Microsoft continues to add new voice features to Microsoft Teams to make a case for migrating off your legacy PBX. Recently, Microsoft added an announcement feature to Microsoft Teams auto attendants. The announcement option avoids creating multiple auto attendants to accomplish the same functionality.
In this post, I’ll go over the old way to play an announcement using multiple Teams auto attendants and configure the new announcements feature.
Need to learn how to configure Teams auto attendant directory search? Check out my other article Configuring Auto Attendant Directory Search in Microsoft Teams.
Making Announcements with Multiple Teams Auto Attendants
Announcements are sometimes needed in a menu system to give the caller information. This information could be hours of operations, directions, or an announcement you are closed due to inclement weather. Teams auto attendants play recordings or use text-to-speech for the menu system’s initial greeting.
Prior to the release of the announcement feature, you set up multiple Teams auto attendants to play announcements. Review the flowchart below to see how this works.
A caller enters the primary auto attendant, and Teams presents some dial key options. For example, option 3 transfers to another Teams auto attendant dedicated to playing hours and address information.
The Hours and Address Auto Attendant auto attendant plays a greeting message (audio file or text-to-speech) and transfers the call back to the Office Main Auto Attendant.
This method also requires an additional resource account just for the Hours and Direction Auto Attendant. If you have a large number of announcements, you end up with quite a few resource accounts and auto attendants to keep track of.
Making Announcements with Announcement Feature
Microsoft now allows playing an announcement as part of a dial key destination. You upload an audio file or use text-to-speech to play the announcement.
Here is an example of using the text-to-speech option as the dial key destination. Once the auto attendant plays the announcement, it restarts the menu options audio.
With this new capability, you reduce the number of auto attendants and resource accounts needed to make announcements.
Closing
Microsoft continues to improve Microsoft Teams and its voice capabilities. With the impending retirement of Skype for Business Online later this year, Microsoft needs to continue positioning Microsoft Teams as the all-in-one collaboration platform.
If you enjoyed this article, check out my other Microsoft Teams posts.
Questions or comments? If so, leave a comment below or find me on Twitter or LinkedIn to discuss further.
