How to Set Up Music on Hold?

Description: The purpose of this article is to guide you through the process of enabling Music on Hold for your MS Teams account and configuring a custom music selection.  

When a MS Teams user places an incoming call on hold, the caller can listen to selected music. The played music can be either the default option provided by Microsoft or custom music that you upload and set up. As the Tenant administrator, you configure whether Music on Hold is available by creating a MS Teams calling policy and assigning the policy to the MS Teams user. 

How to Enable the Music on Hold Feature

To enable the Music on Hold feature, go to Microsoft Teams admin center.

 Locate and select the "Voice" option in the left-hand menu of the page to expand it.

Once the content is displayed, choose the "Calling Policies" option.

Once you have selected this option from the menu, it will open the "Calling Policies" page. On this page, you will see the table of existing calling policies.

To enable the Music on Hold feature, you have two options: 

1. you can either create a new calling policy by clicking the "Add" button (highlighted with a blue box), 
2. or you can edit an existing policy by selecting it in the table and clicking the "Edit" button (highlighted with red boxes).

In both cases, the interface for configuring the policy settings will remain the same.

To activate the Music on Hold feature, simply toggle the corresponding switch located in the list of displayed settings. If you have created a new policy, be sure to provide it with a custom name and configure any other required parameters. 

Finally, press the "Save" button to create the policy.

Configure Custom Music

If you prefer to use the default music provided by Microsoft, you can stop at this point. However, if you want to set up custom music for users when they are placed on hold, return to the Microsoft Teams admin center's home page. From there, navigate to the "Voice" option on the left-hand menu to expand it. 

Once the content is displayed, choose the "Call Hold Policies" option.

Upon selecting this option in the menu, it will open the "Call Hold Policies" page. On this page, you will find the table of existing call hold policies.

Depending on your actions in the previous section of this user guide (enabling the Music on Hold feature for a new policy or an existing one), you will either create a new call hold policy by pressing the "Add" button (highlighted with a blue box) or edit the policy you previously modified by selecting it in the table and pressing the "Edit" button (highlighted with red boxes).

In both cases, a new pop-up form will appear on the right side of the window, allowing you to configure the call hold policy you are creating or editing.

There are three parameters to configure:

• Name: this field is used to set a name for the call hold policy you are configuring.
• Description: here, you can add an optional description of the policy you are configuring.
• Upload file: when you click on this button, it will open the Windows Explorer window (or its equivalent, depending on your operating system).

Here, you can browse your PC's file system to locate and choose the audio file that you wish to set as the music on hold. Once you have located the file, select it, and click the "Open" button, the file will be displayed on the form.

To complete the process of setting the custom music, press the "Apply" button.

If you have created a new call hold policy, it will now be listed in the table of existing call hold policies. 

Next, you should assign users to whom this custom music on hold policy will be applied. Select the policy from the list and click the "Assign Users" button.

Once you pressed this button, a new pop-up form will appear on the right side of the window, allowing you to use the search bar for locating and selecting particular users to whom you would like to apply this custom music on hold policy.

After inputting a few characters into the search bar, if the entered text is sufficient to identify a user with that combination of letters, they will be presented in the dropdown list below the search bar.

When you hover your mouse cursor over the displayed user, the "Add" button becomes visible.

After clicking this button, the selected user will be added to the list of assigned users, which will be displayed on this form. 

If you accidentally added the wrong user, you can remove them from this list by clicking the "X" badge next to the user's name that you want to exclude. To complete the assignment, click the "Apply" button. Once you click the button, a pop-up message will appear indicating that the assignment will require some time to take effect.

The assigned users will not be immediately visible in the table of existing call hold policies. To locate them, you should select the policy you configured and choose the "View Users" option for that specific line in the "Assigned to users" column.

Upon clicking this button, the "Manage users" page for the selected policy will open, allowing you to view all the users you have previously assigned to it.