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This article is for IT administrators and IT professionals who are researching and planning the calling workloads in Microsoft Teams.
Native Teams callingMicrosoft Teams is a Microsoft 365 application for communication and collaboration. It includes support for native 1:1 calling and group calling, from one Teams client to any other internal or external Teams clients.
Native calls between Teams clients are processed by Microsoft 365 Teams cloud services and include unlimited calling.
The Calls app in Teams allows users to originate calls to other Teams users, view call history, and access voicemail that is automatically set up for all Teams users.
Users can use a wide range of features to call each other. For example, they can select a name in their address book and place Teams calls to that person. They can transfer calls to other users, and set up distinctive rings. They make and receive calls using Teams on their mobile devices, on a laptop or PC with a headset, or one of many certified, third-party phone devices.
With the addition of a Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) connection to your tenant and Teams Phone licensing for your users, Teams calling also supports making and receiving external telephone calls and a rich set of enterprise-grade, telephone system features.
For more insight on Teams calling features, see What is Teams Phone and Teams calling features.
Note
Calling is controlled at the tenant level, per calling policy with the setting Make private calls. If the Make private calls setting is turned off in the calling policy, users with that policy can't see the Calls app in their Teams client, can't escalate Chat conversations to audio calls, and can't receive incoming calls.
With Make private calls setting turned on, users can call from the Calls app and can escalate Chat conversations to audio calls. By default, Microsoft Teams native calling is turned on via policy for all users.
Note
All users licensed for Teams can make calls to other Teams users. To support users making Teams calls with other Teams users who are external to your organization, see Collaborate with people outside your organization.
Administering Teams callingWhen planning to support Teams calling in your enterprise, consider the following topics to help you with your administrative duties:
Administration methodsDelivery of the Teams calling workload is accomplished through the Microsoft 365 cloud service, and administrators manage the delivery of Teams workloads and features through remote management of that cloud service.
AccessYou can access your tenant and administer Teams Phone using two methods:
Teams admin center
For Commercial and Government Community Cloud (GCC) tenants, access Teams admin center via https://admin.teams.microsoft.com For Government Community Cloud High (GCCH) tenants, access Teams admin center via https://admin.gov.teams.microsoft.usPowerShell
To learn more about connecting to Teams and administering users, policies, and more with Teams PowerShell, see Teams PowerShell overview.Microsoft Graph Explorer
To learn more about working with data in Microsoft Graph using Graph Explorer, see Use Graph Explorer. Teams admin center overviewTo learn more about general guidance for administering the Teams admin center, see the following article.
Teams admin center overview
Access permissionsTo administer Teams features, you must use a privileged role assigned to the account that's used to access your Teams tenant. To learn more about permissions that allow you to administer your tenant (with Teams admin center and with PowerShell) and about Microsoft's RBAC (Role Based Access Control) for Teams, see the following article.
Teams administrator roles
PoliciesMicrosoft Teams Phone supports a wide array of features that you control by policy. For example, traditional calling features, like call hold music, call park, call recording, and more, are all administered through policy. Policies can be applied at a global, group, and user level.
Teams policy managementTo learn about general Teams policy administration concepts, see the following article.
Manage Teams with policies
Voice specific policiesFor more information about voice settings that you can manage with Teams policy, see the following article.
Manage voice policies
NetworkFor network best practices and to ensure it supports the optimal quality of Teams calls, see the following article.
Prepare your organization's network for Microsoft Teams
Reporting users' call activityNative Teams call history for end-users, like other end-user activity, isn't itemized in usage reports for privacy reasons. However, with Microsoft Purview, Teams call metadata can be logged in eDiscovery investigations. To learn more about content reported in compliance investigations, see Conduct an eDiscovery investigation of content in Microsoft Teams.
For more generic insights, you can report on the overall volume of call activity in the following article.
Teams usage reporting
Reporting call quality performanceMicrosoft Teams includes a set of tools that can be used to analyze call quality in real-time for single calls in progress or analyze performance trends of all calls across your organization. For more information on these tools to monitor call performance and quality, see the following article.
Monitor call quality
Teams admin trainingA wide range of resources are ailable for Teams administrators to learn more about Teams foundational and advanced topics. To view training resources for Teams admins, see the following article.
Teams admin training
Teams Phone and enterprise telecommunicationsIn addition to a rich set of native calling capabilities, Teams can also serve as your organization's telecommunications platform, allowing your end users to make and receive domestic and international telephone calls.
To learn more about using Teams as a phone system, see the following article.
What is Teams Phone
Related articles Teams Calling features Set up Teams Phone Plan your Teams voice solution PSTN connectivity options Microsoft Teams add-on licensing