Oct 25 2019 04:52 PM
Hello everyone,
I really am at a loss as to what to do next. I have reached out to Microsoft tech support for almost 2 months now for help on resolving this-- so I'm hoping someone out there might have an idea at what to try next.
A few months ago - I migrated our phone numbers directly into Microsoft Teams (meaning, we no longer have an on-site provider; all of our numbers are hosted in the cloud, by Microsoft). We used to have another VOIP provider, and they had some minimal integration with Microsoft Teams by the end of our time with them---just an fyi, in case the fact that we used to have a PSTN/hybric setup could be the cause of any of the below issues.
I built a simple setup - our main phone number now functions as an auto attendant IVR, with 5 options to choose from. The 1st option dials to a queue, and the other options all go to a specific user.
The problem: when callers make it to the queue, the following issues "randomly" occur (at least 50-60% of the time:
What makes matters worst ^^ this happens anytime I try an even "slightly" different setup, including with...
For right now, the only thing that seems to stop issue from happening is if I leave only the IVR active and have each option only transfer to ONE user, with absolutely no forwarding options turned on for that user (other then voicemail). If I try to setup any type of IVR/queue/user combo that involves having a phone call ring to more then one person, one of the above 3 scenarios occur.
I have sent all of my teams logs, screenshots of call disconnects, spoken with at least 5 different support reps, and still am not seeing any resolution.
If you can offer any guidance -- I would really appreciate it!
Oct 26 2019 08:01 AM
@JacobAdam Support will have the best view of what's happening in your specific case, but to confirm I've set this type of thing up many times without issue. Some things I would suggest :-
Other than that I would keep asking MS Support what their next action is going to be.
Oct 28 2019 05:37 AM
Oct 29 2019 03:04 PM
@JacobAdam Let's just go through your issue list
Is the user you redirect to part of the queue, and are they available. What are you trying to achieve here anyway?
A call queue wont end up in a queue members voicemail. Again it sounds like your users are unavailable.
Are they available and haven't opted out of the queue (assuming you allowed them to opt out)
Calling out from where? How is this outbound connected to the inbound, are you using the same number?
Hold how? An individual user can't have multiple held calls to my knowledge, better to park the calls in that scenario.
Oct 29 2019 05:17 PM
@JacobAdam This is about par for the course with Phone System in Office 365. I've had a ticket open with support since July for calls to a call queue dropping after 30 seconds when the caller is on a Polycom VVX phone. Even after getting Polycom support involved I still haven't seen a resolution.
I had another ticket open for an issue where a call queue agent can't answer calls from internal callers who have Call Forwarding enabled. That one was closed as "works as designed".
A couple weeks ago we started getting reports that outside callers were hearing a message saying "all circuits are busy" when trying to call us. That seemed to resolve itself but I'm still waiting to find out if we're entitled to compensation for this issue.
Today we're getting reports of calls dropping (again) from one of our high-volume users. I can't even look up the user in the Teams Admin Center right now because something is broken on the back end.
Don't get me started on the breaking change Microsoft made last fall to voicemail delivery for orgs with Exchange on-premises. After going back and forth with support for a few months we finally found out that they had added a requirement to have Exchange Hybrid configured. No notice, no update to the documentation. Oh, and then a few months after that I couldn't access my voicemail settings for awhile because they decided that if you don't have an on-premises mailbox then you must not have voicemail, despite this configuration being explicitly listed as supported.
Run. Run away, while you still can.
Oct 30 2019 06:04 AM
Oct 30 2019 06:36 AM
Is the user you redirect to part of the queue, and are they available. What are you trying to achieve here anyway?
Yes, the user(s) are setup to be a part of the queue....yes, they are available. Microsoft and I have looked at both aspects of this many, many times, and they confirmed user presence and queue settings are all correct.
What I am trying to achieve here is a straightforward queue setup -- 1) external callers ring in to our main phone line (auto attendant) -- 2) they choose option 1 for front desk, which rings our front desk queue with appropriate users assigned to it and marked as available --- 3) if one of them doesn't answer within 2 minutes, the call is redirected to an individual user (me), after which I either take the call or it goes to my voicemail
A call queue wont end up in a queue members voicemail. Again it sounds like your users are unavailable.
Again, it may sound like that, but they are not unavailable, Microsoft confirmed this as well.
Are they available and haven't opted out of the queue (assuming you allowed them to opt out)
Yes, they are available. I have the ability to opt out of queues turned OFF.
Calling out from where? How is this outbound connected to the inbound, are you using the same number?
Calling out from each individual user. Each user has their own phone system, their own domestic calling plan, and their own direct line. The caller ID settings are set to mask outbound calls as our main lines, but in reality, each user agent has their own domestic calling plan and user number in place.
Hold how? An individual user can't have multiple held calls to my knowledge, better to park the calls in that scenario.
An individual user can have multiple held calls, I have seen it and Microsoft confirmed this with me, and it sporadically works. But having multiple callers on hold isn't the point of this issue -- its that if I have even ONE person on hold and a call comes in, the person on hold is disconnected without any warning. Frankly, we shouldn't have to use the call parking feature just to avoid a bug, but we will if we have to.
Hope that helps clarify things. If you have any other ideas, please let me know. I can assure you that the queue settings are setup 100% to what they should be and that all users are marked as available.
Oct 31 2019 12:42 PM
@JacobAdam can you supply an incident number from your calls to support, I'll see if I can ask PG to look at it directly for you. It sounds like there is something wrong with how the numbers are set within the Microsoft backend. Certainly nothing you can configure.
Oct 31 2019 11:02 PM
@Steven Collier Thank you, I really appreciate that! I will PM you the incident number. It might be worth mentioning that I've had a series of Teams-related tickets beginning back to early July, but this is the "main" ticket now.
Nov 07 2019 12:34 PM
We moved to Teams (from an on-prem end-of-life Cisco system) in late August and we are having similar problems with picking up calls and transferring after consulting. We're all on calling plan + E5. We have only two auto attendants and one calling queue (with no one opting out or anything). Frequently, our main operator (among 5-6 possible) attempts to answer the call, experiences freezes of the app, attempts to consult, but experiences substantial delays picking the call back up from hold. In short, not a reliable or good experience.
Direct calls are fine, generally, but the calling queue and handling of calls from it is a mess.
We've had a ticket open for about a month. Microsoft has escalated to engineering...
Yet, we wait.
Nov 07 2019 03:16 PM - edited Nov 07 2019 03:17 PM
@Matthew Frahm sorry to hear that...wish I could tell you we've made progress but so far, we have not.
@Steven Collier have you had an opportunity to reach out re: the incident number that I PM'ed you? It sounds like I am not alone in the type of problems we're experiencing.
The scariest part of it is that we aren't made aware that there are connection problems until a client is angry enough to either write in through our website or call over & over until Microsoft's phone system actually works.
I hate to say this -- but at this point, we have seen a noticeable decline in business because of the phone issues we've experienced, so we're exploring other options to transition ASAP.