Plan and design Teams Phone features
To use Teams Phone features, your organization must have a Teams Phone Standard license. Once the license is active in your tenant, it provides the following features:
| Feature | Description |
|---|---|
| Cloud auto attendants | You can create a menu system that enables external and internal callers to locate and place or transfer calls to company users or departments in your organization. Users don't need to be voice-enabled to receive calls from the auto attendant. |
| Cloud call queues | You configure how call queues are managed for your organization: for example, set up greetings and music on hold, search for the next available call agent to handle the call, and so on. Users do need to be voice-enabled to receive calls from a call queue. |
| Music on hold | This feature plays default music defined by the service when an external call from the Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) is placed on hold. This feature works for one-to-one PSTN-to-Teams calls in addition to calls made to a call queue. This feature provides on-hold notification parity with other platforms. This feature is configurable by the administrator but currently only via PowerShell. Hold music is also not supported in the consultative transfer of a PSTN call. |
| Call answer/initiate (by name and number) | This feature lets users answer inbound calls with a touch and place outbound calls either by dialing the full phone number or by selecting a name in the client. |
| Call forwarding options and simultaneous ring | This feature lets users set up forwarding rules so calls can be sent to any assigned telephone number, or calls can be forwarded to colleagues or voicemail. |
| Group call pickup and forward to a group | This feature lets users share incoming calls with colleagues so that the colleagues can answer calls that occur while the user is unavailable. This feature is less disruptive to recipients than other forms of call sharing (such as call forwarding or simultaneous ringing) because users can configure how they want to be notified of an incoming shared call. |
| Transfer a call and consultative transfer | This feature lets users transfer calls to another person. Or, if they need to leave their office but want to continue the conversation, they can transfer the calls from their PC or IP phone to their cell phone. Consultative transfer allows for the user to talk to the person they want to transfer the call to. Before the transfer is made, users don't need to be voice-enabled to receive transferred calls from another user. |
| Transfer to voicemail mid-call | This feature lets users transfer to voicemail during a call. |
| Call park and retrieve | This feature lets users place a call on hold in the Teams service in the cloud. When a call is parked, the service generates a unique code for call retrieval. The user who parked the call, or someone else, can then use that code and a supported app or device to retrieve the call. |
| Call phone number from search | Lets users place a call from the search box by using the /call command and specifying a name or a number. |
| Caller ID | Calls from inside the company display a detailed caller ID that pulls information from the corporate directory, showing picture ID, and job title instead of just a phone number. For calls from external phone numbers, the caller ID as provided by the phone service provider is displayed. If the external phone numbers are secondary numbers in the corporate directory, then the information from the corporate directory is displayed. |
| Device switching | This feature lets users play a call or meeting on another HID device that is connected to Teams; for example, switching from their PC speakers to a headset. |
| Presence-based call routing | Controls inbound communications with presence, enabling the user to block all incoming communication except from those specifically indicated. |
| Integrated dial pad | This feature lets users dial by name or by number anywhere in the search bar and in the dial pad, speeding up the process of making outbound calls. |
| Federated calling | This feature lets users securely connect, communicate, and collaborate with users in federated tenants. |
| Make and receive a video call | If the user's account is enabled for video calls, the user can make face-to-face video calls with their contacts. All they need is a camera and a headset. |
| Cloud Voicemail | When a user receives a voicemail, it's delivered to their Exchange mailbox as an email with the voicemail message as an attachment. Users can listen to their messages on their certified desktop phone and on all Teams or Skype for Business applications. Support for voicemail transcription has been added as of March 2017 and is enabled by default for all organizations and users. Users don't need a Teams Phone license, nor do they need to be voice-enabled to use Cloud Voicemail features. |
| Cloud Voicemail user settings | This feature lets users configure their client settings for voicemail greetings, call answering rules, and greeting language, including out-of-office greetings. Users don't need a Teams Phone license, nor do they need to be voice-enabled to use Cloud Voicemail features. |
| Secondary ringer | Users with multiple speaker devices connected to their PC can choose to set a secondary device to ring in addition to their default speaker. For example, a user with a headset connected to the PC and desk speakers can choose to have both headset and desk speakers ring when a call comes in so that they don’t miss a call. |
| Distinctive ring alerts | Lets users choose separate ringtones for normal calls, forwarded calls, and delegated calls so they can distinguish the type of call. |
| Shared Line Appearance | This feature lets users share their phone line so that another user can make and receive calls on their behalf. |
| Busy on Busy | A calling policy that lets you configure how incoming calls are handled when a user is: in a call, in a conference, or has a call placed on hold. The caller receives one of the following responses: hear a busy signal when the callee is on the phone, or will be routed accordingly to the user's unanswered settings. One option lets the caller leave a voicemail for the user who is already on a call. The caller gets a missed call notification but isn't able to answer incoming calls. This feature is disabled by default but can be turned on by the tenant admin. |
| Call blocking | This feature lets users add (PSTN) phone numbers to a blocked list so that the next call from that number is blocked from ringing the user. |
| Common Area Phones | A common area phone is typically placed in an area like a lobby or conference room making it available to multiple people. Common area phones are set up as devices rather than users and can automatically sign into a network. |
| Media bypass support (for Direct Routing only) | For better performance, media is kept between the Session Border Controller (SBC) and the client instead of sending it via the Microsoft Teams Phone. |
| Unassigned number routing | Allows routing of unassigned numbers to users, auto attendants, call queues or a custom announcement. |