Office 365 – Microsoft Teams and Dial In Conferencing in Preview

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More and more Skype for Business functionality is making its way into Microsoft Teams. I opened my Outlook client today to create a new Microsoft Teams meeting, and, to my surprise, there is a “Join by Phone” option with a dial-in number and conference ID:

It looks like Teams is using the dial-in conferencing information that is assigned to me in Skype for Business. Here is a screenshot of my Skype for Business meeting invite with the same dial-in toll number:

However, when creating the meeting inside the Teams client, the dial-in information is not available when creating the meeting, but it is available after the meeting is created. Here is a side-by-side comparison of creating the meeting versus viewing the meeting in the Teams client:

Microsoft has also ported over the conference dial-in numbers page to dialin.teams.microsoft.com/<GUID>, with the GUID being an identifier to your Teams’ tenant. This page remains familiar from its Skype for Business counterpart with some re-branding to Teams:

The forgot your dial-in PIN page redirects to the current Skype for Business Settings page, but I suspect this will be re-branded shortly as well:

When joining the meeting via the PSTN, the conferencing attendant sounds just like the Skype for Business attendant with the exception of the voice asking if the caller is the leader. This audio was definitely new and spliced into the attendant menu. When joining the meeting, the Teams meeting participant list shows just the caller’s phone number:

Also of note is meeting participants who were invited but have not joined as indicated by the “Other invited” versus the “Currently in this meeting”.
I tried copying and pasting the join meeting URL into a web browser and skipped the prompt to open the meeting in the Teams desktop client. When I tried to join just through the web app, it looks like this feature is not supported but will be coming soon:

The dial-in conferencing is a welcome feature and only goes to show that Microsoft Teams is rapidly taking on Skype for Business features. One noticeable feature missing from meetings is the ability to dial-out or the “call me at” feature to dial out to a phone.
Did you find this article helpful? Leave a comment below or follow me on Twitter (@JeffWBrown) for more information on Skype for Business.