What is the new Queues app in Microsoft Teams?
Microsoft announced the Queues app for Microsoft Teams on March 26, 2024, at their keynote at the Enterprise Connect show. Microsoft Teams has natively supported voice calling and call queues for several years, but there was no reporting on call queues and agents within Teams, nor the ability to allow managers to edit queues and agent statuses. Microsoft introduced the Queues app to fill this gap, announcing it as a collaborative call handling solution for team members to manage customer calls and for supervisors to manage call queues, access reports, and analyze data.
What features does the Queues app in Microsoft Teams have?
Microsoft announced the launch of the Queues app, introducing features that simplify agent management and provide more reporting options than previously available within Teams.
Feature highlights from the announcement:
- Option for agents to opt in or out of queues
- Option for managers to opt agents in or out of queues
- Live statistics for each queue, including:
- Number of waiting calls
- Average call answering time
- Longest call waiting time
- Service level (as percentage)
- Ability to place calls from a queue or auto attendant phone number
Roadmap features that won’t be available in the initial release include:
- Historical analysis and reporting (with ability to export)
- Call Monitoring and Coaching (Whisper, Barge and Takeover)
For a more comprehensive list of the announced features, see the comparison table below.
What is the price for the Queues app in Microsoft Teams? Is it included with a Microsoft Teams Voice license?
Microsoft announced that the Queues for Microsoft Teams app will be available as part of Teams Premium, an add-on license that provides additional features to Teams. The Queues app is not expected to be available for basic Teams Voice users.
When will the Queues app be available in Microsoft Teams?
Microsoft announced that the Queues app will be available as part of Teams Premium in Summer 2024. Note: some features they announced will not be available at launch but are planned after launch.
The Queues app is not yet publicly available as of April 2024, but there are third-party contact center solutions that work with Teams that have these features already. Landis offers a Contact Center offering that covers the same features as the Queues app, plus has many other powerful features, available to use right now. See the comparison table below for details.
Is the Queues app in Microsoft Teams right for me?
The Queues app may be a good fit for organizations that are already using native Teams queues or receptionist apps (such as Landis Attendant Console) but want to add basic reporting and agent management features. While the Queues app in Microsoft Teams adds some reporting features and better management of agents and users to the Teams app, it is not a contact center. It does not include features that are important to many call centers. In comparison, Landis Contact Center is a fully featured contact center that includes intelligent call routing options with IVRs, in-depth reporting, policy call recording and other features that are not included in Teams or the new Queues app. Refer to the table below for some of the features that Landis offers.
How does the Queues app compare to Landis Contact Center?
Data in the table for the Queues app is based on Microsoft’s documentation, as accessed in March 2024. Future updates from Microsoft may include additional features that are not included in this comparison.
| Feature |
Queues App
|
Landis Contact Center
|
|---|---|---|
| Available as an app in Teams | Yes, at launch | Yes, available now |
| Live queue stats and wallboards | Yes, limited at launch | Yes, available now |
| See call history of queues | Yes, at launch | Yes, available now |
| Setting to allow agents to opt themselves in and out of queues | Yes, at launch | Yes, available now |
| Setting to allow managers to sign agents in and out of queues, add members and change queue greetings. | Yes, at launch | Yes, available now |
| Setting to allow delegated access for managers to manage users in a queue | Yes, at launch | Yes, available now |
| Historical reports (with the ability to export) | Roadmap | Yes, available now |
| Call coaching features for managers (Whisper and Barge in) | Roadmap | Yes, available now |
| Auto Attendants | Not in Queues app (Can be set up separately in Teams admin center) | Yes, available now |
| IVR for intelligent call routing (with data dip and regex capabilities) | No | Yes, available now |
| Call journey report (with IVR and queue interactions) | No | Yes, available now |
| Detailed agent timeline | No | Yes, available now |
| Policy call recording (Can be set per queue or org-wide) | No | Yes, available now |
| Webhooks that fire at the beginning or end of queue calls | No | Yes, available now |
| Wrap-up time and wrap-up questions | No | Yes, available now |
| Dedicated US-based support team (24/7 emergency support included) | No | Yes, available now |
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