There are really no Desk Phones Available for Microsoft Teams!

[Donovan Lewis]

I experienced something amazingly bad this week. I bought myself the only desk phone that seems listed by Microsoft to work with Microsoft Teams. Imagine my surprise when none of my External Contacts showed up on the phone - even if I did a search. My Internal Contacts showed up if I did a search. Why should I even have to search for anything? Of course, there's no way to manually add a Contact to the phone. Of course, there's no way to have the Audio flow from the desktop app through the desk phone. Of course, Yealink says that those features haven't been made available by Microsoft.

This is amatuer hour stuff! Who deploys a desk phone app that doesn't show External Contacts? I'm switching all my customers to RingCentral or MiCloud - starting now!

[#2]

@Donovan Lewis Agree that the lack of contacts in the Teams deskphones are strange, that should be there from the beginning. I haven't heard anything about this but I'm sure they will add it. There should be an contacts menu that work in the same way as contacts in the Teams desktop app.

You can buy Teams desk phones from Yealink or Audiocodes, but both runs the same Teams app created by Microsoft. Polycom will release a desk phone with the same software.

There is an uservoice requesting Speed dial that you can vote for.

https://microsoftteams.uservoice.com/forums/555103-public/suggestions/36477010-speed-dial-for-teams-...

I think that your customers would benefit from using the desktop application with a headset connected to their computer, using all the capabilities in Teams and not just the calling part. A project moving telephony from a traditional PBX to Teams (or Skype) should not be an one-to-one migration, you should educate them how to use all parts in the modern communication in Teams and then they probably will see that a desk phone is not the way to go.

[#3]

@Linus Cansby I should have written "the only not exorbitantly expensive desk phone", i.e. who wants to pay $350+ for an Audiocodes phone?

Regardless, "the lack of contacts in the Teams deskphones" isn't strange, it's RIDICULOUS! Also, do you work for Microsoft? I would expect only an employee of Microsoft would write "...you should educate them how to use all parts in the modern communication in Teams and then they probably will see that a desk phone is not the way to go." Seriously? The customer wants what they want - educated or not. Microsoft's job is to provide it inline with the competition. That allows them & us Partners to sell & make profits. Every other phone service provider in the world offers that feature. I ask again, who deploys a desk phone app that doesn't show External Contacts? I say again, I'm switching all my customers to RingCentral or MiCloud! I've already started that.

PS: Most of the users for my customers don't use desk phones but, in every instance, the Receptionist does.

[#4]

@Donovan Lewis No, I don't work for Microsoft as you can see on my profile picture but I'm been working with projects helping customers switching from traditional PBX systems to Skype and many end users want their desk phone in the start of the project, but will small effort with user adoption they usually see that it is more convenient working with a softphone client on their computer then a desk phone. And that is not only when they are migrating to Skype or Teams, that is when they migrate to other phone systems as well.

I think your customers will be happy with RingCentral or MiCloud and maybe Teams will be ready for their need in the future. As you know Teams in not only a Phone system so if you are not going to work with the collaboration parts or meetings then I don't see any idea using the phone system parts either.

You mentioned the receptionist and there we have to wait until early 2020 until the APIs are ready for the third-party software that are made for receptionists and attendants, but of course that is for a computer and not a desk phone.