Microsoft provides a limited number of dial-out minutes for conferencing needs unless paid Communications Credits are added to each organization's Microsoft tenant. This article describes how to avoid incurring dial-out minutes.
When the organization runs out of free dial-out minutes, the dial-out feature will remain unavailable for the rest of the billing month.
Device Audio ✅
Using the computer or device audio is recommended by default. This audio method will not count towards any minutes.
Select Computer audio, mute or unmute microphone as desired, adjust audio volume as desired, and click Join now.
Phone Audio
Phone audio may be used if the user has more reliable audio connection through the phone line or if the user prefers using the phone speaker and microphone over the audio setup on other device(s). Proceed to dial into the meeting instead of having Teams call the user's phone.
Step 1: Select Phone Audio
Select Phone audio and click Join now.
Step 2: Proceed to Dial in Manually
Once user has joined the meeting, the Use phone for audio dialogue will display.
Dial in Manually ✅
Skip over the top portion and click on Dial in manually at the bottom of the dialogue.
Call Me 🚫
Do not proceed to Enter phone number to have Teams call the user. Similarly, do not click on the Call me button.
Step 3: Dial in Using Phone Number Listed ✅
Call the phone number listed. To retrieve more phone numbers of different area codes, select Get local numbers only as needed. When prompted, enter the Conference ID as listed.
As directed by the audio prompt, Please enter a conference ID, followed by pound, include pound (#) after entering the numeric digits of the Conference ID.
Do not select Call me back at the bottom of the prompt.
Close out of this dialogue from the top right of this dialogue once the user has successfully entered the dial-in information to join the conference.
Room Audio ✅
Select Room audio and its associating device as applicable to the user's room or workspace setup, and click Join now. This audio method will not count towards any minutes.
No Audio ✅
The user may join the meeting without using any audio by selecting Don't use audio option and clicking Join now. Users can later add an audio option from the meeting window without having to leave or rejoin the meeting.
To add audio or change existing audio option while in the meeting, proceed with the following steps.
Step 1: Select More Actions
Locate and click on the More actions (...) button. The More actions button is the ellipsis icon (...), or three dots that are aligned horizontally.
Step 2: Select Audio Method
Choose either Device settings or Call me as desired.
- Device settings - computer audio or other connect room / workstation devices.
- Call me - phone audio option where user would dial in to the meeting.
Device Settings
The following example uses device audio from the computer. Similar steps can be repeated for other connected room or workstation devices by selecting the desired device under Audio devices using the dropdown menu.
Under Speaker, select the desired device and click on the speaker icon to unmute the selected speaker. Adjust volume as needed. A slash through the speaker icon indicates there is no audio coming through the device.
Under Microphone, select the desired device and click on the microphone icon to unmute the selected microphone. A slash through the microphone icon indicates the user's audio is not broadcasted in the meeting room.
Call me
If users selects the Call me option, proceed with instructions above under Phone Audio section. Do not provide Teams a phone number for Teams to dial out to the user.
For more information, reference Audio Conferencing Dial-Out/Call Me At minutes - Microsoft Teams | Microsoft Docs.
For further assistance, contact Purely Cloud Support at [email protected].