Calling in Teams, a First Look

Yesterday we got our first look at the coming Teams calling features.  For those of you who were unable to watch the session live, or on demand I will show you some of the important screen shots and try to describe them.  Here are some of the new features to look for.

1.  Contacts

Contacts you have already created in Skype for Business should flow into Microsoft Teams

You can create speed dial lists, and see your existing groups.  You can also search for contacts.  An A-Z list is also there if you feel the need to scroll through the entire list.

2.  Call History

Call history is also present, with detail and easy call back capability.

You can see other information like direction, duration, and the start date and time of the call.


3.  Voicemail

Voicemail is still stored in Exchange, and is available for view on the voicemail tab.

It looks like you can play files directly in Teams, and potentially even get a transcript.


4.  Calling

The calling experience with PSTN or Skype users, looks similar to the P2P calling experience in Teams.  It does appear that each call is in a single state of a meeting, unlike S4b where P2P calls were different that 3 party calls.

The reason I am speculating that meeting is the default modality, is when a 2nd call occurred and the presenter clicked to answer it, he was presented with the dialog on the last screen shot.  This may not be a finished product state, but it appear to have a few limitation for certain roles, like a receptionist in it's current state.

5.  Call Transfer

Call transfer seems to also follow the P2P model, with the ability to blind transfer a call.  This may change in the future to allow consult like S4b, but at this point it seems blind only.

Overall these features are step toward bringing feature parity between the Teams and S4B client.  The sooner parity exists, the fast organizations will be able to pilot side by side and determine how it works in their audio topology.

Some things that I believe must be a part of Teams calling.

1.  Developer APIs - the sooner the better
2.  Multiple call capability, for transfer, join, and more.
3.  Access to backend history, in graph
4.  Ability to use and develop enterprise call queues.

As Teams continues to evolve, I will continue to post about the exiting new features, and my thoughts from a developer perspective.

Doug Routledge, Teams, Skype for Business, SQL, Exchange, UC, Full Stack Developer  BridgeOC Bridge Operator Console Twitter - @droutledge @ndbridge