BToE
We need BToE support with our Polycom deskphones. Without it, we will have to always run Skype for Business side by side to sign in our users to the phones.
JR Walters
shared this idea
The team is reviewing this feature. Thank you for your votes and comments.
56 comments
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Jeff Schertz
commented
The first feature for Better Together which is automatic lock/unlock of the phone when paired to a workstation is now available in the June 2020 client release for IP Phones:
Future Better Together features are planned but no specific details have been provided yet for which features and when they will be made available.
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Chad
commented
The unlock feature mentioned with Better Together at 34:00 in this video (https://myignite.techcommunity.microsoft.com/sessions/83485) appears to have been released today. I hope the advanced features mentioned are still on the way.
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Najmudheen Mattex
commented
Any news regarding the above. We are planning to move teams, only obstacle is the above.
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Anonymous
commented
Any news, Alex?
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Aaron Marks commented
At Ignite 2019, this was committed to for release in Q1 of 2020 with the full feature set rolling out by the end of Q2 2020 (this video at 34:00: https://myignite.techcommunity.microsoft.com/sessions/83485 ).
It appears as though Q1 was missed, but is this feature still going to roll out all at once by the end of Q2 2020? If not, could you please provide us with an ETA?
Thank you!
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Ted George
commented
Amazing this was not a priority consideration when developing devices for teams, what's the point of the desk phone if it cant communicate with the device your sitting at? Very few places these are deployed will not have a computer system with teams already running
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Mary Ellen Arbuckle
commented
It's a must!
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Richard Hlavienka
commented
It's show stopper for SfB to Teams migration
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Chris Miller
commented
Transitioning from USB to BToE reduced the reliability. Developing Bluetooth radio as the only pathway to integrated functionality is begging for even more reliability problems. We are definitely going to need to examine other solutions very closely as the sunsetting of SfB and mandated MS Teams adoption looms.
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Anonymous
commented
This would be a very useful addition to our existing functionality as the polycom desk phones are quite well used in my organisation
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Jim
commented
I can't believe BToE isn't available on Teams yet -- its not as if this is a new, untested feature! We are probably going to look for another UC solution if Microsoft can't provide this fairly basic feature as our user base is already using BToE and right now Teams is a definite step backwards on this front.
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Chad
commented
Better Together is discussed at 34:00
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Matt P
commented
We're also running SFB, started trying out Teams and finding it lacking a lot of features including this. The desk phones are pretty much a waste of space once we put the Teams firmware on them.
As great as Teams is for everything else the phone functionality is significantly lacking.
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Brandon
commented
A call comes in, maybe it has video, maybe the caller is also sharing their screen, I'd like the accept the call on my desktop and use my Teams IP phone for the audio portion of the call. While we're at it, i'd like to find the contact that I need to communicate with on the desktop, click the call button and have my Teams IP phone ring the contact. There would be a status window on my desktop telling me there's an ongoing call. I can use this status window to add video, or screen share, I can click add participants to the call via this status window.
No need to review this for very long... see Skype for Business - BTOE!!! All the logic has already been done... Do it! Do it now! -
Kelly Reed
commented
This is much needed, it is holding up our transition to Teams.
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Daniel Adam
commented
Glad this is being reviewed. Lots of organisations have significant investments in desk phones (e.g. Polycom VVX) with SfB and BToE and this feature needs to continue with Teams without a loss of user experience or call controls on the phone. It's fine for new Teams phones to support new features, but existing functionality on older devices needs to be maintained.
I would add that contacts flagged in Teams as favourites need to continue to show up on the phone screens as speed dial/BLFs
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AKArt
commented
Glad you all are reviewing.
I just want to be able to click on a phone number and have it dial on my phone. I don't care if it's paired over ethernet, bluetooth or USB, but not having this capability killed one of the features that had a track record of winning customers over to desk phones again. -
Warren
commented
We have been running Skype for Business. We are actively looking at alternative phone systems and Teams is not even in the conversation at this point due to this missing feature.
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Jeff Schertz
commented
Some clarification here: Microsoft has shared that a "Better Together" feature will come to the Teams IP phones (see Kruthika's post below from August 2019). This will be Bluetooth-based, so there will be no Better Together 'over Ethernet' as that current capability leverages the phone vendor-supplied software clients alongside the Skype for Business client only.
For example while the newer Poly CCX phones support BToE (just like the previous generation VVX) that is only applicable when the phone is in Skype base profile. When it's running in Teams base profile then any PC-to-Phone pairing will be dependent on what Microsoft is developing.
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Mirko
commented
It should be possible to have BTOE with all Teams IP-Phones, no matter which vendor. If MS would provide an API for this, it would be great. The most customers who use an IP-Phone need BTOE!