Microsoft rolls out advanced calling features to Teams

During its Ignite 2017 conference in September, Microsoft announced plans to have Microsoft Teams replace Skype for Business as a singular communications client for Office 365 users. As part of the transition, Microsoft has a roadmap for bringing unique Skype for Business features to Teams, and the first bits are starting to arrive.

In a new Tech Community post, Microsoft announced some new advanced calling features are currently being rolled out to Teams, bringing along "full featured" dialing capabilities. From Microsoft:

Today we are releasing new calling capabilities in Teams, providing full featured dialing capabilities, complete with call history, hold/resume, speed dial, transfer, forwarding, caller ID masking, extension dialing, multi-call handling, simultaneous ringing, voicemail, and text telephone (TTY) support. You can expect this to roll out over the next few hours and should come soon to your tenant.

According to Microsoft, to take advantage of these features, organizations will need Phone System (formerly Cloud PBX), which is available to Office 365 users either as an add-on or with Office 365 E5. Additionally, teams will have have to subscribe to a Calling Plan (formerly PSTN Calling).

Looking down the road, Microsoft previously described in its roadmap that it intends to enable screen sharing during chats and federation between companies by the end of Q2 2018. Specific enhancements for meetings, including meeting room support with Skype Room Systems, is also due in Q2 2018. Finally, Microsoft pegged intelligent communications features, like the ability to record a meeting to store in Teams, add transcriptions, and search for key terms for Q2 2018.

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