This post has been republished via RSS; it originally appeared at: New blog articles in Microsoft Tech Community.
Teams phones were first announced just over two years ago, and we are pleased to see the acceleration within this category. With several phones now available from our hardware partners, customers have a wide selection to choose from. We continue to work with our phone hardware partners to help customers transition to native Teams phones by having dedicated partner-led programs. Customers can contact their partner account team to learn more about the various trade-in and buy-back offers available.
Following the recent announcement highlighting the end of support for Skype for Business phones, customers are able to begin their device refresh to Teams phones. With a complete range of devices built for common areas and personal office spaces, customers will be able to fit any space with the right phone.
The momentum in Teams phones availability solidifies our hardware partners’ commitment to Teams and Microsoft calling services. To learn more about the phones and other devices certified for Teams, visit office.com/teamsdevices.
In addition, we continue to work with our partners to deliver a robust set of capabilities to enhance the experience on Microsoft Teams phones.
Capabilities available this year:
- User-based account experiences provide customized user interfaces on the phones depending on the type of account setup.
- Hot desking allows for any user in your organization to temporarily sign into any phone enabled with this feature for convenient use of phones for their calls and meetings in hoteling scenarios.
- 911 Enhancements allow for users to dial 911 without requiring the user to unlock the phone.
- Dynamic 911 (Dynamic Emergency Calling) allows the phone to report the user’s location to dispatch services.
Capabilities coming in early 2020:
- Speed dial and Boss-Admin support will allow users to designate favorite contacts on the phone to quickly dial them. Boss-Admin support will allow for delegates to answer and/or handle calls on behalf of their boss.
Let’s take a closer looking into each capability
User-based account experiences: The user interface on the phone is customized based on the type of user account used to sign into the phone. User accounts provide all calling, meeting and voicemail experiences to individual users. For meeting room accounts, these can be set based on IP phone policies assigned to the user account.
PowerShell command details for user-based account settings:
To View all policy settings, run the following command:
Get-CsTeamsIPPhonePolicy
To update IP Phone policy settings and assign “Sign-in Mode” for user accounts:
Set-CsTeamsIPPhonePolicy -Identity “Global” -SignInMode “UserSignIn or MeetingSignIn or CommonAreaPhoneSignIn”
We can assign SignInMode as (Usersignin, meetingsignin,commonareaphonesignin) based on requirements. An example below.
To grant the policy to a user:
Grant-CsTeamsIPPhonePolicy -Identity “UserName” -PolicyName “CommonAreaPhonePolicy”
Hot Desking: Users will be able to sign into a phone which has been set up as a shared device. Once users sign in, they can begin hot desking and have full access to their calendar, meetings and call log. When finished, users can sign out to end their hot desking session. This will automatically remove any call logs and history from the device.
911 Enhancements: When the Microsoft Teams phone is signed in with a valid Teams license (user, Meeting room, or common area phone (CAP)), 911 will be supported. On the lock screen, we will be modifying our current 911 experience to ensure a user can dial 911 on the dial pad without requiring a user to choose the “Emergency Call” Option on the user interface.
Dynamic 911 (Dynamic Emergency Calling) enables the sharing of user’s current location to the emergency dispatch services. See this for more information.
Speed Dial and Boss-Admin support: We are working on bringing speed dial and boss/admin delegation to the phone next year. This will allow users to pin favorites, view call history, and manage delegation from Teams phones.
More information on partner-led programs for Teams phones:
AudioCodes: IP Phone Investment Protection Plan. For more information visit, https://online.audiocodes.com/iprotecplan
Crestron: For more information on support and other sales requirements, contact Crestron at inquiries@crestron.com
Poly recently announced the CCX lineup of devices and are offering customers a trade-up opportunity. For more information visit, https://www.polycom.com/forms/teams-phone-tradeup-promotion.html
Yealink is offering trial devices for customers to use. This program covers both personal devices (phones and peripherals) and shared devices (meeting room devices). For more information email ucinfo@yealink.com.
Give us feedback and let us know what you think,
We continue to add features, should you have any feedback or request. We ask that you log these at User Voice to help us prioritize the requests. Your feedback is valuable to us and we always listening.