Nimbus capabilities (Task Routing, Supervision, Reporting, Companion, Transcription) normally apply only to calls that reach a Nimbus service. A call dialed directly to a user's own Teams number skips all of that: it rings, connects, and ends without touching the platform.

Direct Call Handling closes this gap by representing a user's personal number as a Nimbus service of their own. A call to that number is handled, supervised, transcribed, and reported like any queue-based service call, and still reaches the person it was meant for.

Use Case Scenarios

• Direct-dial specialists: a claims handler, account manager, or field technician gives out a personal Teams number. When they're unavailable, callers still get a routing safety net (voicemail, a colleague, a service) instead of an unanswered ring.
• Compliance and quality assurance: an organization must record and transcribe every customer conversation, whether the customer reached a queue or dialed an individual directly. Direct Call Handling attaches Companion transcription and sentiment analysis to direct calls the same way it does to service calls.
• Presence- and time-aware personal availability: a user wants direct calls handled differently depending on presence or time of day, without IT building this per person. For example, forward to a PSTN number during business hours and to Teams voicemail overnight.
• Unified capacity and interaction analytics: leadership wants one reporting view of all customer-facing conversation time, queue calls and direct calls alike, filterable by category so direct calls don't skew queue-based KPIs.

Preconditions

✅ PRECONDITIONS

Direct Call Handling is enabled per user, individually licensed, provisioned, and configured.

✅ Steps for a Tenant Administrator in a nutshell:

1. Make sure the tenant's Direct Call Handling license quota is above 0. If you require additional assistance on this, contact Luware Customer Success.
2. Assign the Direct Call Handling add-on to the user(s), individually on the General User Settings page or in bulk from the Users page.
   ⮑ The Direct Call tab becomes available.
3. Go to the Direct Call User Settings tab 
   1. Click “Create and Update Service”
      ⮑ This will create a Nimbus Service of Type “Direct Call Handling” in the Service Administration.
      ⮑ The user will automatically be associated with that service, so the service is also of User Assignment Type "Direct Call Handling. 
      💡Note: This service will have limited set of Nimbus Features, fewer options in the settings tabs, but is otherwise configured in the same same was as other Nimbus services.
4. In your Teams Admin: 
   1. Telephony-enable the user's dedicated Resource Account and move the personal number onto it that you want to associate with the new Direct Call Handling service.
      🔎 See “Microsoft Teams Admin” below for more details.
5. Download and run the Nimbus provisioning script to move the number, set its type, and configure call forwarding. 
   ⮑ In the Service Administration Nimbus should now show the should now show as service Running.
   ☝️ Make sure that the license usage type is “Voice App”. The provisioning script cannot convert these licenses for you.
6. Back under Direct Call User Settings you can also: 
   1. Verify to confirm the setup is healthy
   2. Repair to re-create or reactivate the service if needed. Both are safe to run repeatedly.
7. You can now continue with with the regular Nimbus administration and configuration for that service
   🔎 See “Microsoft Teams Admin” below for more details..

🔎 More details below. Click to unfold.

✅ Microsoft Teams Admin

Phone Licensing / Calling Policies

A user's phone number setup on the Microsoft side decides how Nimbus works with their calls. Nimbus only needs one thing to receive calls: a PSTN number on the user's Resource Account. 

☝️One Resource Account per User: Direct Call Handling provisions one dedicated Resource Account per user rather than a single shared, tenant-wide one. Otherwise, features in flexible Personal Dashboards, such as individual KPI Tracking and features like Supervision of a user's outbound calls would not be possible. If the user does not have a Teams Phone Standard License, the call forwarding will not work. A regular Teams License is not sufficient.

• Teams Resource Account: a dedicated Teams Resource Account, telephony-enabled with its own free Microsoft Teams Phone Resource Account license. 
• Teams Phone License: the user needs a Teams Phone Standard license as minimum to have a direct number, so Microsoft can configure call forwarding on their account. 
• Number Eligibility: the user's number must be service-capable to move onto the Resource Account. A Calling Plan number needs its usage switched to Voice app first; Direct Routing numbers are unaffected.
• Calling Policy: the user's Teams calling policy must allow call forwarding to another user (AllowCallForwardingToUser), and must not send unanswered calls straight to voicemail. Also note that Nimbus has no way to check ahead (or react) if Voicemail is enabled or disabled for a user.

Nimbus User Account	Direct Call Handling Ressource Account	Nimbus handling internal UPN calls	Nimbus handling external (PSTN) calls	Nimbus tracking Outbound Calls	When to use
Regular Teams License	None - will not work with Nimbus	✖️No	✖️No	✖️No	N/A
Option 1:  Regular Teams License	Teams Phone License  + Calling Plan	✖️No	✔️ Yes - Service Shared Number (not tracked)	✔️ Yes - Call on Behalf functionality	Handling of external calls in Nimbus
Option 2:  Teams Phone Standard	Teams Phone License  + Calling Plan	✔️ Yes (tracked)	✔️ Yes - Service Shared Number (not tracked)	✔️ Yes - Call on Behalf functionality	Handling of internal & external calls in Nimbus
Option 3: Teams Phone Standard  + Calling Plan	Teams Phone License  + Calling Plan	✔️ Yes (tracked)	✔️ Yes - User Specific Number	✔️ Yes - Call on Behalf functionality	Handling of internal & external calls in Nimbus, per user and with separate phone numbers reflected in Reporting.

🔍 Footnotes

Please be aware of the following Microsoft dependencies:

• ¹ Ressource Accounts are free but need a Calling Plan or Direct Routing for Outbound PSTN. 
• ² Teams Phone Standard is the minimum for PSTN telephony via MS Teams, unless the user already has E5.
• ³ Calling Plans are “pay-as-you-go”. Note that pricing is determined by Microsoft and varies per region.
• ⁴ Outbound Call capabilities are also determined on the Calling Plan. Because every outbound call goes out via Call on Behalf (under the user's own Direct Call service) that service supports Dashboard Supervision and full Nimbus Session Reporting for calls placed as well as received. 

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Pricing, naming and figures are indicative and may vary by region, commitment and contract. Sources are Microsoft's Resource Account licensing, Shared Calling, PSTN connectivity options, and phone number usage documentation.

 

 

 

✅ Nimbus Admin

✅Before you start: Ensure that a Ressource Account and Phone Number has been set up in Microsoft Teams Admin Center. 

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Nimbus User Licensing

1.  Direct Call Handling License Quota check: the tenant's “Direct Call Handling” license quota must be above 0 before you can start. Contact your Luware Customer Success if you require additional licenses.
2. Licenses are assigned per user from the tenant's Licensing page or directly in the General User Settings.
   💡Note that …
   • …a separate Direct Call User Settings tab becomes available once you assign the license.
   • … other user licenses such as Contact Center unaffected by Direct Call Handling. The licenses simply enable additional features for that user.

✅ Nimbus Settings and Configuration

The following steps should be don once the “Direct Call Handling” License is assigned to the user:

1. Within Direct Call User Settings: 
   • Ressource Account Assignment: This is where the Administrator maps the resource account, phone number to a Service name.
     💡This service will have the new User Assignment Type “Direct Call Handling”.
   • Forwarding: Steers Call Forwarding behavior for the phone number behind the newly generated Direct Call Handling Service. 
     💡 Users can also adjust these rules in their User Preferences (Portal). The Setup remains Admin-exclusive.
2. Within Workflows: 
   • Upon creation, each new Direct Call Handling service automatically gets a “Direct Call Handling” workflow (Audio/Video Only) assigned by Nimbus. 
   • The workflow is hard-bound to the Distribution Service Settings of the service and cannot be deleted. It acts as a fallback when no Forwarding Rules are defined by the “Direct Call Handling” user.
   • You can freely make adjustments to this workflow, which can then be used within Forwarding rules of that service (e.g. to add Announcements, IVR, Virtual Users, Queue or Transfer Workflow Activities.)
     💡Hint: A dynamic transfer Target “Myself” can be used so the workflow stays re-usable when the service is re-assigned to a different user.

 

 

 

How Direct Call Handling Works

When a user is enabled, Nimbus moves their personal number onto a dedicated Resource Account, then represents it internally as a configurable Direct Call service with the user as its only member. To Nimbus, a direct call is simply a service call handled by a service of one.

A caller dialing the user's number reaches this Resource Account. Nimbus hands the call to the same call-handling engine as any other service call, evaluating the user's direct call rules and carrying out whichever action applies.

Direct Call Handling Settings

For Administrators: Once licensed and provisioned, each enabled user's direct number becomes its own Nimbus service. A Direct Call service is automatically created, not by an an administrator. Afterwards it is visible in the Service Administration and can be configured. 

Notable Differences

Direct Call Handling Tracking and Reporting

Direct calls handled by Nimbus travel the same reporting pipeline as any other interaction (Nimbus Reporting, Nimbus Reporting Model). Both a Service Session and a User Session are created, exactly as for a queue-based service call. 

• UI Feature parity: since a direct call is treated like a regular service call underneath, it will show up Sessions List, Attendant Console  and Customer Insights.
• Session Generation: every external direct call, inbound or outbound via Call on Behalf Of, generates a Service and User Session against the Direct Call service, filterable as its own category, and excluded from tenant-wide KPI and SLA aggregates.
• KPIs / Data Aggregation: Direct Call Handling services do have their own KPIs and do not count against overall Tenant / Team KPIs.
• Facts and Dimensions: Facts - Columns and Data Types follow the existing model: Static Dimensions (task direction, outcome) and Slowly Changing Dimensions Dimensions (user, org unit at call time) all apply.
• Data Access Channels: available through the same channels as the rest of Nimbus reporting: Personal Dashboards, the OData Feed, and the Nimbus Power BI Template, governed by the same Reporting Roles.
• Supervision: Real-time supervisor monitoring via Dashboards cover both inbound and outbound (Call on Behalf Of) direct calls.

Comparison to “MS Teams Direct Call Reporting”

Nimbus also supports MS Teams Direct Call Reporting, a separate, unrelated feature enabled on a user. Despite the similar name these features are not related

MS Teams Direct Call Reporting exists because a direct Teams call is otherwise invisible to Nimbus, but they close that gap in different ways.

Notes and Limitations