants. An authorized user is a Teams user who has been authorized by a Teams admin center administrator to make configuration changes to auto attendants and call queues. The user doesn't need to have access to the Teams admin center portal nor be assigned any administrative roles.
   For more information on how to do this, see Set up auto attendant and call queue authorized users - Microsoft Teams | Microsoft Learn, and refer to the Examples section to see how to choose permission for each type of update.
2. If you are a Teams user whom the tenant admin has already authorized follow these steps to update your greetings in Teams for your call queue and/or auto attendant, in your Teams client, go to the “…” menu in the upper-right of the main Teams window, and choose “Settings”. 

• For auto attendant greetings updates, scroll down to select the auto attendant to update, and you will see new settings choices, but you will only see those which your Teams tenant admin has authorized for you:
  • Business hours greeting,
  • After hours greeting,
  • Holiday greeting,  
    
    

To customize each greeting which you are authorized to change, choose one of the following:

• “Add a greeting message” and type your custom greeting in the text box. This will be read aloud by the auto attendant, or,
• “Play an audio file” and upload an audio file in MP3, WAV, or WMA with size less than 5MB.  This file will be played by the auto attendant.

• For call queue greetings updates, scroll down to select the call queue to update and you will see new settings choices, but only those which your Teams tenant admin has authorized for you. You can customize the following, but you will only see those which your Teams tenant admin has authorized for you:
  • Greeting to play when a customer call comes in,
  • Voicemail greeting when the maximum number of calls is reached,
  • Voicemail greeting when the maximum wait time is reached. 

To customize each greeting which you are authorized to change, choose one of the following:

• “Add a greeting message” and type your custom greeting in the text box. This will be read aloud by the auto attendant, or,
• “Play an audio file” and upload an audio file in MP3, WAV, or WMA with size less than 5MB.  This file will be played by the auto attendant.

Note:  A user can be authorized to customize greetings for a call queue, but that user does not have to be part of the answering rules for that call queue.  If a user is not part of a call queue’s answering rules, then when authorized, that user will not see the 'Call receiving' toggle in the above screenshot.

Note 2: If you need information about enabling the public preview itself, see “Enable the public preview for Teams” below.

Note 3: To be able to use this feature, a user needs to be in Public Preview.

Supported clients and platforms

Windows	macOS	iOS	Android	Linux	Google Chrome	Firefox	Safari	Microsoft Edge
Yes	Yes				Yes		Yes	Yes

Known issues

• Currently, these configurations are saved sequentially not in parallel, e.g. If user makes changes to 3 greetings and clicks the Save button, it may take about 3 seconds for each greeting and 10 seconds in total to complete.
• The Teams Calls App Page is cut off and there is no horizontal scroll bar if the Teams window is fully minimized. This is a known bug and it is currently being addressed.

 

Known limitations

None

Enable your Teams client for the public preview 

1. First, IT admins need to set an update policy that turns on Show preview features. Learn how at Public preview in Microsoft Teams - Microsoft Teams | Microsoft Docs.  
2. Users then choose to join the public preview individually. Learn how at Get early access to new Teams features - Office Support (microsoft.com) 

 

Send us your feedback 

Got feedback on features in the public preview or other areas of Teams? Let us know straight from Teams via Help > Give feedback.  This is on the bottom left of your client.

Thank you,

Preview Team

Quality & Customer Obsession, Microsoft Teams

[#2]

This is a really great start. Any plans to allow administration of other settings? Some that I have seen from various customers are to change the phone number that an AA is forwarding calls to and changing business hours for CQs.

[#3]

@Jan_Steberl it is a great start. When can we expect authorized users to be able to modify other features. the most wanted are timeout and overfow actions and target. 

as sometimes we have processes that needs to modify target of timeout to different number several times a day. Which is really painful to do by admins only. 

[#4]

As others have said, this is a great and long awaited start. We need our users to be able to change other settings like holiday schedules and to override open and close hours.

[#5]

Very excited to see this! Having call queue owners manage their own queues was the one major feature we lost moving from Cisco. We started testing with some of our queue managers.

[#6]

Exactly. This is only half the story, we also need to allow users to self-administer:
- Holiday Schedules
- Opening Hours

[#7]

Hi @Jan_Steberl and thanks to sharing this.

Can you share if there will be more settings coming available for authorized users?

Also, do you have any plans when this becomes GA?

[#8]

Hi @Jan_Steberl  This is great progress self service management of AA/CQ of Authorized Users 

As many of our customer moving from traditional PBX to Teams, the missing Part is the following to complete the functionality

1. Add/Change/Delete of Holidays Sets and Assignment to Auto Attendant (Global Task)

2. Managing of Opening Hours of Auto Attendant

3. Managing Auto Attendant Forwarding to Call Queues or PTSN Number

Hope this become the next enhancements of the roadmap

Andy

[#9]

I agree with Andre, those 3 features are the only thorn in our side from switching to Teams Voice from Cisco Call Manager.

[#10]

Anybody else wishing to see better reporting engines as well? So that queue owners could see their own reports only, and longer that 28 days? 🙂

[#11]

Our biggest ask is for Queue handlers to be able to adjust their times by themselves. Is there a way to do this or is it on the roadmap?@Jan_Steberl 

[#12]

Hi Microsoft, managing the opening hours a holiday set (Add/Change/Delete) for Auto Attendants is a big request from all of our customer. Also customizing the Auto Attendant Target > Call Queue or PSTN Numbers is an big request. But there is no information published on the Roadmap yet. What is the the Plan Microsoft ?

[#13]

We have been waiting a long time for this to be published. The Powershell cmdlets are available and documented a long time ago, but they still do not work. At least let us have a roadmap!

[#14]

Great first step. Additionally, we really need authorized users to be able to change business hours and holidays dates. So they don't bother us to do so. 😉

I know this is upcoming in the Queues app, but i strongly urge you this shouldn't be a premium feature. (we don't use call queues, just the auto attendant)