Changes to calls in Teams

Microsoft has announced that it will no longer support 'normalization' of phone numbers starting with a plus sign i.e. +44 7777 123456. This means in Teams, phone numbers stored in this format will no longer be resolved to 07777 123456 and calls will fail.

What should you do?

Identify the phone numbers in your contacts that start with a plus sign and alter them as necessary e.g. +7777 should become 07777 or 00 44 7777, and +353 will become 00353.

Why is Microsoft doing this?

Microsoft is doing this to bring all its call service offerings into alignment. It says "Normalization in Microsoft Teams was not designed to do normalization when the phone number starts with plus sign (+) as documented, but we've never enforced this in the Teams desktop or Web client. We are planning to enforce this now and making this change to align with our Calling Service, other Teams services, Azure Communication Services SDKs, and other Microsoft services."

If you have any questions regarding the benefits of Microsoft Teams with Voice for your business, then please get in touch.