Microsoft Calling &

Meetings Bootcamp
May 2020
Call Queues and Auto Attendants
Bryan Nyce
Principal Program Manager
Agenda What are Call Queues and Auto Attendants
Recent Features
Planning your AA/CQ
Implementing your AA/CQ
Demo
 Cloud Auto Attendants

Provide a menu system for callers to locate/place/

transfer calls to company users/departments

Provide interaction through phone keypad (DTMF)

or speech recognition

Key learnings
Cloud Call Queues

Allow for definition of a pre-defined set of agents

for answering calls

Callers are placed into the queue and await the

next available agent
Blending Teams and Customer Care – phone system

Native Azure-based voice applications and calling

experiences for Microsoft Teams, deeply integrated with Microsoft Phone
Teams infrastructure and administrative tools, targeted for Teams system
informal and semi-formal agents

Core Functionality
• Configurable, multi-level IVR
• Auto-attendant w/ business hours, directory search, dial scopes
• Call queues w/ configurable hold music, ring patterns
• Flexible PSTN number assignment – DID, toll-free, multiple
numbers, multiple regions, hybrid via DR
What are Call Queues
and Auto Attendants?
Call Queues and Auto Attendants
Auto Attendants
• Provide corporate or informational greetings

• Provide custom corporate menus. You can customize these menus to have more than
one level
• Provides directory search that enables people who call in to search the organization's
directory for a name
• Enables someone who calls in to reach or leave a message for a person in your
organization
• Supports multiple languages for prompts, text-to-speech, and speech recognition

• Supports specifying holidays and business hours

• Supports transferring call to an operator, other users, call queues, and auto attendants

Call Queues
• Provide an organizational greeting

• Provide music while people are waiting on hold

• Supports redirecting of calls to call agents

• Provides settings for call queue maximum size, timeout, and call handling options
Requirements

Supported clients
Microsoft Teams Windows client (32 and 64-bit versions)

Microsoft Teams Mac client

Microsoft Teams iPhone app

Microsoft Teams Android app

Skype for Business (not when using DR)

User must be in Teams Only mode when

number is through Direct Routing
Recent features
AA – Extension dialing

Callers can reach users Tenant admin needs to AA does the Works for Onprem Callers can use
in your corporate by define the extension extension to SIP-URI defined extensions speech to reach
dialing their extension number for users and mapping an extension
number from auto advertise it in the AA
attendant greeting
CQ Adding/ordering
individual agents

In addition to the current model for

defining the call agents (DL and groups),
tenant-admin can add and order
individual agents
• Can add up-to 20 individual agents in
addition to DLs
• Instant add, no associated delay

New-CsCallQueue -UseDefaultMusicOnHold $true -Name

“Receptionists" -Users
@(“JohnM@Contoso.com",“Vanessa.Williams@Contoso.com")
CQ Call routing
presence awareness

When routing a call using

attendant/serial/round-robin, the service
will consider the agent’s presence
Tenant-admin knob to enable/disable
presence while routing
Opt-out will not receive calls regardless
of presence
AA/CQ Shared mailbox

Callers will be able to record a message in

AA/CQ, which is accessible to group of users
Menu option, after hours/holiday, CQ
overflow/timeout
No additional license required
Using O365-Group construct to define mailbox access

Known issues / limitations

No Teams experience in first release, outlook mailbox only
Shared mailbox will not be defined as destination incase
of operator no answer
Not backward compatible with Exchange UMO
CQ Improvements

What: Eliminate the delay from agent-pickup

to Media flow, and unlock new capabilities
How: using the conferencing infra with 1:1 call
semantics. TA can switch between “Transfer-
mode CQ” and “Conf-mode CQ”
Known issues / limitations
Teams only, Tenant-admin should enable Conf-mode for
Teams only agents
If caller is SFB, CQ will switch automatically to Transfer-
mode
Planning your CQ/AA
Call Queues | Planning and design
Assess the business needs

How many call agents will you assign to the queue?

How is the existing system setup, and will any changes be required?
Will the call center be active 24 hours a day, or have business hours?
Do they want distinct initial greetings for the following:
• Business Hours
• After-hours
• Weekends
• Holidays
How are the agents compensated?
What is the usual size of the call queue in the existing call center?
Do they have preferences for on-hold music?

https://aka.ms/CQSetupTutorial
https://aka.ms/AASetupTutorial
Call Queues | Planning and design

General guidelines
Phone number assignment: directly to the queue, or
have callers connect to an Auto Attendant (AA) first
Initial greeting needed as part of the call queue (could
be provided by AA)
What hold music to use
How to distribute calls among the available agents
The keys * (Repeat) and # (Back) are reserved and can’t
be reassigned; if speech recognition is enabled, can
use “Repeat” and “Back”

https://aka.ms/CQSetupTutorial
 https://aka.ms/CQSetupTutorial

Call Queues | Planning and design

Design mockup

Call Queue (no AA) Call Queue (with AA)

 https://aka.ms/CQSetupTutorial

https://aka.ms/CQSetupVisio
 https://aka.ms/CQSetupTutorial

Call Queues | Planning and design

Writing the script

Plan them Write them Consider Goal: connect caller Check out the Dos
carefully out professional to a live person as and Don’ts in the
recordings efficiently as possible tutorial above
 https://aka.ms/CQSetupTutorial

Decision:
Use Text-to-Speech for scripts, or record your own

Account used for creation of the CQ/AA must have Admin privileges
Call Queues |
Planning and design Tasks (in order):
1. Create the Resource Account(s) (Teams Admin Center)
Implementation 2. Create the Call Agent O365 Group (M365 Admin Center)
3. Create the Ordering Call Queue (Teams Admin Center)
4. Create the (optional) Contoso Pizza Attendant
(Teams Admin Center)
5. Configure the (optional) Contoso Pizza Overflow Attendant
(Teams Admin Center)
Implementing your CQ/AA
 https://aka.ms/CQSetupTutorial

Call Queues | Implementation

Implementation Steps (CQ with no AA)

 https://aka.ms/CQSetupTutorial

Call Queues | Implementation

Call Queue (with AA) AA: Business Hours Call Handling

AA: After Hours Call Handling

 https://aka.ms/AASetupTutorial

Auto Attendants

Deeper Example – leverage the AA Tutorial

https://aka.ms/AASetupVisio
Service numbers for CQ and AA

Higher concurrency
Service numbers allow 100s of calls simultaneously
Can be provided from Microsoft for Auto Attendants or
Call Queues

Bring you own number

You can either get a Service Number from Microsoft, port
your number to Microsoft or use Hybrid/Direct Routing

Toll and Toll-Free

Service numbers can either be toll or toll-free numbers
Toll-free numbers will leverage consumption-based billing
Acquire service number
 New application instances require the creation of a
Resource Account and associating it with your
application instance. Only resource accounts with a
phone number assigned need to be licensed.

You can use a Phone System-Virtual User License (no

cost) or a paid Phone System license. See
Licensing https://aka.ms/ResAccounts for details. Calling Plan is
not required when using the Virtual User License.
considerations
Virtual User licenses are allotted based on org size:
1 Phone System user License = 25 Virtual User
licenses allotted
Add 10 Phone System user Licenses = 1 additional
Virtual Use license allotted
Demo
Calling integrations
Connect Cloud Contact Center Carrier
Connect Teams phone system infrastructure with CCaaS partners for enhanced routing,
configuration, and insights with support for formal agents and streamlined calling to Teams
clients and voice apps

Partner value Microsoft Teams Phone system

Flexible, multi-level IVR w/call flow editor, customer data
lookups, intelligent agents
Direct routing
Queues: skill-based routing, ring types, schedule call-back
Formal agent experience with integrated O365 sign-in, CRM
Partner CCaaS Solution
Seamless discovery and transfer to Teams users, access to
3rd-party PSTN, UC providers
Interaction recording
Workforce engagement and analytics (QA, scheduling)
PSTN network
‘Connect’
Use cases: Microsoft Teams Phone system
CC agent transfer to SME
CCaaS IVR transfer to Teams IVR (CQ/AA/3P)
Teams SME/IVR transfer to CC agent Direct routing

Configure connectivity and numbers

Partner CCaaS Solution

Investments
Microsoft Partner
Platform/infrastructure User APIs O365 sign-in enabled
Presence APIs

User experience Transfer to CC agent Search for Teams users (O365)

View Teams user presence
Transfer to Teams user
Consult with Teams user

Connectivity Direct routing (trunking) Direct routing (trunking)

High-level call flow. Incoming call from PSTN

1. Incoming call
+1.4255.555.555 6. Invite joe@adatum.biz
Phone system (Cloud PBX)
Certified Session Border Controller(s)
PSTN network

2. Route to call center 5. Transfer to joe@adatum.biz

3. Route to an agent
Call center
4. Transfer to sip:john@adatum.biz
or tel:+14259745227*

Call center provider managed

Call comes via PSTN Trunk to call center provider SBC and routed to the call center agents.
Call center agents can transfer to SME in same organization. SME using Teams as primary calling client.
*DR distinguishes using user=phone. Need sip uri to route to non-DID
Connected Contact Center Solution Availability
Multiple partner solutions, targeting direct
sales and channel partners, with more on the
way!
Initial partners deploying ‘Connect’ solutions to
customers
Limited preview in Q4 CY19,
Broader customer availability early CY2020

Actively expanding engagement with partner

channel and solution sellers
…and more coming soon
Presence
New! – Graph APIs for Presence
available in /beta this month

Determine if SME is available to take

the call before transfer

Consolidates presence across all

users in the organization registered
for SfB or Teams

Routing of new calls determined by

TeamsUpgrade mode
Graph API for Teams Presence

Graph User ID +
Presence Info
Thank you.

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