Teams: #FightCorona – How can I call other people?

This introductory blog series is intended for remote workers who have started using Teams due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Teams will be an essential tool in the battle to stay productive, to stay connected, and to fight corona as one global community. It is not intended for IT Pros which should refer to the Teams Real Simple with Pictures series, also on this site

Day 1: Desktop Client Orientation 101
Day 2: How do I join or create a team? Create a channel? Start a chat?
Day 3: How do I chat with others outside of my organisation?
Day 4: Rich chat features for effective conversations
Day 5: Mentions, Tags and Read Reciepts
Day 6: How can I set my availability? When is it right to chat and call?
Day 7: How can I schedule a meeting?
Day 8: How do I join a meeting?
Day 9: How do I turn the meeting lobby on or off?
Day 10: How do I add an agenda prior to the meeting?
Day 11: Rescheduling and cancelling meetings
Day 12: In The Meeting: How do I blur my background?
Day 13: In The Meeting: How do I mute or remove others?
Day 14: In The Meeting: Playing video with audio
Day 15: In The Meeting: Pinning Participants
Day 16: In The Meeting: Recording a Teams Meeting
Day 17: In The Meeting: Taking Control of a PowerPoint Presentation
Day 18: In The Meeting: Hard to hear? Use Live Captions
Day 19: Presenter and Attendee Meeting Roles
Day 20: How can I call other people?
Day 21: How can I forward calls?
Day 22: How can I configure Voicemail?
Day 23: Simultanuous Ring and Secondary Ringer
Day 24: Call Contacts, Speed Dial and Speed Dial Groups
Day 25: How do I hold, transfer, park or retrieve a call?
Day 26: Files – Create, Upload, Sync and Share
Day 27: Files – Tab, Pin, Search and Move
Day 28: Apps Part 1: What are Apps? How can I add them?
Day 29: Apps Part 2: Bots, Connectors and Custom Apps
Day 30: Everything else I think you should know.  Change is the most constant of all

Written: 05/04/2020 | Updated: N/A

Applies to:

• Desktop client
• Web client (https://teams.microsoft.com)

Like chat and meetings, calling is one of the core functionalities of Teams. It is important  to understand that Teams supports two types of calling. The first, out of the box, is the ability for you to make and receive voice over IP (VoIP) calls from Teams client to Teams client over the internet. If you – and the person you are calling – use Teams and are connected to the internet over a wi-fi or wired connection – it will work. The second – and which needs add-on licencing – is the ability to make, receive, and transfer calls to and from landlines and mobile phones which use the public switched telephone network (PSTN). Think of this as you – from your Teams client – calling someone who is walking down the street using a mobile phone, or calling someone’s physical phone in their home. Let’s jump straight in and explore how we can call people

CALLING FROM A CHAT

To start a call directly from a chat, select chat from the app bar on the left

Start a new chat – or select your chat with the person you intend to call

Select the video call or audio call on the top right. As per the description, a video call includes video, whereas audio does not – the difference in the experiences are shown below. These are both voip calls made over the internet

Video and audio calls can be started from private chats and group chats for up to 20 people. If your IT administrator has enabled you to communicate with people from outside your organisation you can place a video or audio call to them too via chat

CALLING FROM THE SEARCH BAR

A quick way to place a voip audio call is using the search bar at the top of the Teams client

Enter the slash command /call

Choose the person to call. This could be someone inside or outside your organisation. If you are calling someone outside your organisation you must have already established them as an external contact via a chat

Selecting the person begins the audio call

CALL FROM A PROFILE CARD

Another quick way to place voip video or audio calls is to use profile cards. These can be seen by clicking on the avatar of someone in a private chat, group chat or a channel conversation within a team

Select the video call icon or the audio call icon to initiate a voip call

CALLING A PHONE NUMBER 

To place a PSTN call to a mobile number or a landline, select calls from the app bar on the left

Use the dial pad to enter the number, then select call

This starts the call

CALLING A CONTACT

Having to remember and manually dial numbers for mobiles and landlines isn’t always the best use of time. To do this quickly we can create calling contacts. To start, select calls from the app bar on the left

Select Contacts

Select Add Contact

Add the name of the calling contact and select Add

Add the calling contact details and select Add

The calling contact has been added. Simply click their number to initiate a PSTN call to their mobile or landline. Note that from the contacts you can initiate voip video and audio calls (via the calling icons) as well as initiate PSTN calls (via the phone number)

CALLING FROM CALL HISTORY

PSTN calls to landlines and mobiles can also be made from your call history. Select calls from the app bar on the left

Select History

Select more options (…) next to the call in the call history. You can leverage the call back option to initate the call

CALLING FROM OUTLOOK

All of the calling methods so far have used the Teams client. Making PSTN calls in Teams can also be done via Outlook. There are several ways to do this – this example will cover doing so via Outlook contacts.

In Outlook, select contacts

Select the contact, then the contacts telephone number to initialise a PSTN call

CALLING OUT FROM WITHIN A CALL OR MEETING

Finally, we will look at how to call out to a mobile phone or landline within a call or meeting. Within the call or meeting select show participants

Type the number in the invite/dial box. Click the pop up underneath to initalise the PSTN call

The number is being called and the participant will join the call if answered

Our job here is done for today! I hope that you now understand

• How to call from a chat
• How to call from the search bar
• How to call from a profile card
• How to call a phone number
• How to call from a calling contact
• How to call from Outlook
• How to call out within a call or meeting

To reiterate, calling is one of the core functionalities of Teams. I imagine that you will be calling soon after you have starting chatting. The feature is so important given the circumstances today and for staying in contact with others. I have no doubt that if you haven’t already, you will soon be using all the methods above on a regular basis as Teams becomes your hub for communication and collaboration

I hope you enjoyed this blog

Tomorrow’s blog is going to be: How can I forward calls?

#FightCorona