Microsoft 365 Certified: Collaboration Communications Systems Engineer Associate (MS-721)

Organizations that rely on Microsoft Teams for voice, meetings, and room-based collaboration need consistent configuration standards—not ad hoc settings that create call-quality issues, emergency-calling risk, or support escalations. This intermediate MS-721 course is a fit for IT Directors assigning training to collaboration engineers, Teams administrators, or senior Microsoft 365 IT Practitioners who support Teams Phone, PSTN connectivity, meeting policies, Teams Rooms, and certified devices.

The time investment is substantial: the listed curriculum alone exceeds 36 hours, with additional skills included. Training Managers should plan this as a multi-week enablement path, especially for teams balancing production support with project work. Change-management value comes from giving the team a shared operating model for policies, dial plans, call queues, emergency calling, Direct Routing, QoS, and device updates.

CBT Nuggets Playlists can organize role-based rollout plans, while Team Reporting helps IT leaders track completion across the team.

This training helps collaboration and communications teams standardize how Microsoft Teams supports daily business operations, from executive town halls to front-desk call handling and conference-room readiness.

• Reduce voice and meeting disruption: Teams learn to prepare networks, apply QoS concepts, and manage meeting policies that affect user experience.
• Support reliable Teams Phone operations: Training covers dial plans, caller ID, call park, voicemail, call queues, auto attendants, and user enablement for Teams Phone.
• Improve site and device readiness: Teams review Teams Rooms, certified devices, common-area phones, conference phones, device settings, and update strategies.
• Manage higher-risk communications scenarios: The course includes dynamic emergency calling, compliance recording, Direct Routing, local media optimization, SBCs, and Survivable Branch Appliances.

Knowledge

• Microsoft Teams meetings, webinars, town halls, avatars, Mesh, Copilot-related meeting features, and virtual appointments.
• Teams Phone architecture, PSTN connectivity options, shared calling, phone numbers, devices, and user enablement.
• Policy areas that affect meetings, calling, caller ID, voicemail, mobility, call hold, calling restrictions, and compliance recording.
• Direct Routing concepts, including SBCs, local media optimization, routing rules, conferencing, and Survivable Branch Appliances.
• Network considerations for Teams, including QoS, media behavior, network topologies, and tenant data.

Ability

• Configure and manage meeting, webinar, town hall, audio conferencing, and CVI-related settings.
• Build and maintain Teams Phone configurations, including dial plans, call queues, auto attendants, and dynamic caller ID options.
• Configure dynamic emergency calling and manage users for Teams Phone.
• Deploy and manage common-area phones, user phones, conference phones, Teams Rooms devices, and device updates.
• Use PowerShell concepts in support of Microsoft Teams administration tasks.