Busy on Busy - A Feature of Microsoft Teams Phone

Your company has recently implemented Microsoft 365 and Microsoft Teams, and the next step is to migrate your enterprise telephony to Microsoft Teams. In this blog, we'll explain what you need to keep in mind to ensure a smooth migration.

One question that arises in connection with the replacement of the phone system and the introduction of Microsoft Teams Phone is the handling of second calls. A second call is an incoming call that comes in during an existing call. Typically, modern collaboration and communications solutions (such as Skype for Business and Microsoft Teams) have not known busy status. A user can have multiple parallel communications (chats and phone calls) and is not busy in the true sense of a phone system. A concept that does not necessarily meet user requirements in the European region. Microsoft upgraded the Busy on Busy feature in March 2023, so that with the options now available, the busy status requirements are met as with traditional telephone systems. This makes it much easier for employees to switch from a traditional telephone system to Microsoft Teams phone. 

Call forwarding on «Busy»

Screenshots aus Microsoft Teams Telefonie betreffend Einstellungen der Anrufbeantwortung

There are basically two ways in which call forwarding works with a classic phone system. The caller is informed that the desired person is already busy or, as a second option, the called party is informed that there is a second call. This way he can decide if he wants to end the call and answer the second call. Microsoft Teams «Busy on Busy» feature offers the following options:

  • Not enabled: The «Busy» option is not enabled. This means that new incoming calls will be forwarded to the user even if the user is already on a call.
  • Enabled: New incoming calls are rejected with a busy signal.
  • Unanswered: Microsoft Teams uses user settings for unanswered calls, such as forwarding to voicemail or forwarding to another user. The settings must be defined by the user once in advance.
  • User-controlled: Users can define their busy options via the call settings in the Teams app.

If user-controlled is selected, the user can change the settings in the Teams client.

Thanks to the possibilities now provided by Microsoft Teams, nothing stands in the way of replacing a classic phone system. Employees no longer have to get used to anything and can continue their work as usual even without a phone system. There are no longer any differences, as the way of working with phone calls has been implemented exactly as employees have known it up to now.