Configure Shared Calling

Before reading this article, be sure you've read Plan for Shared Calling. It describes licensing and other requirements needed to set up Shared Calling.

This article describes the following steps to configure Shared Calling:

1. Assign Teams Phone licenses and enable users for voice.
2. Assign number to resource account for inbound and outbound calling.
3. Associate resource account with Auto attendant for inbound calling.
4. Assign a location to the resource account for emergency calling.
5. Configure resource accounts with service numbers.
6. Create voice routing policy without PSTN usages.
7. Enable emergency calling for users.
8. Create your Shared Calling policy.
9. Assign the Shared Calling policy to users.
10. Configure extension dialing support for Shared Calling enabled users (optional).

For a step-by-step example on how to configure Shared Calling with PowerShell, see Shared Calling scenario.

Keep the following information in mind:

• You can use the same resource account in multiple Shared Calling policies.

• All numbers within a given policy must be of the same number type and country (resource and emergency calling numbers).

• When you add a resource account to a policy, you must ensure that the number has a location/emergency address assigned to it.

• If you remove, reassign, or port the number of a resource account used in a Shared Calling policy, the policy will remain intact, but outbound calls will fail for any users still configured to make calls from that number.

• In some Calling Plan markets, you aren't allowed to set the location on service numbers. For these markets, contact the Telephone Number Services service desk for assistance.

• If you're attempting to use a resource account with an Operator Connect phone number assigned, you should confirm support for Shared Calling with your operator.

• Shared Calling isn't supported for Calling Plan service phone numbers in Romania, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Singapore, New Zealand, Australia, and Japan. A limited number of existing Calling Plan service phone numbers in other countries are also not supported for Shared Calling. For information about these service phone numbers, contact the Telephone Number Services service desk.

Step 1: Assign Teams Phone licenses and enable users for voice

Each user must have a Teams Phone license assigned, and each user must be "voice enabled."

• To assign the Teams Phone license, do the following steps:

  1. Use the Microsoft 365 admin center and go to Billing > Licenses.
  2. Select your Teams Phone license. On the product details page, select Assign licenses and assign the license to your users.
  3. Select Assign once you're finished.

• To enable users for voice, use the Set-CsPhoneNumberAssignment cmdlet and set the -EnterpriseVoiceEnabled parameter to $true. Don't assign a phone number to any Shared Calling enabled user.

For more information about licensing, see Microsoft Teams add-on licensing and assigning licenses to users.

Step 2: Assign number to resource account for inbound and outbound calling

You must create or reuse an existing resource account and assign a Calling Plan service number, Operator Connect number, or Direct Routing number to this account to be used for inbound and outbound calling. For more information about creating resource accounts, see Manage resource accounts.

Step 3: Associate resource account with Auto attendant for inbound calling

If inbound calling is required, you must associate this resource account with a configured Auto attendant that is scoped to the users it needs to reach. For more information, see Manage resource accounts and Set up Auto attendants.

Step 4: Assign a location to the resource account for emergency calling

You need the location ID to assign the location to a resource account. You can get the location ID by using the Get-CsOnlineLisLocation PowerShell cmdlet.

To assign a location to a resource account number for Calling Plan, Operator Connect, and Direct Routing, use the Set-CsPhoneNumberAssignment PowerShell cmdlet.

For information on the configuration of emergency locations, see Manage emergency locations.

Step 5: Configure resource accounts with service numbers

Using a Calling Plan service number

If the resource account uses a Calling Plan service number, you must have a Pay-As-You-Go Calling Plan assigned to the resource account, and fund calls either with Enable pay-as-you-go for your subscription, if your tenant has New commerce experience calling subscriptions and you want to post pay for calls, or Set up Communications Credits for your organization.

Using an Operator Connect service number

If the resource account uses an Operator Connect service number, no further action is required for this step.

Using a Direct Routing service number

If the resource account uses a Direct Routing service number, you must have an online voice routing policy with valid Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) usages associated with the resource account.

Step 6: Create voice routing policy without PSTN usages

Shared Calling users must not have an assigned voice routing policy (also known as a call routing policy) with valid PSTN usages. If you're using global voice routing policies in your tenant with valid PSTN usages, then you must create a new voice routing policy with empty PSTN usages and assign this policy to Shared Calling users.

Step 7: Enable emergency calling for users

You must ensure that users enabled for Shared Calling are able to make emergency calls to emergency services--and that emergency services are able to call back Shared Calling users who have made emergency calls. How you enable emergency calling is described in detail in Emergency calling.

You aren't required to define emergency numbers for a Shared Calling policy. If you don't define emergency numbers, when an emergency call is made, the number associated with the resource account in the Shared Calling policy is used.

Step 8: Create the Shared Calling policy

Once you've created your emergency call routing policy, you'll create your Shared Calling policy.

Shared Calling can be configured with the Teams admin center and PowerShell.

Use the Teams admin center

To create a Shared Calling policy in the Teams admin center, do the following steps:

1. In the Teams admin center, go to Voice > Shared calling policies.
2. Select Add to create a new Shared Calling policy.
3. Enter a unique name and description for the policy.
4. For Resource account, select the resource account that you want to use for this policy.
5. If you want to use emergency numbers for the Shared Calling policy, select Add emergency callback numbers. From the side panel, select the Phone number type and Assigned phone number. Once you've added the emergency callback number, select Add.
6. Select Save.

Use PowerShell

To configure and manage Shared Calling policies, you'll use the following Teams PowerShell cmdlets:

• New-CsTeamsSharedCallingRoutingPolicy
• Get-CsTeamsSharedCallingRoutingPolicy
• Remove-CsTeamsSharedCallingRoutingPolicy
• Set-CsTeamsSharedCallingRoutingPolicy
• Grant-CsTeamsSharedCallingRoutingPolicy

For example, the following command creates a new Shared Calling policy, called Seattle, and configures the policy with the resource account [email protected]. The command also identifies the emergency callback numbers associated with the resource account:

$ecbn1 = '+14255556789'
$ecbn2 = '+14255554321'
$ra = Get-CsOnlineUser -Identity [email protected]
New-CsTeamsSharedCallingRoutingPolicy -Identity Seattle -ResourceAccount $ra.Identity -EmergencyNumbers @{add=$ecbn1,$ecbn2}

The next command removes one of the emergency callback numbers, +14255554321, from the policy (required before that number can be deleted or reassigned):

Set-CsTeamsSharedCallingRoutingPolicy -Identity Seattle -EmergencyNumbers @{remove='+14255554321'}

The next command adds a new emergency callback number, 1425555433, to the policy:

Set-CsTeamsSharedCallingRoutingPolicy -Identity Seattle -EmergencyNumbers @{add='+1425555433'} 

Step 9: Assign the Shared Calling policy to users

Once you've created your Shared Calling policy, you need to assign it to users. To do this, you can use the Grant-CsTeamsSharedCallingRoutingPolicy PowerShell cmdlet or the Teams admin center.

The following PowerShell script assigns the Shared Calling policy to a user:

Grant-CsTeamsSharedCallingRoutingPolicy -PolicyName Seattle -Identity [email protected]

To learn about the different ways that you can assign policies to users in the Teams admin center, see Assign policies to users and groups.

Step 10: Configure extension dialing support for Shared Calling enabled users (optional)

By default, Shared Calling operates when a user doesn’t have an assigned phone number and instead is configured for Shared Calling. When your users are configured in this manner, they can place internal calls between themselves by dialing by name.

If your organization also wants to allow users to place internal calls by dialing extensions, you can configure extension-based dialing with Shared Calling. With extension-based dialing, users are assigned a number as a Direct Routing number with a unique extension. Internal calls between users can then be made by dialing the user’s unique assigned extension in addition to dialing by name.

You can assign an extension to a Shared Calling user with the Teams admin center and PowerShell.

Use the Teams admin center

1. In the Teams admin center, go to Users > Manage Users.
2. Select the Display name of the user to edit.
3. In the General information section under the Account tab, select Edit.
4. Under Phone number type, select Direct Routing.
5. In the Assigned phone number field, enter any number. For example, this number can be the same digits of the telephone number assigned to the Resource Account for the configured Shared Calling policy.
6. In the Phone number extension field, enter a unique extension of only digits.
7. Select Apply.

Use PowerShell

In the following example, the Set-CsPhoneNumberAssignment cmdlet assigns a Direct Routing phone number of +12223334444 with an extension 6789 to the Shared Calling user [email protected].

Set-CsPhoneNumberAssignment -Identity <[email protected]>
-PhoneNumber “+12223334444;ext=6789” -PhoneNumberType DirectRouting 

Emergency calling for Shared Calling users

To enable emergency calling for Shared Calling users, you must configure emergency numbers and location of the user.

• Emergency calling number: The Teams client used by the Shared Calling user needs to recognize that a given phone number called is an emergency calling number like 911.

• Emergency callback number: The emergency services must be able to call back a user that has dialed the emergency services. Since a Shared Calling user doesn't have a dedicated phone number assigned, either the phone number of the resource account or configured emergency numbers is used.

• Emergency location: The emergency services need to know the location or emergency address of the Shared Calling user making the emergency call.

Emergency calling for Shared Calling is available globally. There are configuration requirements for customers outside of North America. You need to ensure that the emergency addresses assigned to the phone numbers used for the resource accounts in the Shared Calling policy instances are uploaded to their carrier’s emergency calling database. You must contact individual carriers to perform this process.

Configure emergency calling numbers

Emergency calling numbers are defined in the emergency call routing policy. If you've not already done so, you must create and assign an emergency call routing policy for each user enabled for Shared Calling--regardless of the type of number used for the resource account: Calling Plan, Operator Connect, or Direct Routing.

Routing of emergency calls

The routing of emergency calls is based on how a resource account is configured.

• If the resource account used in the Shared Calling policy uses a Calling Plan or Operator Connect number, the emergency call routing policy assigned to the Shared Calling user shouldn't have online PSTN usages configured.
• If the resource account used in the Shared Calling policy uses a Direct Routing number, the emergency call routing policy assigned to the Shared Calling user must have online PSTN usages configured.
• If the emergency call routing policy used for the emergency call - either from user or network site assignment - has online PSTN usages configured, the routing of the emergency call will be based on the online PSTN usages.

For more information, see Manage emergency call routing policies and Set-CsOnlinePstnUsage.

Emergency callback number

Emergency services must be able to call back the originator of an emergency call through the emergency callback number. The callback number serves as the caller ID or calling number used when an emergency call is made.

You define a list of emergency callback numbers in the Shared Calling policy by using the -EmergencyNumbers parameter. Each Shared Calling policy must have a unique emergency calling number. That is, you can't use the same emergency number in more than one Shared Calling policy.

When an emergency call is made, the next free number in the emergency number list is used as the caller ID. This number will be reserved for the next 60 minutes.

• If there are no free numbers available in the list, we'll reuse a phone number from the list.

• If this list is empty, the phone number of the resource account is used as the emergency callback number--however, this process isn't supported if your resource account is assigned a Calling Plan toll free service number.

When emergency numbers are added to a policy:

• The emergency numbers must be routable for inbound PSTN calls. For Calling Plan & Operator Connect, the emergency numbers must be available within the tenant.

• The emergency numbers specified must all be of the same phone number type as the phone number assigned to the specified resource account--that's Calling Plan, Operator Connect, or Direct Routing.

• The emergency numbers can’t be assigned to any user or resource account.

• You can't delete or reassign an emergency number used in any Shared Calling policy. You must first remove the number from the Shared Calling policy before you delete or reassign the number.

You can view all Calling Plan and Operator Connect numbers by country, number sequence, or policy group by using the Teams admin center. For assigned Direct Routing numbers, you can use Get-CsPhoneNumberAssignment -NumberType DirectRouting.

Calling Plan service numbers

• If the resource account has assigned a Calling Plan service number, then the emergency callback number must be a Calling Plan subscriber number--not a Calling Plan service number.

• If your resource account is assigned a Calling Plan toll-free service number, you need to add Calling Plan subscriber numbers to emergency numbers in the Shared Calling policy.

Emergency location

The emergency location provided to the emergency services through the emergency call is determined in the following order:

1. Actual location of user--dynamically obtained by the Teams client.

2. Location assigned to the phone number assigned to the resource account specified in the Shared Calling policy--statically obtained.

For more information about emergency calling and how location is determined, see Manage emergency calling and Configure dynamic emergency calling.

Related articles

• Plan for Shared Calling
• Shared Calling scenario
• Set-CsTeamsSharedCallingRoutingPolicy
• Manage emergency calling
• Set-CsPhoneNumberAssignment