This post is about an upcoming feature which enables members of a Microsoft Teams call queue to make outbound calls using a call queue’s phone number instead of their own phone number. Based on the Microsoft 365 roadmap feature ID 86992 call queue agents can place calls with the call queue phone number as their caller ID.
As stated on the roadmap the general availability (GA) is scheduled for May 2022. It is important to note that this only for Teams on desktop, not on Mac and not mobile so far.
Today, there is something similar available based on voice-enabled channels. The difference is that you have to configure the call queue to use a Teams channel instead of users or groups and all agents must be member of the Teams channel. Then you also have to configure the call queue with “assign calling ID”, as depicted below.
The newly announced capability is not based on voice-enabled channels but on users and groups which is probably more commonly used, as I would say based on my experience.
Conclusion, opinion and summary
To make outbound calls with another phone number is an often requested feature, especially if you want that call are returned to a specific number, e.g. IT support, customer service, procurement … to avoid making a users extension/DID available to these callers. Until now you had the option to use
- voice-enabled channels or
- configure (static) caller ID policies or
- configure (static) phone number manipulations on a SBC in a Teams Direct Routing deployment
The new option is much better in my opinion because call queues are mostly used with users or groups as agents, in my experience. And it could be much easier, without the need to navigate to the Teams voice-enabled channel to make an outbound call. At last but not at least it is dynamic i.e. the user can decide when to make an outbound call. Maybe I will update this post in the future if the feature is available in my tenant and I find some time to capture some screenshots for the writeup.
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