IT Professionals,
We are excited to let you know that starting early next year we will be migrating our voice over IP system from the legacy Microsoft Skype for Business product to Microsoft Teams Voice. With this move, our clients will be able to take advantage of new calling and collaboration features tightly integrated within the Microsoft 365 platform.
As we approach this upgrade, we would like to engage the IT Pro community to help make this process as easy and successful as possible. Your support and assistance are critical and we appreciate your partnership.
With the move to Microsoft Teams Voice, unfortunately the vast majority of our existing phones will no longer work. However, this gives us an opportunity to take a fresh look at what equipment best suits the needs of our clients.
Over the last two years, we have seen many changes in the way people work. Meetings have moved from in-person to virtual and participants have invested in headsets and other equipment in support of being more mobile. The result is less demand for a traditional phone that was once on every desk and in every household. Additionally, our data show that a substantial number of desk phones are plugged in but are rarely if ever used.
As we move forward, we would like to only replace those phones where necessary and provide our clients with alternative solutions if they don’t already have one (e.g., headsets). Our expectation is that we can substantially reduce the number of phones purchased and deployed.
We have a few requests:
- In preparation for this change, please make sure that everyone in your department has MS Teams deployed on their devices and their profile is set up.
- Review this dashboard, and assess your unit’s phone needs. Recover unused phones/devices for us to pick up before the end of the year.
As we get further along in the process, we’ll communicate guidance on how to order new headsets and/or phones for your department, as well as direct you to IU-specific MS Teams Voice training resources.
–IT Community Partnerships on behalf of UITS Telecommunications