Manage caller ID for users

This article is for administrators and IT professionals who support Teams end user calling experiences for inbound and outbound caller ID.

Caller ID consists of two user-facing pieces of information:

• Calling line ID (CLID) - The phone number of the calling party, relayed to the Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) and offered to the called party.
• Calling party name (CNAM) - The name of the calling party, relayed to the PSTN, and offered to the called party.

The caller ID behavior for both inbound and outbound calls depends on the account's assigned Teams caller ID policy and calling policy, your organization's contact hygiene, and PSTN operators.

Inbound caller ID behavior

In the operation of processing an inbound PSTN call, Teams looks up the number of the inbound caller's calling Line ID in the contacts configured in your organization.

Teams references your organization's Outlook and Entra ID contacts and your end-user's People contacts.

• Only "Mobile phone" and "Work (Business) phone" contact fields are searched
• Teams looks up and matches with contact numbers that are in E.164 standard format
  (they must start with a "+")

If there is a match between the calling line ID and a contact, Teams substitutes the PSTN caller ID info with the matched contact's name. If there isn't a match, then the caller ID displays what's provided by the PSTN call.

The hierarchy for which source provides the presented caller ID to an end user is as follows, in order:

• The called Teams user's People contacts
• Contacts in Outlook and Entra ID
• The inbound PSTN call's calling party name
• The inbound PSTN call's calling line ID

Spam calls

PSTN service providers do their best to block instances of robocalls, phone scams, and unwanted calls (collectively known as spam calls).

Service providers aren't always successful in blocking all spam calls; some spam calls manage to get through.

If Teams detects a call is possibly spam, it sends the caller ID as "Spam likely".

Changing the caller ID of a call to "Spam likely" is a setting that can be turned off in the user's calling policy. For more information, see Configure spam filtering for calls in Microsoft Teams.

Block inbound PSTN caller ID

If you have a requirement to prevent a set of Teams users from seeing the caller ID of inbound PSTN calls, you can assign a Teams Caller ID policy to the users where the setting "Block incoming caller ID" is turned On.

When this setting is turned on, the incoming PSTN caller is shown as coming from Anonymous.

The Block incoming caller ID setting is an administrative setting and isn't available for end users to turn on or off in their user settings page.

For more information, see configure caller ID policies.

Blocking inbound PSTN calls

To block inbound PSTN calls at a tenant level, see Block inbound calls.

To block inbound PSTN calls for an end-user, see Manage your call settings in Microsoft Teams.

• Teams only checks for blocking numbers (at the tenant and user level) that are in E.164 standard format
  (they must start with a "+")

Outbound caller ID behavior

The outbound caller ID that your Teams Phone users send with outbound PSTN calls depends on the settings in their assigned caller ID policy.

Outbound calling line ID

The user's outbound caller ID policy can be configured to send one of the following caller ID options:

• The telephone number assigned to the user, which is the default.

• Anonymous, which removes the presentation of the user’s calling line ID and calling party name.

• A substitute phone number, which can be one of the following numbers:

  • An Operator Connect or Direct Routing number that is assigned to a resource account used by a Teams Auto attendant or Call queue.

  • A Microsoft Calling Plan service and toll-free number in your Calling Plan telephone number inventory and assigned to a resource account used by a Teams Auto attendant or Call queue.

When calling on behalf of another account, the caller ID for the user is replaced by the caller ID configured for the account that is used to place the call. Examples of calling on behalf of another account include the following.

• Calling on behalf of a delegator
• Calling on behalf of a Call Queue
• Shared calling

You can't assign the following types of phone numbers for the outbound caller ID:

• Any Calling Plan or Operator Connect phone numbers in your inventory where the usage type is classified as User.

• Any Direct Routing on-premises telephone number that is assigned to a user.

• Any Skype for Business Server on-premises telephone number.

For Direct Routing, the phone number substitution and the CNAM are sent in the From Session Information Protocol (SIP) header. If the corresponding OnlinePstnGateway policy is configured with -ForwardPai $true, the P-Asserted-Identity (PAI) SIP header contains the real calling user.

For more information, see Configure caller ID policies.

Outbound calling party name

If you're replacing the caller ID with either the user's number or a resource account's number, then configuring a calling party name is supported.

Using a company's name for the calling party name is common. For example, when a Teams Phone user makes a call, you can change their outbound caller ID to display your organization's main phone number and company name instead of the user's phone number.

• The calling party name can have a maximum of 200 characters, but downstream systems might support fewer characters.

• The calling party name is sent on outbound Teams calls where the caller ID is configured with the user's phone number or resource account's phone number, and when the caller is a Teams user.

End user control that overrides the caller ID policy

Using the caller ID policy, you can allow users to Override the caller ID policy.

Turning on the setting that allows end users to control their caller ID gives them the ability to hide--or expose--their phone number for calls.

This setting (parameter -EnableUserOverride) has precedence over other settings in the Caller ID policy policy.

For example, where an assigned policy has the caller ID replaced with resource account, Override the caller ID policy is turned on, and the setting is turned on by the respective user in their client settings, the outbound caller ID is blocked and Anonymous is used.

Inversely, where an assigned policy has the caller ID replaced with Anonymous, Override the caller ID policy is turned on, and the setting is turned off by the respective user in their client settings, the outbound caller ID is sent with the user's assigned telephone number.

Configure caller ID policies

Settings for both inbound and outbound caller ID are configurable in the Teams caller id policy. A list of the available caller ID settings follows.

With all caller ID settings turned off, the Teams user's phone number is visible when that user makes a call to the PSTN. Likewise, when a PSTN caller makes a call to a Teams user, the PSTN caller's phone number is visible.

You can configure caller ID policies by using the Teams admin center or by using PowerShell.

Use the Teams admin center

You manage caller ID policies by going to Voice > Caller ID policies in the Microsoft Teams admin center. You can use the global (Org-wide default) policy or create and assign custom policies. Users in your organization automatically get the global policy unless you create and assign a custom policy.

For more information on each policy, see configure caller ID policies.

Create a custom caller ID policy

1. In the left navigation of the Microsoft Teams admin center, go to Voice > Caller ID policies.

2. Select Add.

3. Enter a name and description for the policy.

4. Turn on or off Block incoming caller ID and Override the caller ID policy.

5. Enter a Calling Party Name.

6. Under Replace the caller ID with, set which caller ID is displayed for users by selecting one of the following:

   • User's number: Display the user's number.

   • Anonymous: Display the caller ID as Anonymous.

   • Resource account: Set a resource account associated with an Auto Attendant or Call Queue.

     If you choose Resource account, you're prompted to specify a resource account for the next field, called Replace the caller ID with this resource account. Only resource accounts with an assigned phone number are displayed. If you just assigned a phone number to the resource account, it might take a few minutes before the resource account is available for selection.

7. Select Save.

Assign a custom caller ID policy to users

You can assign a policy directly to users, either individually or at scale through a batch assignment (if supported for the policy type), or to a group that the users are members of (if supported for the policy type).

To learn about the different ways that you can assign policies to users, see Assign policies to your users in Teams.

Edit a caller ID policy

You can edit the global policy or any custom policies that you create.

1. In the left navigation of the Microsoft Teams admin center, go to Voice > Caller ID policies.

2. Select the policy by clicking to the left of the policy name, and then select Edit.

3. Change the settings that you want, and then select Save.

Use PowerShell

You can manage caller ID policies by using the following PowerShell cmdlets in Teams PowerShell module 2.3.1 or later:

• New-CsCallingLineIdentity
• Set-CsCallingLineIdentity
• Remove-CsCallingLineIdentity
• Get-CsCallingLineIdentity
• Grant-CsCallingLineIdentity

New custom caller ID policy

The following example creates a new caller ID policy that sets the caller ID (-CallingIDSubstitute) to the phone number of the specified resource account, and sets the Calling party name (-CompanyName) to Contoso.

$ObjId = (Get-CsOnlineApplicationInstance -Identity [email protected]).ObjectId

New-CsCallingLineIdentity -Identity DKCQ -CallingIDSubstitute Resource -EnableUserOverride $false -ResourceAccount $ObjId -CompanyName "Contoso"

The next example creates a new caller ID policy that sets the caller ID to Anonymous:

New-CsCallingLineIdentity -Identity Anonymous -Description "anonymous policy" -CallingIDSubstitute Anonymous -EnableUserOverride $false

Change a caller ID policy

The following example modifies the UKAA caller ID policy to set a new description:

Set-CsCallingLineIdentity -Identity "UKAA" -Description "UK Main office"

Remove a caller ID policy

The following example removes the UKAA caller ID policy:

Remove-CsCallingLineIdentity -Identity "UKAA"

Grant a caller ID policy

The following example grants the Anonymous caller ID policy to Amos Marble:

Grant-CsCallingLineIdentity -Identity "[email protected]" -PolicyName "Anonymous"

Related articles

• Teams policies reference - Caller ID
• More about Calling Line ID and Calling Party Name
• Assign policies to your users in Teams
• Set-CsCallingLineIdentity