Dynamics 365 Contact Center Adds Admin-Governed Pinned Queues and Contacts for Transfers

Tracked under AI at Work roadmap ID 576875 for Web and Worldwide (Standard Multi-Tenant) cloud instances, the capability reached general availability in June 2026—specifically listed as June 5, 2026 in Microsoft Learn’s 2026 Release Wave 1 documentation (following an earlier May 30, 2026 target reported by M365 Admin ). While Microsoft positions the update as a way to remove the hassle of tracking multiple targets so teams can deliver faster support, its real operational value for IT administrators lies in how it blends centralized, business-unit-scoped governance with personal representative shortcuts.

How Pinned Contacts and Queues Work in Practice​

The feature splits pinned destinations into two distinct tiers within the communication panel’s Pinned tab (which applies across Dynamics 365 Contact Center embedded, standalone, and Dynamics 365 Customer Service environments):

• Administrator-pinned items: Configured centrally by admins, these targets always appear at the top of the list. To ensure representatives cannot accidentally remove critical escalation paths, administrator-set pins are greyed out in the representative interface and cannot be unpinned.
• Representative-pinned items: Service representatives can curate their own personal favorites during active calls by searching for an external contact or queue and selecting the pin icon in the right corner. These appear below the administrator-pinned items and can be pinned or unpinned by the user as needed.

Where do these shortcuts show up? According to Microsoft Learn’s administration documentation, pinned favorites appear in active voice and chat consult and transfer scenarios, as well as during outbound calls. Specifically, they sit at the top of the queue destination experience during a consult or transfer to a queue, and directly below the dialer when consulting or transferring to an external number or using the outbound dialer.

Section Summary: Pinned targets give representatives top-of-list access to key queues and external contacts during voice, chat, and outbound calls, with centrally locked admin pins taking visual priority over user-managed personal pins.

Step-by-Step Administrator Configuration​

Enabling and scoping these pins requires either the System administrator or Omnichannel administrator role. Rather than burying the controls in individual workstreams, Microsoft placed the configuration inside the Copilot Service admin center.

According to Microsoft’s release plan and administration documentation, administrators set up and govern pins using the following workflow:

1. Enable the Pinning Experience: Navigate to Customer settings > Manage pins > Admin pins to enable pins so that representatives can pin their contacts and queues, and to manage central pins.
2. Pin Queues Centrally: Under Customer settings, select Manage for Manage pins. Under Queues, select New, search for and select the target queue in the pane that appears, and optionally assign a business unit to restrict which representatives can see it.
3. Pin External Contacts Centrally: Under External contacts, select New, search for an existing contact or create a new one, and optionally select a business unit to scope visibility.
4. Save Changes: Select Save and close to publish the pins.

Crucial Governance Detail: Pay close attention to the business unit field. Microsoft Learn explicitly notes that if an administrator does not specify a business unit when creating a pinned queue or external contact, all representatives across the organization can see that pinned item by default. In multi-department or multi-tenant-style enterprise deployments, leaving that field blank will expose specialist queues or external partner numbers to every agent on the floor.

Section Summary: Admins manage pins in the Copilot Service admin center under Customer settings, where they must assign business units to prevent new queue or external contact pins from becoming visible to all representatives by default.

The Hidden Gotchas: Why a Pinned Queue Might Not Appear (or Can't Be Edited)​

Based on general industry knowledge of enterprise contact center rollouts, helpdesk tickets inevitably spike when a new UI shortcut behaves differently across channels. Microsoft Learn’s documentation for the communication panel reveals several strict runtime rules that determine when pins appear and when they are locked:

Broader Context: Pins Are UI Shortcuts, Not Routing Overrides​

Why does distinguishing between a UI shortcut and underlying routing logic matter? Because pinning a queue only speeds up finding the destination—it does not bypass Dynamics 365 Contact Center’s consultation, transfer, capacity, or queue-Filtering rules.

When deploying pinned queues and contacts, administrators should verify how they interact with the rest of the Channels > Consult and transfer configuration in the Copilot Service admin center:

• Prerequisite Consult and Transfer Toggles: Representatives can consult with peers and transfer to queues by default, but advanced workflows—such as Consult to queue (where unified routing selects an eligible representative within a configured countdown timer) and Direct transfer to another representative—must be explicitly toggled on by an administrator.
• Empty Queues and Operating Hours: Pinning a queue does not guarantee someone is home. Microsoft Learn warns that if a representative transfers a conversation to a queue that currently has no representatives, the application automatically sets the conversation status to Closed. Furthermore, if operating hours are configured on a queue, transfers will only succeed if the destination queue is operational at the time of transfer.
• FetchXML Runtime Filtering: For organizations that need stricter guardrails than simple pins, admins can enable FetchXML filtering rules under Channels > Consult and transfer (covering Consult to queue, Transfer to queue, Consult with representative, and Transfer to representative). These queries evaluate dynamically at runtime—such as restricting visible targets to supervisors in the representative’s own business unit or using a custom mapping table tied to {queue.queueid}—so only eligible queues or users appear.
• Keyboard Command Alternatives: Power users who prefer the keyboard over clicking through tabs can still use slash commands in the communication panel messaging area, including /c or /4 to view the consult user list, /caq to search queues in the consult window, /cq or /5 to invoke consult to queue, and /t, /tq, or /2 (plus /3 for direct queue transfer) for transfer lists.

Section Summary: Pinned items accelerate destination selection, but administrators must still manage queue operating hours, staffing levels, and optional FetchXML filters to prevent accidentally closed conversations or unauthorized transfers.