Configure call forwarding and delegation settings

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This article describes how you, the administrator, can change call forwarding and delegation settings for your users. You might want to change these settings, for example, if:

  • A user is out on sick leave, and you need to ensure that incoming calls to the user are forwarded to a colleague.
  • You need to inspect the call forward settings for all users in a department and potentially correct them as appropriate.
  • A new assistant is employed, and you need to add the assistant as a delegate for a group of employees.

You can use the Teams admin center or Teams PowerShell cmdlets to view and change call settings for users.

To set call settings for a user, the user must have an assigned Microsoft Teams Phone license.

Use the Teams admin center

You can use the Teams admin center to configure call forward and unanswered settings, group call pickup, and call delegation for your users.

To configure immediate call forward settings:

  1. In the Teams admin center, go to Users > Manage users and select a user.

  2. On the user details page, go to the Voice tab.

  3. Under Call answering rules, select Be immediately forwarded, and select the appropriate call forward type and destination.

    • To configure simultaneous ringing, on the same page select Ring the user's devices. In the Also allow drop-down, select the appropriate simultaneous ringing setting. Call forwarding and simultaneous ringing to people in organization or Call forwarding and simultaneous ringing to external phone numbers in Voice > Calling policies must be turned on for this call forward type and destination to be available. These settings are on by default.

    • To configure unanswered settings, on the same page select the appropriate setting in the If unanswered drop-down. In the Ring for this many seconds before redirecting drop-down, specify the number of seconds to wait.

The configuration of call delegation and group call pickup is integrated into the call forward and unanswered settings by selecting the appropriate type. For example, to configure calls to also ring the user's delegates, on the same page select Call delegation under Also allow. Then add the appropriate delegates by selecting Add people and selecting Save. For more information, see Call sharing and group call pickup.

This video shows the steps to view and edit the voice settings for a user.

Use PowerShell

You can use PowerShell to configure call forward and delegation settings for your users. You use the following cmdlets, which are available in Teams PowerShell module version 4.0 or later:

Display call forward and delegation settings for a user

To display the current call forward and delegation settings for a user, use the Get-CsUserCallingSettings cmdlet, as shown in the following example:

Get-CsUserCallingSettings -Identity user1@contoso.com
SipUri                    : sip:opr1@contoso.com
IsForwardingEnabled       : True
ForwardingType            : Simultaneous
ForwardingTarget          :
ForwardingTargetType      : MyDelegates
IsUnansweredEnabled       : True
UnansweredTarget          :
UnansweredTargetType      : Voicemail
UnansweredDelay           : 00:00:20
Delegates                 : Id:sip:user2@contoso.com
Delegators                :
CallGroupOrder            : InOrder
CallGroupTargets          : {}
GroupMembershipDetails    :
GroupNotificationOverride : Ring

(Get-CsUserCallingSettings -Identity user1@contoso.com).Delegates

Id             : sip:user2@contoso.com
MakeCalls      : True
ManageSettings : True
ReceiveCalls   : True

The output shows that user1 has simultaneous ringing to delegates configured. Unanswered calls are sent to voicemail after 20 seconds. User2 is defined as the delegate with all delegate permissions.

Set call forward settings for a user

To forward all calls for user1 to user2, use the Set-CsUserCallingSettings cmdlet, as shown in the following example:

Set-CsUserCallingSettings -Identity user1@contoso.com -IsForwardingEnabled $true -ForwardingType Immediate -ForwardingTargetType SingleTarget -ForwardingTarget user2@contoso.com

To simultaneously ring all delegates for user3, use the Set-CsUserCallingSettings cmdlet, as shown in the following example:

Set-CsUserCallingSettings -Identity user3@contoso.com -IsForwardingEnabled $true -ForwardingType Simultaneous -ForwardingTargetType MyDelegates

The following example uses the Set-CsUserCallingSettings cmdlet to configure a call group for user4 with user5 and user6 as members. All calls to members of the group are forwarded in the order they're defined:

$cgm = @("user5@contoso.com","user6@contoso.com")

Set-CsUserCallingSettings -Identity user4@contoso.com -CallGroupOrder InOrder -CallGroupTargets $cgm

Set-CsUserCallingSettings -Identity user4@contoso.com -IsForwardingEnabled $true -ForwardingType Immediate -ForwardingTargetType Group

For more examples, see Set-CsUserCallingSettings.

Add a calling delegate for a user

To add user2 as a delegate for user1 with all permissions allowed, use the New-CsUserCallingDelegate cmdlet, as shown in the following example:

New-CsUserCallingDelegate -Identity user1@contoso.com -Delegate user2@contoso.com -MakeCalls $true -ReceiveCalls $true -ManageSettings $true

Change calling delegate permissions

To change delegate permissions--for example to not allow user2 to make calls for user1--use the Set-CsUserCallingDelegate cmdlet as shown in the following example:

Set-CsUserCallingDelegate -Identity user1@contoso.com -Delegate user2@contoso.com -MakeCalls $false

Remove a calling delegate for a user

To remove user2 as a delegate for user1, use the Remove-CsUserCallingDelegate cmdlet, as shown in the following example:

Remove-CsUserCallingDelegate -Identity user1@contoso.com -Delegate user2@contoso.com

Diagnosing issues with Call Forwarding

If you’re an administrator, you can use the following diagnostic tool to validate that a user is properly configured to forward calls received in Teams to a specific number.

  1. Select Run Tests below to populate the diagnostic in the Microsoft 365 admin center.

    Run Tests: Teams Call Forwarding

  2. In the Run diagnostic pane, enter the email of the user who's having issues forwarding calls in the Username or Email field. Enter the phone number (in E.164 format) that the user wants calls to be forwarded to and then select Run Tests.

  3. The tests will return the best next steps to address any user settings or configurations to validate that the user is properly configured to forward calls to a specific number in Teams.

Additional notes

For a user whose call answering rules haven't been modified either by the user or a tenant admin, unanswered calls are forwarded to voicemail after 30 seconds by default. The settings displayed for the user in Teams admin center or Teams PowerShell show the unanswered target as none and a delay of 20 seconds.