Teams Phone System: The Beginner’s Guide

These call management features become instantly available when you activate Teams Phone through HelloTeams, no extra configuration required.

Dial Pad

To access your Teams Phone, open Microsoft Teams on your computer and click the ‘Calls’ tab in the left-hand column.

You should see another menu appear with four options:

• Speed dial
• Contacts
• History
• Voicemail

Under that menu, you should be able to see your dial pad.  On smaller screens, the dial pad might display as a simple ‘Make a Call’ or ‘Dial a Number’ button instead.  Click the button to bring up the dial pad.

Once you can see the dial pad, make a call as you would on a normal phone – type in the phone number, then click ‘Make a Call’.

Speed Dial

Your Teams Phone speed dial is normally the first menu item in your Teams Phone menu.

To add new contacts to your speed dial, click the ‘Add Speed Dial’ button and follow the prompts. You can also add a contact to speed dial by clicking the three horizontal dots next to their name, then clicking ‘Add to Speed Dial’.

In certain situations (group projects, for example), you might want to have a group of contacts on speed dial.  Click the ‘New Group’ button beside the ‘Add Speed Dial’ button to add contacts to your speed dial group.

Adding contacts to speed dial is a great way to find people you regularly call faster, streamlining your overall Teams Phone experience.

Contacts

Your contacts can be displayed by clicking the second item (‘Contacts’) in your Teams Phone menu.

Like a regular mobile phone, you’ll be able to see a full list of your Teams Phone contacts ordered alphabetically. Beside each contact’s name, you’ll see five options:

• A chat bubble icon (click this to initiate a Teams chat)
• A letter icon (click this to send an email to the email associated with the contact’s Teams account)
• A video recorder icon (click this to start a video call)
• A phone icon (click this to start a voice call)
• Three dots, which, when clicked, display options for adding the contact to speed dial or removing them

You can easily add new contacts by clicking the ‘Add Contact’ button, then finding your contact by entering their name or phone number.

History

You can view your Teams Phone history by clicking the ‘History’ option in the left-hand Teams Phone menu.

You should see a display of historical calls, with the caller’s name or number, the type of call (missed call, outgoing, or incoming), the call duration, the date the call was made, and a three-dot dropdown with options to:

• Call back
• Start a Teams chat
• Add or remove the caller from speed dial
• Add or remove the caller from your contacts

Voicemail

To access your Teams Phone voicemail, click the ‘Voicemail’ option from the left-hand menu. You should see a list of received voicemails with the caller’s name or number, the duration of the voicemail, and the date and time it was left.

To listen to the voicemail, click the ‘Play’ button.  You can toggle the playback speed using the button to the right of the audio recording (the default is 1x).

If the message was enunciated clearly, Teams Phone will provide a transcription.  This typically features the transcribed message, followed by details about the message.

To configure your voicemail, click the three-button dropdown at the top of your Teams window (beside your profile image). Click ‘Settings’, then click ‘Calls’ in the pop-up window.

Here, you can set your ring time, choose whether to forward your calls straight to voicemail, and set a ringtone.  Configure your voicemail by clicking the ‘Configure Voicemail’ button – you should see a new voicemail window.

To record a customised voicemail greeting, click the ‘Record a Greeting’ button and follow the prompts. You can also set call answer rules and choose a greeting language.  This language is only used if you don’t set a customised greeting.

Teams Phone also has a useful text-to-speech customised greeting option. You can set a default customised greeting, as well as an out-of-office greeting, which you can set up to play based on your Outlook out-of-office auto-replies or out-of-office calendar events.  Keep in mind that your recorded custom greeting will always override your text-to-speech custom greetings.

Advanced Users

Now you know how to do the basics with Teams Phone, let’s take a look at how to perform more advanced functions like call forwarding and setting up delegates.

Call Forwarding

Call forwarding is a great way to manage calls when you’re unavailable.

To set up call forwarding, go to your Teams Phones settings (accessible via the three-dot dropdown next to your profile picture).

Under the ‘Calls’ tab in the settings pop-up window, you should see two options under the ‘Call Answering Rules’ section: ‘Calls Ring Me’ and ‘Forward My Calls’. If you select the ‘Forward My Calls’ radio button, you can choose how you want your calls to be forwarded in the dropdown.  There should be three options:

• Voicemail (forwards all calls to your voicemail). This is useful if you’re out of the office and have your out-of-office voicemail greeting set up.
• New number or contact (forwards all calls to a number or contact or your choice). You can use this to do things like forward calls to a colleague when you’re on holidays.
• Call group (forwards all calls to a designated call group). This option is ideal when you have customer service or sales teams answering calls to a main service line. Find out how to set up call groups in the next section.

Choose the option that you need, then exit the settings window.

Call Groups

A call group is a group of Teams Phone users to whom calls can be forwarded collectively. It’s a good solution for teams receiving lots of inbound calls that anyone from the team can answer, like SDR teams, customer service teams, and support centres.

Following the steps from the previous section (‘Call Forwarding’), and select ‘Call Group’ from your forwarding options.

Next, search for the people you want to add to the call group. You can add up to 25 people.

Once you’ve added the people you want in your call group, set a ring order. This is a really useful feature for teams where certain call group members may be less available than others.  Select ‘In the Order Above’ to have calls forwarded to members in the order that they appear (the next member in line will receive the call if the person above them doesn’t pick up after 20 seconds).

You can also select ‘All At the Same Time’ if answering order doesn’t matter (for example, on customer service lines).    

To create a call group without setting up call forwarding, click ‘Chat’ in the main Teams menu on the left-hand side. Click the drop-down arrow beside the ‘Chat’ heading and select ‘Contacts’.  At the bottom of the ‘Contacts’ screen, click ‘Create a New Call Group’, name your group, then click ‘Create’.

Your new group will appear as a dropdown in the ‘Contacts’ screen. You can then add contacts to this call group by clicking the three dots next to it and selecting ‘Add a Contact to This Group’.  

Simultaneous Ring

Setting up a simultaneous ring means that incoming calls will ring your number and another number at the same time.

Following the steps from the ‘Call Forwarding’ section, select the ‘Calls Ring Me’ radio button. Under the ‘Also Ring’ dropdown, you can choose ‘No-one Else’ (the default option), ‘New Number or Contact’ (like a delegate), or ‘Call Group’.

To create a call group, follow the steps from the previous section (‘Call Groups’).

Call Transferring

If you receive a call that is best handled by another person in your organisation, Teams Phone lets you easily transfer the call to that contact.

During a call, click the three-dot button at the bottom of the screen, click ‘Transfer’, and choose the number or contact you want to transfer the call to.

You can also select ‘Consult Then Transfer’. This can be a good way to check whether the person you’re transferring the call to is free and able to assist you.  Type in the name of the contact you want to consult, then consult them by calling or chatting with them. When you’re ready to transfer the call to them, click ‘Transfer’.

Call Merging

If you’re on a call and you think the call could benefit from another team member’s input, you can bring them into the call.

While you’re on a current call, make a new call as you normally would. At the bottom of the new call screen, select the three-dot button and then click ‘Call Merge’.

You can also merge incoming calls with existing calls. When you accept an incoming call while you’re already on a call, your original call will be put on hold; you can then click the ‘Call Merge’ button on the incoming call screen. 

Call Delegation

As a manager or executive, handling your own calls isn’t always practical. Your assistant or admin staff can use Teams Phones to make and take calls on your behalf, freeing you up to do other tasks. Making someone your delegate in Teams means that they can see and share all your calls.

To add a delegate, click the three-button dropdown at the top of your Teams window (beside your profile image). Click ‘Settings’, then click ‘General’ in the pop-up window.

Under the ‘Delegation’ section, click ‘Manage Delegates’, then click ‘Your Delegates’, and find your contact’s name. You can adjust your delegate’s permission settings (like letting them change your call and delegate settings for you).

Once you’ve saved that person as your delegate, they’ll show up in your ‘Delegates’ list. You can also forward your calls to them and set up simultaneous ringing with them.