Voice & Meeting Quality
When someone says 'the call was terrible,' you need data, not opinions. Learn to use Call Quality Dashboard, Real-Time Analytics, and Call Analytics to monitor and report on voice and meeting quality.
Measuring call quality
Imagine you run a phone company and customers complain about “bad calls.”
You need three things: a real-time dashboard showing what’s happening right now (are calls dropping this minute?), a historical report showing trends over time (has quality degraded this month?), and a per-user investigation tool for when one specific person says their calls are always bad.
Teams gives you all three: Real-Time Analytics (live), Call Quality Dashboard (historical trends), and Call Analytics (per-user investigation).
Three quality monitoring tools
| Feature | Scope | Time | Best For |
|---|---|---|---|
| Call Quality Dashboard (CQD) | Organisation-wide trends and patterns | Historical (data available ~30 min after call ends) | Identifying systemic quality issues — poor subnets, problematic buildings, quality trends over time |
| Real-Time Analytics (RTA) | Scheduled meetings and Meet Now in progress | Live (during the meeting) | Troubleshooting an in-progress meeting for specific users — does not cover PSTN, 1:1, or group calls |
| Call Analytics (per-user) | Individual user call history | Historical (per-call details) | Troubleshooting a specific user's quality complaint — 'my calls are always choppy' |
Call Quality Dashboard (CQD)
Access: https://cqd.teams.microsoft.com or Teams admin center → Analytics & reports → Call quality dashboard
What CQD shows
| Report | What It Measures |
|---|---|
| Overall quality | Percentage of poor-quality calls/meetings org-wide |
| Server-client quality | Quality between Microsoft servers and client devices |
| Client-client quality | Quality between two Teams clients (peer-to-peer) |
| Quality by location | Quality breakdown by building/subnet/ISP |
| Quality by device | Which headsets/cameras have the most issues |
| Reliability | Call setup failure rate, dropped call rate |
Key metrics in CQD
| Metric | Threshold | What It Means |
|---|---|---|
| Poor stream rate | Target: less than 3% | Percentage of media streams classified as poor quality |
| Setup failure rate | Target: less than 1% | Percentage of calls that fail to connect |
| Drop failure rate | Target: less than 3% | Percentage of streams that unexpectedly disconnect after setup succeeds |
| Packet loss | Poor: more than 10% | Lost data packets during the call |
| Jitter | Poor: more than 30ms | Variation in packet arrival time |
| Round-trip latency | Poor: more than 500ms | Time for a packet to travel and return |
Building and subnet data
For CQD to show quality by building and location, you must upload building/subnet data:
- Create a CSV file with: NetworkIP, NetworkName, NetworkRange, BuildingName, etc.
- Upload via CQD → Tenant Data Upload
- CQD maps call endpoints to buildings → shows quality per building/floor/subnet
Exam tip: Without uploaded building data, CQD can’t show location-based quality reports. This is a common exam scenario: “Admin sees poor quality but can’t identify which office — what’s missing?”
Real-Time Analytics (RTA)
Teams admin center → Analytics & reports → Real-time (during an active meeting)
RTA shows live metrics for in-progress meetings:
- Audio quality: packet loss, jitter, latency per participant
- Video quality: frame rate, resolution per participant
- Participant list: who’s experiencing issues right now
- Network: connection type (WiFi, wired, cellular) per participant
Scenario: Jaylen monitors the CEO's town hall
Pinnacle Corp’s quarterly town hall is live with 2,000 attendees. Jaylen monitors RTA:
- Overall quality: 97% good streams ✅
- Flagged participant: CIO Lisa has 8% packet loss — Jaylen checks her connection: she’s on hotel WiFi in Singapore
- Flagged subnet: Melbourne floor 3 showing elevated jitter — Jaylen contacts the network team to check the floor switch
- Action: Jaylen messages Lisa privately: “Your WiFi may be causing audio issues — try switching to your mobile hotspot”
Without RTA, Jaylen wouldn’t know about these issues until post-event complaints.
Call Analytics (per-user)
Teams admin center → Users → select user → Meetings & calls
Each user’s call history shows detailed session data:
- Call summary: duration, participants, quality rating
- Advanced tab: audio quality metrics (packet loss, jitter, latency, round-trip time)
- Device tab: headset/speaker/microphone used, driver version
- Network tab: connection type, local/reflexive IP, VPN detection
Who can see what
| Role | Access Level |
|---|---|
| Teams Communications Support Specialist | Call analytics for specific users (other users anonymised) |
| Teams Communications Support Engineer | Call analytics for ALL users (full data) |
| Teams Administrator | Full access to all analytics tools |
🎬 Video walkthrough
Flashcards
Knowledge Check
Jaylen receives complaints about poor call quality from the Melbourne office but CQD doesn't show any location-based data. What's the MOST likely cause?
During a live town hall, Jaylen notices one participant has 12% packet loss. He wants to identify the participant and their connection type. Which tool should he use?
Next up: Usage, Alerts & Diagnostics Tools — reporting on Teams usage, configuring alert rules, monitoring guest access and team lifecycle.