Teams Audio Conferencing - sharing numbers?

[Stephen Bell]

Hey everyone,

As I am sure with everyone these days, the need for screen share meetings, conference calls, etc has been on the rise.  Up until now, my organization has subscribed to a third party to provide some smaller (25 participants) conference bridges at a monthly rate.

Given the current pandemic - our requirements have changed.  We now need to have the ability to do an audio conference with 100 participants.  

For the past 30 years my company has had a standing "Tuesday Meeting" - where 70-80 people would pile into a conference room and attend this meeting.  Now with social distancing, this is not a wise approach and my team has been asked to come up with options.

I know Teams can do audio conferencing.  I've got 2 licenses set up now to do some exploration.  I am wondering if I can have a pool of numbers - say 5 phone numbers - to be used by maybe 20 users?  

With this Tuesday meeting, it's been around longer than outlook at our company.  There is no outlook invitation - it is part of our fiber.  So for this - now, conference call I do not know who would be sending out an invitation, and could not guarantee it would always be the same person.  But I am wondering how to avoid scheduling conflicts for the phone number?

Is there a way to do this or am I thinking about it all wrong?

Thanks

Steve  

[#2]

@Stephen Bell Do you need to dial in? If people just use Teams installed on their laptops/mobiles then you can all join the meeting using video and screen sharing etc. Ideal for a Standup.

[#3]

Unfortunately for this, I would need a dial in number. At least initially.

[#4 · Accepted solution]

@Stephen Bell I'm not sure what you are asking about when you refer to "sharing numbers". Up to 250 participants can join a meeting by phone (source). Every participant calls the same number and enters the conference code shown in the meeting invite. (You can have multiple conference bridge numbers to make it a local call for users in different locations, or to provide a toll-free number. Callers can also use any of Microsoft's shared conference bridge numbers, which can be accessed from the link in the meeting invitation.)

It doesn't really matter who sends out the invitation, but it would make the most sense for it to be the person who "chairs" the meeting most often. Rather than scheduling a new meeting every week, why not just make it a recurring meeting? 

You don't need to worry about "scheduling conflicts for the phone number" because this particular meeting will have a unique conference code. Even if someone else had another meeting scheduled at the same time using the same conference bridge number, their meeting would have a different conference code.

[#5]

Hi @Stephen Bell 

I am totally unsure about your requirement or query. But whatever I could understood from your message here are the response.

1. When you purchase the Audio Conferencing Licenses for Microsoft Teams you can schedule multiple meeting and the Number remains same for all the meeting it only differs from conference id for each meeting. Ex. If 18008569408 is the number assigned to your tenant it will remain common for all the meeting. Just the conference id varies from meeting to meeting. 

Coming to your second problem that you cannot schedule meeting from Outlook in case you are not using it. There is always a option to schedule the Team Meeting from the Teams Meeting Application and even recurring meetings can be scheduled from the same.

Let me know in case you have any additional query and we can get that addressed for you.

With Regards,

Satish U

[#6]

@Ryan Steele - Thank you for the reply. 

I think this was the missing piece I did not put together:

"You don't need to worry about "scheduling conflicts for the phone number" because this particular meeting will have a unique conference code. Even if someone else had another meeting scheduled at the same time using the same conference bridge number, their meeting would have a different conference code."

That being said - I guess my next query would be around licensing.  Today, through our conference call provider, we pay per phone number - let's say $20 per month.  For $20 per month, anyone in our company - that knows that number - can use it.

With the teams model, I would need to assign Audio Conferencing licensing to each user that wished to schedule a call - which is not as cost effective, correct?

[#7]

Hi @Stephen Bell 

Isn't that provider is charging you additional for the usage of the minutes on the number. I assume that they only charge 20USD for the phone number and the usage charges are separate.

In case you want to have a cost effective solution purchase one license and assign it to anyone of the IT Staff who can keep scheduling the meeting for all the users in the org. This is not an ideal case but can be a workaround for your case.

With Regards,

Satish U

[#8]

@RealTime_M365  @Stephen Bell 

Hi guys,

The audio conferencing license would work fine for this use case/requirement. The PSTN dial-in should be a GEO number and not a toll-free otherwise you would be required to have communication credits added. Also, if any participant chooses "call me" option and you would need communication credits here too. 

Hope this helps

Regards,

Shams

[#9]

@Stephen Bell Whether the Audio Conferencing licensing model is more or less cost-effective would depend on your current licensing and usage. If some or all of your users have Office 365 E5 licenses then it could be more cost-effective because Audio Conferencing is included in that license.

Assuming that is not the case, it may still be more cost-effective if only a small number of users in your organization need to schedule dial-in meetings. If a large number need this capability, then yes, you will be paying more, but you will no longer have the hassle of ensuring that two people aren't trying to use the same conference number at the same time.

[#10]

You could also limit the licenses for dial-in to a few users. If these users will plan the Meeting where dial-in is needed, then you are good to go.

Only the meeting organizer need to have a dial-in license assigned. All others that join doesn’t need it.

Let me know if you need additional information.

Kind regards and stay healthy,
Mitchell Bakker