Calls in queue and call groups lead to nowhere, disconnect, doesn't reach voicemail, etc. (randomly)

Copper Contributor

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:

  1. callers make it to the queue but never make it out (i.e. the queue is set to redirect to a user after 2 minutes of no pickup, but instead, callers will somtimes be stuck listening to the queue for 15 minutes, followed by an abrupt disconnect)
  2. callers hear ringing, followed by a "sorry we aren't available," followed up with an immediate disconnect of the call (note: ALL of our users have a voicemail box turned on, and none of them are forwarded to go anywhere else)
  3. the callers are in the queue but they never show up to the agents assigned to said queue
  4. if someone calls in at the same time as we are calling OUT, one or BOTH of the calls automatically are placed on hold without our prompting, and typically end up disconnecting a few seconds later
  5. calls that we place on hold are disconnected after answering other inbound calls at the same time

What makes matters worst ^^ this happens anytime I try an even "slightly" different setup, including with...

  • call groups (either forwarding OR doing the "also ring" option)
  • call delegation
  • call forwarding (from one user to another)

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!

10 Replies

@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 :-

 

  •  See how you are using the external numbers and setting up the resource account behind the Auto Attendant and the Queue.
  •  How are you making an outbound number, are your user replacing their DDI
  •  Can you give the queue a new, different number and still forward from the AA, use a Microsoft sourced number for it
  • Delete some stuff and recreate

Other than that I would keep asking MS Support what their next action is going to be.

Thanks for the quick response on this. By your first point, what do you mean by “how” we are using external numbers? The resource account was setup per the guide here, via the Microsoft Teams admin center: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoftteams/manage-resource-accounts#create-a-resource-account-i...

The queue number is already Microsoft supplied. I can try generating a new service number and reassigning it though; but I’ve already seen the same issue occur with other queues I’ve tried to create in its place, all Microsoft supplied.

The one thing I haven’t done is recycled the Microsoft supplied numbers for each user and reassigned them. But I’m willing to try anything.

If you have any other ideas, please let me know. I will continue to work with Microsoft support, but as I said, they’ve been working on it for a quite a while with no progress (and a lot of the troubleshooting steps we complete are repeated, like deleting/reinstalling Teams, etc.).

One thing that I think could be creating problems is the fact that our setup used to be a hybrid solution before we started using Microsoft-supplied numbers. Is there any way to properly investigate this via PowerShell? I’ve found instances earlier on where the old calling policy was still enabled but have since removed all instances (that I could find anyway). Or better yet, is there a way to simply reset ALL of my Teams/Skype-calling-related settings and start from scratch? I wish I was more familiar with PowerShell; I feel like the answer lies there somewhere.

@JacobAdam Let's just go through your issue list

 

  1. callers make it to the queue but never make it out (i.e. the queue is set to redirect to a user after 2 minutes of no pickup, but instead, callers will somtimes be stuck listening to the queue for 15 minutes, followed by an abrupt disconnect)

Is the user you redirect to part of the queue, and are they available. What are you trying to achieve here anyway? 

 

  1. callers hear ringing, followed by a "sorry we aren't available," followed up with an immediate disconnect of the call (note: ALL of our users have a voicemail box turned on, and none of them are forwarded to go anywhere else)

A call queue wont end up in a queue members voicemail. Again it sounds like your users are unavailable.

 

  1. the callers are in the queue but they never show up to the agents assigned to said queue

Are they available and haven't opted out of the queue (assuming you allowed them to opt out)

 

  1. if someone calls in at the same time as we are calling OUT, one or BOTH of the calls automatically are placed on hold without our prompting, and typically end up disconnecting a few seconds later

Calling out from where? How is this outbound connected to the inbound, are you using the same number?

 

  1. calls that we place on hold are disconnected after answering other inbound calls at the same time

Hold how? An individual user can't have multiple held calls to my knowledge, better to park the calls in that scenario.

@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.

Thank you for taking the time to respond. I’m torn between feeling vindicated that someone else out there is experiencing the onslaught of issues we’ve had with O365’s phone system - and - despair that your result is about the same as mine.

When I requested compensation for the issues I am experiencing (only after months of cooperating with tech support), they offered me $30. Regardless of the amount of users you or I have, we know that $30 hardly covers the cost of one user license, let alone the loss of time/business this system has provided us with.

But venting aside - I really do want to try and fix this, because our team loves using the Teams app for just about everything else. The only way I’ve gotten some stability so far is by enabling the most basic setup possible - caller calls into main line AA, and any option they choose forwards to a single user with an enabled voicemail box, with absolutely no call groups/“also ring” options enabled.

Regarding your issue with the high volume user; have you tried running Poweshell and review that user’s call policy/other Teams/Skype For Business settings? We had a terrible issue with one of our user accounts like yours, and the answer was me digging through PowerShell documentation and disassociating a broken calling policy that was (randomly) assigned to that user on the backend but wasn’t reflecting in the Teams admin center.

@Steven Collier 

 

 

 

 

  1. callers make it to the queue but never make it out (i.e. the queue is set to redirect to a user after 2 minutes of no pickup, but instead, callers will somtimes be stuck listening to the queue for 15 minutes, followed by an abrupt disconnect)

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

 

  1. callers hear ringing, followed by a "sorry we aren't available," followed up with an immediate disconnect of the call (note: ALL of our users have a voicemail box turned on, and none of them are forwarded to go anywhere else)

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.

 

  1. the callers are in the queue but they never show up to the agents assigned to said queue

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.

 

  1. if someone calls in at the same time as we are calling OUT, one or BOTH of the calls automatically are placed on hold without our prompting, and typically end up disconnecting a few seconds later

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.

 

  1. calls that we place on hold are disconnected after answering other inbound calls at the same time

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.

@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.

@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.

@JacobAdam 

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.

@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.