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This article describes how you, the administrator, can change call forwarding and delegation settings for your users. This capability is sometimes referred to in the industry as shared line appearance.
A shared line appearance in Teams, using call forwarding and delegation settings, lets a user choose a delegate to answer or handle calls on their behalf. This feature is helpful if a user has an administrative assistant who regularly handles the user's calls. In the context of shared line appearance, a manager is someone who authorizes a delegate to make or receive calls on their behalf. A delegate can make or receive calls on behalf of the delegator.
As a Teams administrator, you may receive a service request to modify these user settings, for example, if:
- A user is out on sick leave, and you need to ensure that incoming calls to the user are forwarded to a colleague.
- You need to inspect the call forward settings for all users in a department and potentially correct them as appropriate.
- A new assistant is employed, and you need to add the assistant as a delegate for a group of users.
You can use the Teams admin center or Teams PowerShell cmdlets to view and change call settings for users.
Important
This feature is only in Teams Only deployment mode. For more information on Teams deployment modes, see Understand Microsoft Teams and Skype for Business coexistence and interoperability
License required
To set call settings for a user, the user must have an assigned Microsoft Teams Phone license.
In the example where a manager is delegating calls to an administrative assistant, the manager and administrative assistant must each have a Teams Phone license. Managers must also have PSTN connectivity and a phone number assigned. The shared line experience is part of delegation and is included with Teams Phone. For more information on licensing, see Microsoft Teams service description.
Note
A delegate without a phone number assigned must be EnterpriseVoiceEnabled using the Teams PowerShell cmdlet Set-CsPhoneNumberAssignment -Identity \<user\> -EnterpriseVoiceEnabled $true, see Set-CsPhoneNumberAssignment. If a Dial Pad shows in the Calls App of the Delegate, they're correctly configured for Enterprise Voice.
Dialing Permissions and Routing
When a delegate makes an outbound Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) call on behalf of a delegator, the delegator's settings control the checks for appropriate licensing, dial-out restrictions, and call routing.
Shared line appearance feature availability
The following apps and devices currently support shared line appearance:
| Capability | Teams Desktop | Teams Mac App | Teams Web App (Edge) | Teams mobile iOS/Android App | Teams IP phone |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Set up delegation | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Receive calls on behalf of another | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Call a phone number on behalf of another | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Call a Teams user on behalf of another | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Join active calls | Yes | No | Yes | No | Yes |
| See the delegate view of shared lines | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| See the delegate view of manager's call activities | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | Yes |
| See the manager view of delegates | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| See shared call history | Yes | No | Yes | No | No |
| Delegate or manager can hold or resume | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | Yes |
Enable delegation and shared line appearance
You enable delegation by using the TeamsCallingPolicy AllowDelegation setting. You can use Teams admin center or Teams PowerShell. This setting is turned on by default.
When enabled, the end user can configure their delegation relationships directly in Teams.
Important
When you turn off delegation for a user, you also need to clean up delegation relationships for that user in the Teams admin center to avoid incorrect call routing.
Use the Teams admin center
You can use the Teams admin center to configure call forward and unanswered settings, group call pickup, and call delegation for your users.
In the navigation menu of the Microsoft Teams admin center, select Voice > Calling policies.
Choose the policy you would like to update or select Add to create a new policy.
Toggle Delegation for inbound and outbound calls on.
Select Save.
In the Teams admin center, go to Users > Manage users and select a licensed user.
On the user details page, go to the Voice tab. If the Voice tab isn't visible, the user doesn't have a Microsoft Teams Phone license assigned. For more information, see Microsoft Teams add-on licensing.
To configure immediate call forward settings, under Call answering rules, select:
Be immediately forwarded so that calls to the user don't ring their devices.
Ring the user's devices to use simultaneous ringing and ring the user's devices first. In the Also allow drop-down, select the appropriate simultaneous ringing setting.
Note
You must turn on the Voice > Calling policies settings for Call forwarding and simultaneous ringing to people in organization or Call forwarding and simultaneous ringing to external phone numbers for these call forward types and destinations to be available for simultaneous ringing. These settings are on by default.
To configure unanswered settings, select the appropriate setting in the If unanswered drop-down. In the Ring for this many seconds before redirecting drop-down, specify the number of seconds to wait.
Select Save.
The configuration of call delegation and group call pickup is integrated into the call forward and unanswered settings by selecting the appropriate type. For example, to configure calls to also ring the user's delegates, select Call delegation under Also allow. Then add the appropriate delegates by selecting Add people and selecting Save. For more information, see Call sharing and group call pickup.
This video shows the steps to view and edit the voice settings for a user.
Use PowerShell
You can use PowerShell to configure call forward and delegation settings for your users. You use the following cmdlets, which are available in Teams PowerShell module version 4.0 or later:
- Get-CsUserCallingSettings - shows call forwarding settings, delegates, and delegator information for a user.
- Set-CsUserCallingSettings - sets call forwarding settings for a user.
- New-CsUserCallingDelegate - adds a new delegate with permissions for a user.
- Set-CsUserCallingDelegate - changes permissions for an existing delegate.
- Remove-CsUserCallingDelegate - removes a delegate from a user.
Display call forward and delegation settings for a user
To display the current call forward and delegation settings for a user, use the Get-CsUserCallingSettings cmdlet, as shown in the following example:
Get-CsUserCallingSettings -Identity user1@contoso.com
SipUri : sip:opr1@contoso.com
IsForwardingEnabled : True
ForwardingType : Simultaneous
ForwardingTarget :
ForwardingTargetType : MyDelegates
IsUnansweredEnabled : True
UnansweredTarget :
UnansweredTargetType : Voicemail
UnansweredDelay : 00:00:20
Delegates : Id:sip:user2@contoso.com
Delegators :
CallGroupOrder : InOrder
CallGroupTargets : {}
GroupMembershipDetails :
GroupNotificationOverride : Ring
(Get-CsUserCallingSettings -Identity user1@contoso.com).Delegates
Id : sip:user2@contoso.com
MakeCalls : True
ManageSettings : True
ReceiveCalls : True
The output shows that user1 has simultaneous ringing to delegates configured. Unanswered calls are sent to voicemail after 20 seconds. User2 is defined as the delegate with all delegate permissions.
Set call forward settings for a user
To forward all calls for user1 to user2, use the Set-CsUserCallingSettings cmdlet, as shown in the following example:
Set-CsUserCallingSettings -Identity user1@contoso.com -IsForwardingEnabled $true -ForwardingType Immediate -ForwardingTargetType SingleTarget -ForwardingTarget user2@contoso.com
To simultaneously ring all delegates for user3, use the Set-CsUserCallingSettings cmdlet, as shown in the following example:
Set-CsUserCallingSettings -Identity user3@contoso.com -IsForwardingEnabled $true -ForwardingType Simultaneous -ForwardingTargetType MyDelegates
The following example uses the Set-CsUserCallingSettings cmdlet to configure a call group for user4 with user5 and user6 as members. All calls to members of the group are forwarded in the order they're defined:
$cgm = @("user5@contoso.com","user6@contoso.com")
Set-CsUserCallingSettings -Identity user4@contoso.com -CallGroupOrder InOrder -CallGroupTargets $cgm
Set-CsUserCallingSettings -Identity user4@contoso.com -IsForwardingEnabled $true -ForwardingType Immediate -ForwardingTargetType Group
For more examples, see Set-CsUserCallingSettings.
Add a calling delegate for a user
To add user2 as a delegate for user1 with all permissions allowed, use the New-CsUserCallingDelegate cmdlet, as shown in the following example:
New-CsUserCallingDelegate -Identity user1@contoso.com -Delegate user2@contoso.com -MakeCalls $true -ReceiveCalls $true -ManageSettings $true
Change calling delegate permissions
To change delegate permissions--for example to not allow user2 to make calls for user1--use the Set-CsUserCallingDelegate cmdlet as shown in the following example:
Set-CsUserCallingDelegate -Identity user1@contoso.com -Delegate user2@contoso.com -MakeCalls $false
Remove a calling delegate for a user
To remove user2 as a delegate for user1, use the Remove-CsUserCallingDelegate cmdlet, as shown in the following example:
Remove-CsUserCallingDelegate -Identity user1@contoso.com -Delegate user2@contoso.com
Diagnosing issues with Call Forwarding
If you’re an administrator, you can use the following diagnostic tool to validate that a user is properly configured to forward calls received in Teams to a specific number.
Select Run Tests: Teams Call Forwarding to populate the diagnostic in the Microsoft 365 admin center.
In the Run diagnostic pane, enter the email of the user who's having issues forwarding calls in the Username or Email field. Enter the phone number (in E.164 format) that the user wants calls to be forwarded to and then select Run Tests.
The tests will return the best next steps to address any user settings or configurations to validate that the user is properly configured to forward calls to a specific number in Teams.
Limitations
Managers can add up to 25 delegates, and delegates can have up to 25 managers. There's no limit to the number of delegation relationships that can be created in a tenant.
If the delegator and delegate aren't in the same geographic location, the PSTN provider must allow caller ID to show up from a different geographic location for a delegated call.
Circular delegation configuration is only permitted for Teams phone devices. If the delegated users also have delegations between them, they'll only be able to see their delegation and not the initial delegation.
Additional notes
If a user or tenant admin doesn't modify their call answering rules, unanswered calls are forwarded to voicemail after 30 seconds by default. The settings displayed for the user in Teams admin center or Teams PowerShell show the unanswered target as none and a delay of 20 seconds.