Teams Telephony and Outlook Calandar issue

Question

Teams Telephony and Outlook Calandar issue

Debbie Anderton 0

Entries in Outlook such as meetings that are marked as busy prevent Teams Telephoney calls being presented, how do you stop this happening other than by marking meetings as free

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Answer 1

Killian N 3,820 Independent Advisor

Hi,

This behaviour is most likely caused by Presence-based routing being enabled on the affected Teams Call Queue. When an Outlook appointment is marked as Busy, the user’s Teams presence changes to Busy or In a meeting. If Presence-based routing is enabled, Teams only presents Call Queue calls to agents whose status is Available.

To allow agents to receive Call Queue calls during appointments marked as Busy, a Teams administrator can:

Open the Teams admin center.
Go to Voice > Call queues.
Select the affected Call Queue.
Open the Agent selection or routing settings.
Set Presence-based routing to Off.
Save the changes.

Please note that if the queue uses Longest idle routing, Presence-based routing is required. The routing method would first need to be changed to an alternative such as Round robin, Serial, or Attendant.

Disabling Presence-based routing also means that queue calls may be offered when an agent is Busy, Away, or otherwise unavailable. Agents can use the Call Queue opt-in or opt-out option when they do not wish to receive calls.

For more information, please refer to the following link:

I hope this information is useful. Thank you for your time and for raising this important usability concern. If you have any further questions or need additional assistance, please don’t hesitate to reach out.

I look forward to your thoughts on this.

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Debbie Anderton 0 Reputation points

2026-08-25T14:56:35.1933333+00:00

So these are just standard users not necessarily in call queues
Killian N 3,820 Reputation points Independent Advisor

2026-08-25T15:25:55.4866667+00:00
Hi,

If these are standard users receiving calls directly, rather than agents receiving calls through a Call Queue, then the Call Queue settings previously mentioned would not apply.

An Outlook appointment marked as Busy may update the user’s Teams status to Busy or In a meeting. However, this status alone should not stop direct incoming calls from ringing.

The Busy on busy setting only applies when the user is actively participating in a Teams call or meeting, or has a call on hold. It is not triggered simply because an Outlook appointment is marked as Busy. To suppress calls and notifications, the user would normally need to set their Teams status to Do Not Disturb.

I really appreciate your patience and the time you’ve taken to explore possible workarounds and bring attention to real workflow experiences. I’ve also looked into any workaround I could find, and you may consider this option:

Use "Do not disturb" status

If the requirement is to prevent interruptions and stop incoming calls, the supported approach is to use "Do not disturb".

Open Microsoft Teams.

Click on the profile picture in the top right corner.

Select the current presence status.

Choose Do not disturb.

Optionally set a duration for how long this status should remain active.

As a result, incoming calls may no longer ring as usual, and callers could be redirected depending on the system settings. Only contacts with Priority Access will still be able to reach the user.

Additional information is available in the following resources:

Change your status in Microsoft Teams | Microsoft Support

User presence in Teams - Microsoft Teams | Microsoft Learn

I hope this response helps clarify the situation and suggests a potential next step.

Kind regards,
Debbie Anderton 0 Reputation points

2026-08-25T16:12:26.0166667+00:00

We have a need for calls to disrupt a meeting
Killian N 3,820 Reputation points Independent Advisor

2026-08-26T10:47:49.0633333+00:00
Hi,

In that case, the users’ assigned Teams Calling Policy should have Busy on busy when in a call set to Off. When this setting is off, incoming calls can still ring and display a notification while the user is already in a call or meeting. If it is enabled, Teams may reject the call or route it according to the user’s unanswered-call settings instead.

This can be checked by a Teams administrator under:

Teams admin center > Voice > Calling policies

Select the policy assigned to the users > Busy on busy when in a call > Select Off

The administrator should also confirm that Routing for PSTN calls is set to Use default settings, rather than Send to voicemail or Use unanswered settings, as those options may prevent the call from being presented to the user. (To learn more, please visit: Routing inbound calls)

Please note that calls may still be suppressed if the user has manually selected Do Not Disturb, is presenting, or has personal call-forwarding or voicemail settings that redirect the call.

Regards,
Killian N 3,820 Reputation points Independent Advisor

2026-08-27T10:56:17.3466667+00:00

Hi,

I hope all is well.

I wanted to check in and see if the information I shared earlier helped.

If you need any further assistance or have additional questions, just let me know.

Looking forward to your update.

Kind regards,
Debbie Anderton 0 Reputation points

2026-08-27T12:11:52.2033333+00:00

Thank you for all this information it has been really helpful, I have fed it into the technical work stream and the "lads" are cogitating
Killian N 3,820 Reputation points Independent Advisor

2026-08-27T14:12:52.4+00:00

Hi,

I'm glad to hear the information has been helpful.

If you have any questions in the future, feel free to reach out, I will be happy to help.

Kind regards,