Routing calls for unassigned numbers to Call Queues, Auto Attendants or Announcements is GA

I recently noticed that Routing calls to unassigned numbers is now generally available so here is my walkthrough and first look. If you using Teams Phone you may want to check this out and setup how you want your voice routing for unassigned numbers or number ranges to flow.

Why do i need this ?

We had this feature in Skype for Business Enterprise Voice where if we have a single number or bunch of numbers that aren’t allocated to a user, call queue, auto attendant or to anything then we may want to route a call if someone ever called that number to somewhere rather than the call dropping or disconnecting. Gives a better user caller experience as first impressions count. You don’t want to be ringing a number that never connects as i would give up and go elsewhere.

I’ve seen different use cases for this for example when someone leaves a company and you remove their phone number from their account if anyone tries to call that number then it would be better to route to reception, announcement or to someone else or just to give a better experience to route a call in a range to reception for example.

It better to route somewhere than just dropping or ringing out.

What can we do ?

You can route calls to unassigned numbers to a user, to a resource account associated with an Auto Attendant or a Call Queue, or to an announcement service that will play a custom audio file to the caller.

What do i need to know first ?

There are some notes on the docs articles i want to point out first before configuring at its important to know.

Teams PowerShell Module 2.5.1 or later is required
If routing to an announcement, the audio file will be played once to the caller.
To route calls to unassigned Microsoft Calling Plan subscriber numbers, your tenant needs to have available Communications Credits.
To route calls to unassigned Microsoft Calling Plan service numbers, your tenant needs to have at least one Phone System – Virtual User license.
Be careful with your PowerShell parameters these are different depending on what your routing to for example Target, TargetType must be set correctly for a resource account vs announcements and treatment priorities must be unique. Treatment priority rules are the lower the priority the higher preference.
I would recommend reviewing the PowerShell examples here first

How do we configure this ?

PowerShell and you need to use the New/Get/Set/Remove-CsTeamsUnassignedNumberTreatment cmdlet available in Teams PowerShell module 2.5.1 or later.

Lets have a look

So i will checked the version of my Teams PowerShell module using

Get-Module -Name MicrosoftTeams

Im using 2.6.0 which is above the minimum so im ok but If you need to update please use

Update-Module MicrosoftTeams

Example 1 – Following examples on Microsoft Docs route single unassigned number to a resource account

Route specific telephone number to a call queue/AA.

Please update what’s highlighted in bold. You also need a unique treatment priority as well.

I checked i had Comms Credit and i found an unassigned calling plan number to test with and i have virtual phone system licence on my resource accounts.

$RAObjectId = (Get-CsOnlineApplicationInstance -Identity aa-hotline@conoso.com).ObjectId

New-CsTeamsUnassignedNumberTreatment -Identity MainAA -Pattern “^+15102177790$” -TargetType ResourceAccount -Target $RAObjectId -TreatmentPriority 1

I also thought it was good to add a description as one can be added and ive been there when i cant remember why i added this you can update with

Set-CsTeamsUnassignedNumberTreatment -Identity MainAA -Description “Route Alex Number to AA”

Then to check the setting i used Get-CsTeamsUnassignedNumberTreatment

I tested by calling the number and this did work but it took some time to apply.

Example 2 – Route a range of unassigned numbers to an announcement file

Following docs this example routes a range of telephone numbers to an announcement so lets take a look. I have a CustomMOH1.mp3 file so im going to use this as my dummy announcement. You will want a proper announcement and music on hold. I also tested mp3 as the example has WAV and MP3 seemed to work. I suspect it follows the same file types and formats as recordings into a call queue, Auto attendant or custom music on hold.

Plan your PowerShell first and again the items in bold.

$Content = Get-Content “C:\temp\customMOH1.mp3” -Encoding byte -ReadCount 0

$AudioFile = Import-CsOnlineAudioFile -FileName “customMOH1.mp3” -Content $Content

$fid = [System.Guid]::Parse($AudioFile.Id)

New-CsTeamsUnassignedNumberTreatment -Identity US77xxRange -Pattern “^+1555333\d{4}$” -TargetType Announcement -Target $fid.Guid -TreatmentPriority 2