Need to be able to search/call Outlook contacts' phone numbers without leaving Teams
The biggest obstacle and user complaint we have when rolling out Teams is that users cannot search for their Outlook contacts to call like they could in Skype For Business. Instead, they have to open Outlook and reference the contact's phone number which is inefficient & clumsy. It goes against everything else Teams does well in in terms of consolidating apps/interfaces. Users should be able to search for and call their outlook contacts via PSTN without having to leave Teams.
Skype for Business is still a much more streamlined design for external PSTN calling because users cannot find and dial their contact's numbers in Teams. This is also true for inbound calling with the lack of inbound caller ID/contact details provided. Until this user experience is improved, I'm going to have delay our Teams rollout. Please consider adding these features soon!

24 comments
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Sven Schulz commented
Microsoft, really? No solution after more than 2 years?! Please add this feature for the sake of every Outlook user.
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Al Kovalick commented
Teams should be easy as Zoom to use. I am not a corporate user and assumed (big error) that Teams would be simple to use for PSTN calling. First, I should be able to add a PSTN call to a current conference with one click (in the call window). I assumed it would do this, it wont. Second, I should not have to leave a conference to use the contacts list to make a PSTN call. The "box" to "enter name or number" does not link to my contacts list. This is nuts. It links to members of my domain. Okay for corporate use but not friendly for casual use. It seems PSTN calls are an after thought in Teams. In some countries PSTN is more reliable than internet so make it easy to integrate PSTN with a conference. Skype Business did a good job on this, too bad its gone (6/2021).
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Bob commented
Please add this feature !!
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Aaron C commented
We are planning on Migrating our Mitel phone system to Teams and not being able to search and call outlook contacts within Teams is one of a few major things hindering us from making this leap. Many users just type a name in a search box and click the call button. This needs to be added ASAP if we want to move forward. MAKE IT HAPPEN MICROSOFT!!!!!!!!
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Anonymous commented
Please add this feature
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Sebastian Frei commented
Please add this feature. I is confusing, if you transfer a call not being able to search outlook contacts.
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ThomasR commented
Definitely a very important feature.
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Anonymous commented
Is there still no word on whether this will be supported? This is an absolute must have. It is very strange that you cannot forward an active call to a self made Outlook/Teams contact.
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Lee Chambers commented
would be nice if you could search for contacts on actual hardware phone too. Defeats whole purpose for having one
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D. Simone commented
Before golive a new Platform you could keep all functions from the old.
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Erik commented
This issue is particulary annoing when you want to transfer a (PSTN) call. You can search for memebers off your organisation but not for contacts. So you have search and type the phone number.
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Brett Donnelly commented
We have 280 remote locations that have old school PBX's with POTS lines and 200 users in our HQ with Teams with full phone PSTN calling. We are unable to call them from our corporate address book as we did in Skype. This is a big issue for us. The workaround of copy and past of the phone number is not acceptable to our users.
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Lee commented
How is "enhanced" contact information still missing from Teams?
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Anonymous commented
How did this simple thing get left out? I have thousands of contacts in OL/Exchange; who thinks that duplicating them into another app is OK?
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Lee commented
Very poor user experience compared to Skype and Outlook. Needs to be addressed urgently.
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Andy Saleen commented
Still no word if this has even been read...
Users should be able to search for and call their outlook contacts via PSTN without having to leave Teams.
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Anonymous commented
Does anyone know if this is on their roadmap? This is a MUST, we have several address lists for suppliers and being able to search and call them from Teams is essential.
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Adam commented
This one is surprising. Would have thought this was a feature from the get go.
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Douglas Foster commented
Agree - am MSP and am holding out implementation to several clients until this is addressed.
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Randy Moon commented
Agree. Inability to auto-search and call Outlook contacts from Teams is a big disappointment and really hinders attraction of Teams for any user making a lot of external calls.