There’s SO MUCH going on in Microsoft Teams as a product, how do you even start to talk about it?! In this blog series I’m going to attempt to work my way through the letters of the alphabet, talking about as many features as I can think of in turn.

If you’re new to Teams, hopefully this helps you find your way around. If you’re not new to Teams, maybe you’ll still get some new ideas. Here we go…

C is for… (part 4)

his is the last time we’re stuck on letter C, I promise! Today’s focus will be on Calls in Teams.

How to tell if you can use Teams for phone calls

If your organisation is set up to use Teams for phone calls, you’ll see a dial pad under the Calls option in your left hand bar. If you don’t see a dial pad under the Calls option, that means you can’t place calls to ‘proper’ phone numbers.

If you’re not sure what will happen when you try to call someone from Teams, you can always try it anyway. The worst you’ll get is an error message telling you that you don’t have the right licence for calling people outside of your organisation:

How to join a Teams call

There are about a trillion different ways to start a Teams call. Ok, maybe not a trillion, but there are so many that Microsoft has a whole support page about just how to make a call – you can find it here: Make calls – Microsoft Support

There are also some nifty things you can do while you’re in a call, like transfer it to another device or another person – check those out here: Tips for Teams calls – Microsoft Support and here: First things to know about calls in Microsoft Teams – Microsoft Support

If you have the Teams app on your mobile, you can make and receive calls from that too.

What happens if I miss a Teams call?

If you miss a call, Teams will give you a notification, and you’ll be able to see the details of who called you and when you missed it on your calls list:

 

You also have some easy to access setting options in the bottom left of your Calls screen that let you choose what happens to missed calls (ie forward to voicmail) and which device Teams will pick for audio and video when you make/receive a call:

What about recordings and transcripts?

You may have had a call with someone where you have been able to record and/or start a transcription, which can be useful for all sorts of reasons.

Maybe you’re interviewing someone for a marketing piece and want to concentrate on what your interviewee says rather than taking lots of notes – a recording/transcription could be really handy there. Find out how to record/transcribe here: Record a meeting in Teams – Microsoft Support

Once the call is finished, you can click on it in the call history to find the recording and transcript:

I’ve barely scratched the surface with all the features in Teams calls, so hit me up in the comments below to tell me what your favourite Teams calling features are.

Next week we finally make it to letter D!

If you missed the earlier letters of the alphabet, you can find them here:

https://lyndsay.blog/2023/03/01/lyndsays-a-z-of-microsoft-teams-a-is-for/

https://lyndsay.blog/2023/03/07/lyndsays-a-z-of-microsoft-teams/

https://lyndsay.blog/2023/03/16/lyndsays-a-z-of-microsoft-teams-b-is-for/

https://lyndsay.blog/2023/03/22/lyndsays-a-z-of-microsoft-teams-c-is-for-part-1/

Lyndsay’s A-Z of Microsoft Teams – C is for… (Part 2) – Lyndsay Ansell’s Blog

Lyndsay’s A-Z of Microsoft Teams – C is for… (Part 3) – Lyndsay Ansell’s Blog

Happy Teamsing!