Auto Attendants & Call Routing
The backbone of any phone system: auto attendants greet callers and route them to the right department, call queues distribute incoming calls across available agents.
The phone system backbone
Auto attendants are like a friendly receptionist who answers every call.
”Press 1 for Sales, Press 2 for Support, or say the name of the person you’re trying to reach.” The auto attendant greets callers, plays menus, and routes them to the right place — without a human receptionist.
Call queues are like a waiting room. When all support agents are busy, callers wait in a queue and hear hold music. The queue distributes calls to the next available agent using rules you configure — round robin, longest idle, or all agents ring at once.
Auto attendants
How auto attendants work
An auto attendant answers an incoming call and presents options to the caller:
- Greeting — “Thank you for calling Pinnacle Corp”
- Menu options — “Press 1 for Sales, Press 2 for Support, Press 3 for Billing”
- Routing action — caller selects an option → routed to person, call queue, another auto attendant, external number, or voicemail
- Directory search — caller can say or type a name to reach someone directly
Auto attendant configuration
Teams admin center → Voice → Auto attendants → Add
| Setting | What It Configures |
|---|---|
| Resource account | The account that receives calls (needs a phone number for PSTN) |
| Greeting | Audio file or text-to-speech message |
| Business hours | When the auto attendant follows the main menu |
| After hours | Different greeting and routing for after-hours calls |
| Holiday handling | Special greetings/routing for holidays |
| Menu options | Dial keys (0-9, *, #) mapped to actions |
| Dial scope | Which users can be reached via directory search |
| Call flow | Nested menus, transfers, voicemail |
Nested auto attendants
Auto attendants can chain together for complex call flows:
Main Reception AA (phone number +61 3 XXXX XXXX)
├── Press 1 → Sales AA
│ ├── Press 1 → Sales Queue (AU)
│ └── Press 2 → Sales Queue (NZ)
├── Press 2 → Support AA
│ ├── Press 1 → IT Support Queue
│ └── Press 2 → HR Support Queue
├── Press 3 → Billing Queue
└── Press 0 → Operator (receptionist)Scenario: Tara designs Pinnacle Corp's phone system
Pinnacle Corp’s phone system needs to replace their legacy Cisco PBX:
Main Reception Auto Attendant:
- Resource account: reception@pinnacle.com.au
- Phone number: +61 3 XXXX XXXX (ported from old PBX)
- Business hours: Mon-Fri 8:30 AM - 5:30 PM AEST
- Greeting: “Thank you for calling Pinnacle Corp”
- Menu: Press 1 → Sales Queue, Press 2 → Support Queue, Press 3 → Billing, Press 0 → Receptionist
- After hours: “Our offices are closed. Please leave a message” → shared voicemail
- Holidays: “We’re closed for the public holiday” → shared voicemail
Sales Call Queue:
- 15 sales agents across AU and NZ
- Routing: Round robin
- Hold music: Custom brand music
- Max wait: 5 minutes → overflow to voicemail
- Max queue size: 20 callers → overflow to voicemail
Call queues
Routing methods
| Feature | How It Works | Best For | Agent Experience |
|---|---|---|---|
| Attendant routing | All agents ring simultaneously | Small teams (under 10 agents) — fastest answer | All phones ring at once; first to pick up gets the call |
| Serial routing | Agents ring in a fixed order (agent 1 first, then 2, etc.) | Tiered support — primary agent first, backup second | Each agent rings for a timeout period, then the next agent |
| Round robin | Calls distributed evenly across agents in rotation | Fair distribution — prevents one agent getting all calls | Each agent gets roughly equal call volume |
| Longest idle | Call goes to the agent who's been idle the longest | Large call centres — maximises agent utilisation | Agents who've waited longest get the next call |
Call queue configuration
| Setting | What It Controls |
|---|---|
| Agents | Users, groups, or channels that receive queue calls |
| Routing method | How calls are distributed |
| Presence-based routing | Only route to agents with Available presence |
| Conference mode | Reduces connection time by using conferencing (faster answer) |
| Agent opt-in/opt-out | Whether agents can opt out of receiving queue calls |
| Hold music | Custom audio or default music |
| Max wait time | Maximum time a caller waits before overflow action |
| Max queue size | Maximum number of callers in queue before overflow |
| Overflow action | What happens when queue is full: voicemail, redirect, disconnect |
| Timeout action | What happens when max wait time is reached: voicemail, redirect, disconnect |
Agents from Teams channels
Call queues can use a Teams channel as the agent source — all members of the channel are automatically agents. This is useful because:
- Adding/removing agents = adding/removing channel members (simpler)
- Agents see queue calls as channel activity
- No need to maintain a separate agent list
Calling policies
Calling policies (already covered in Module 22) interact with auto attendants and call queues:
- Call park: Agents can park a call and pick it up from another device
- Busy on busy: When an agent is on a call, new queue calls don’t ring them
- Music on hold: What callers hear when an agent puts them on hold
🎬 Video walkthrough
🎬 Video coming soon
Auto Attendants & Call Routing — MS-700 Module 23
Auto Attendants & Call Routing — MS-700 Module 23
~11 minFlashcards
Knowledge Check
Pinnacle Corp's IT support team has 8 agents. Tara wants calls distributed evenly so no single agent is overwhelmed. Which routing method should she configure?
Tara configures Pinnacle Corp's main reception auto attendant with a 5-minute max wait on the Sales call queue. After 5 minutes, she wants unanswered calls to go to a shared voicemail. What should she configure?
You’ve completed Domain 3! 🎉 All 5 modules covering meetings, events, phone numbers, voice, and call routing.
Next up: Voice & Meeting Quality — Domain 4 begins with monitoring voice and meeting quality using Call Quality Dashboard and Real-Time Analytics.