Creating Automated Attendants or Queues

Automated Attendants (AA) and Queues are called ‘Voice Applications’ in Teams.

If the AA or Queue needs to be called from the outside world, you must attach a special resource or service account to the application. Right now you cannot assign direct route phone numbers to an application within the Teams admin console so a few steps must be done in PowerShell.

Direct Route phone numbers from Simtex are linked to the special resource account, which in turn is tied to an application instance.
You can map multiple resources accounts (and in turn numbers) to a single AA or queue.  Most businesses will setup a temporary account for their test or interim numbers whilst waiting for number porting.

Obtain Free Phone System Virtual User Licenses

Each application resource user needs a free ‘Microsoft Phone System – Virtual User’ license which you can obtain from the Microsoft 365 Admin console under Billing.

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoftteams/teams-add-on-licensing/virtual-user

Create an Application User

Create Application User (resource) for an Automated Attendant (AA)

1. Create the AA user
   

   $resourceuser = "resource_name_aa@domain" 
   New-CsOnlineApplicationInstance -UserPrincipalName $resourceuser -DisplayName "Resource - Temporary Main Number" -ApplicationId "ce933385-9390-45d1-9512-c8d228074e07"

2. Apply free ‘Microsoft Teams Phone Standard – Virtual user’ (formerly Microsoft Phone System – Virtual User) license to the special user created
   https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoftteams/teams-add-on-licensing/virtual-user
   
   
3. Attach a Direct Route number to the user
   

   Set-CsOnlineApplicationInstance -Identity $resourceuser -OnpremPhoneNumber +61xxxxxxxxx

Create Application User (resource) for a Queue

1. Create the queue user
   

   $resourceuser = "resource_name_queue@domain" 
   New-CsOnlineApplicationInstance -UserPrincipalName $resourceuser -DisplayName "Resource - Temporary Main Number" -ApplicationId "11cd3e2e-fccb-42ad-ad00-878b93575e07"

2. Apply free ‘Microsoft Teams Phone Standard – Virtual user’ (formerly Microsoft Phone System – Virtual User) license to the special user created
   https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoftteams/teams-add-on-licensing/virtual-user
   
   
3. Attach a Direct Route number to the user
   

   Set-CsOnlineApplicationInstance -Identity $resourceuser -OnpremPhoneNumber +61xxxxxxxxx

Create Voice Application

From here it’s best to use the Teams admin console (web interface)

https://admin.teams.microsoft.com/

1. Click on Voice
2. Click Auto attendants or Call queues
3. Click Add and follow the wizard
4. Once complete, edit the AA or Queue and select Resource Accounts
5. Find the resource account added above, and attach it to the voice application
6. When added you will see the name of the resource account and the phone number
7. Click Submit and test the number