BY TYLER STOSIC
In December 2021, the Landis Attendant Console was released to public preview, as the Teams native successor to the much-loved Landis Attendant Pro Console for Skype for Business.
The attendant console is a client for Microsoft Teams designed for receptionists to enhance efficiency when handling large volumes of calls, providing a simple 1-click call transfer method, whilst also providing a single interface for user presence and calendar availability. When used in conjunction with the Landis Contact Center solution, additional features such as Call Recordings and Advanced Call Analytics become available.
HOW TO SET UP LANDIS ATTENDED CONSOLE
Setting up the Landis Attended console is as simple as can be, and with the 30-day fully functional free trial, you can be set up and ready to go in minutes.
Firstly, admin consent is required from a Microsoft 365 Global Administrator account to allow the use of the product in your Tenant.
Once this has been completed, you can use your standard Microsoft account to sign in to the web-based console at https://ac.landis.cloud/ and sign up for the free 30-day trial. Once completed and signed in you will be presented with the blank attendant console page.
There is some additional first-time per-user setup to complete, but it is as simple as a few permissions.
The web browser will prompt for access to your microphone, click allow on this.
Next, in the 3-dot menu next to your icon in the top right-hand corner, browse to settings, then the permissions tab, and grant consent or the required permissions (recommendation is to grant all permissions for the best experience).
That’s it! You are now ready to handle calls using the Landis Attendant Console.
The full documentation of the setup process can be found on the getting started page: https://ac.docs.landis.cloud/getting-started
ADDITIONAL CUSTOMISATIONS
Before you start using the Console, there are several customisations that can be made to better adapt the interface to your liking, along with setting up any speed dial contact groups.
The default layout has calls on the left-hand panel, contact search and contact cards in the middle panel, and your contact groups in the right-hand panel. The layout is fully customisable from the settings.
CONTACT SEARCH
There are multiple ways to search for contacts when using the Attendant Console, firstly is the search bar in the top center of the screen. The default search source is Azure AD, however additional sources such as local Active Directory or Exchange can be added. The default search is by name; however, filters can also be used to search by Department, Job Title, Office Locations, and Countries.
Search by Name:
Search by Department:
CONTACT GROUPS
In the default layout, the contact groups are configured to be in the right-hand panel. The contacts are used for 1 click transfer or to initiate communication with the user.
These contact groups are configured under the Settings page. There are two types of contact groups you can create, firstly a Teams team group, which will list all users in that specific Team, secondly, a Search group, in which you can use specific filters to Search by Azure AD attributes, such as department, or Office location.
In the example below, a Teams team search group was set up for the “IT Team”, and a Search group was set up to filter on all users with the “Sales” department. These groups will then show up in the contacts group panel, along with the respective members.
OTHER NOTABLE FEATURES
Some other notable features of the Attendant Console are the ability to be configured for Call Pop utilising an external CRM, and advanced shortcuts can be configured for executing HTTP requests. All additional features can be found in the documentation.
SHORTCUTS
One thing to familiarise yourself with is the keyboard shortcuts, which can be used to perform various call handling actions. It is noted that the Attendant Console window needs to be in focus for the keyboard shortcuts to work.
USAGE
When a call comes in, you will see it appear in the Calls window on the left-hand side. Use the F6 shortcut to pick up the call or select the answer button. One thing to note is that calls will still ring in your Microsoft Teams client, but you are required to pick up the call in the Attendant Console.
The call then becomes the active call, as seen below.
From here you can use the various call actions to redirect the call, such as blind transfer, safe transfer, consult and transfer, add participant and hold.
If this call was to be redirected to Maple Wade, the ICT Support officer, we can use the IT Team group we configured previously to select the contact, then view the contact card in the bottom middle window.
We can see that Maple currently has the status of “Busy” and has a meeting scheduled at this current time. If we wanted to leave a message, we can then use the contact group options to send either an IM or Email, advising Maple of the call.
The Landis Attendant Console for Microsoft Teams documentation provides a great outline of Daily Usage of the console and further descriptions of each of the call handling options.
KNOWN LIMITATIONS
Since its release, there have been many feature additions to the application as part of the constant update cycle, with new features and enhancements constantly being added. The release notes for the attendant console can be found at the below link.
As the Landis Attendant Console for Microsoft Teams relies on the Microsoft APIs for Teams, there are some known limitations for the product while Microsoft continues to develop and release the required API functionality. As some of these underlying APIs are currently in Public Preview some dependents do not yet have SLAs.
The full list of limitations can be found at the link below. https://ac.docs.landis.cloud/appendix/known-limitations
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