Phonebooks in Teams

Owned by nick.cosh
Last updated: Nov 22, 2024
3 min read

Overview

Microsoft Teams holds the extension numbers of all individual staff in the University phonebook; this is fed from Outlook. If you need extension numbers not associated with an individual staff member in your Teams phonebook, you may want to add them to Outlook. This then propagates into Teams. For example, you may want to add the Student Information team on extension 4000.

Creating custom phonebooks in Teams

Creating the spreadsheet

  1. First, you need to create a .csv file in Excel. Open a blank Excel spreadsheet and add the three visible fields in Teams (see below). The field titles are not important, but using the naming convention below makes it much easier to import into Outlook.

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  1. ‘First Name’ can be the department name, ‘Business Phone’ can be the extension number and ‘Company’ can be another searchable field in Teams i.e. Section. We recommend you create a small list first so you get used to importing and don't accidentally import a large number of contacts incorrectly.

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  1. Now you need to save the document as a .csv file in your downloads folder.

  1. Close Excel or at least the spreadsheet down afterwards or you will get an error and it will fail to import.

Importing the .csv into Outlook

  1. In Outlook click File

  2. Then choose Open & Export on the left-hand side and click Import/Export

  1. This will open up the Import and Export Wizard where you will choose ‘Import from another program or file’ and click next.

  1. Choose Comma-separated values and click next.

  1. On the next screen browse for the .csv file and in Options choose ‘Replace duplicates with items imported’

  1. Now you have to select the destination folder, which will be your ‘Contacts’ folder (see below), then click next. Please make sure you choose your Contacts folder and not another Contacts folder i.e. another email role account.

  1. Now, on the Import file screen make sure the tick box is ticked.

  1. Now Click The ‘Map Custom Fields’ button, and confirm the fields are mapped correctly by checking the three fields you are importing e.g. First name, Business Phone and Company.

  1. Once you are happy with the fields click OK, then Finish

  2. A box will appear showing the import progress then close

Testing your import in Teams

Click on the ‘People’ tab on the left-hand side of Teams and in the ‘Find a contact’ box on the right-hand side type the name of one of the names of your imported number.s