Licensing Auto Attendants and Call Queues for Teams Phone

• Teams Phone features for automated handling of inbound calls now require licenses in all cases.
• Previously, resource account licenses for these features were required only in certain configurations.
• All tenants receive some resource account licenses at no cost, but this change could foreshadow additional charges for heavy use.

Teams Phone (formerly called Phone System) provides the hosted equivalent of an on-premises private branch exchange (PBX) system for users within Teams. When combined with Calling Plan or Direct Routing, Teams Phone allows organizations to replace or augment their on-premises phone system. Auto attendants and call queues, features of Teams Phone which allow automatic routing of calls based on caller choice or agent availability, have updated licensing requirements. Most organizations should see no additional costs, but administrators might need to make configuration changes. The change could also indicate future charges for the heaviest users of these features.