The below page is designed for a view that paints a better picture when considering the move from your current Evolve IP unified communications solution, powered by Cisco applications and Open SIP handsets, to a Microsoft Teams Direct Routing solution
We aim to provide conceptual changes along with application and feature differences.
Strategy
As businesses Evolve in 2021 and beyond, they are making the move to Microsoft Teams for collaboration and virtual meetings because of a few reasons, such as: cost, bundled with other Microsoft services, rich collaboration experience, integration with other Microsoft products (AD, Outlook, SharePoint, and more), strong and still developing (soft) phone system features, new and improving Teams devices from 3rd party vendors, and rich integrations into other applications (SFDC, JIRA, Flows, etc).
Change Management and Communication are the TWO most important aspects for organizations making the conversion to Evolve Teams Enterprise Voice using Microsoft Direct Routing. The experience will be different from call handling, to integrated products, devices and traditional phone features, through the mobile experience. You need to cover-communicate and prepare for such a change.
As a result of this high-level strategy change to now make Microsoft Teams the forefront of your users' applications, here are the top items to consider that will be different for the user experience along with preparation.
Questions and Key Comments
Let’s Focus on those that want MS Teams / Collaboration first to further qualify:
1.You are making the Microsoft Phone System your primary phone system from our current system without porting numbers! Features and solutions will change!
2.SIP phones? Optimal options- soft phone only or Teams phones
- If SIP Phones are leased today, please understand that we only sell Teams phones. It is a business financial decision made by a financially, healthy, privately owned company.
3.SIP Phones should only be used for DR or in situations where our “hybrid” approach is best where some users are Calling first and others are Collaboration first.
| Customer Initials | Current UC Solution powered by Cisco (BEFORE) | New UC Solution powered by Microsoft Teams (AFTER) | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Calling is more important than Collaboration. Physical phones are extremely important to user experience. | Collaboration is more important than calling. Soft phones and headsets are more important for users to work anywhere. Physical phones are expensive and becoming an option for only certain users in the business. | ||
| Microsoft 365 Admin Center - 90% of Evolve IP customers have purchased Advanced Support for the Evolve Teams Voice solution. This Advanced Support option means you, the customer, want us to be a Microsoft CSP partner for you. We can sell you the M365 licensing and fully support you for your Microsoft needs, however, if you already purchase licensing thru a Microsoft CSP, you can add Evolve IP as a CSP partner support your account and open tickets with Microsoft on your behalf. | Microsoft 365 Admin Center - The Teams Direct Routing configuration requires both GUI proficiency and PowerShell to first configure the system then to handle moves, adds, and changes. Evolve IP is a Gold Microsoft CSP partner and extremely experienced in all aspects of Microsoft product delivery and support. | ***Customer choose to partner with Evolve IP as their preferred CSP because we are an extension of their IT staff to handle all of the licensing, provisioning, and support that from along with a Microsoft solution. | |
Open SIP Phones - Flexible configuration options; busy lights; line sharing, paging thru phones; intercom and more. With using SIP Phones in a Teams environment, you can expect to lose some traditional functionality. Handset Upgrades - If the SIP phones remain in place and they are upgraded models, then these products still apply. Sidecars - Some users have the sidecar attachment to their deskphone to expand the amount of users for presence and speed dials. That functionality can remain with SIP phones, but will be a better experience with Microsoft Teams app and soon new sidecars. | Teams Phones - Best user experience because it's the MS Teams application running on your desktop and mobile device, now on a physical device. New features in 2021 allow for the device to "re-register" to an Open SIP platform when MS Teams is down. This is good now and forward looking with high availability features! Sidecars - Early vendors (Yealink and Poly) did not offer sidecars. Now they are getting ready to hit the market. Evolve IP believes that the Teams App is always #1 for presence and speed dials. ***Product Roadmap: In Q2 2021, we will be offering sidecars for Teams devices to provide a similar experience for users that had them with SIP deskphones. | ***CHANGE MANAGEMENT. Expect that if your users relied on buttons for blinky lights and line sharing that they will need to learn and get used to using the Microsoft delegation functionality for call presence and management. Cutover with SIP Phones - Customers deciding to use SIP phones with Teams Direct Routing can expect and should plan for added time at the time of cutover. Each phone needs to be factory reset by a person on-site touching each phone, then the phone needs to be rebooted and configured for the new setup. Plan 20 minutes per phone to be safe. Home Users (IMPORTANT) - These users will need to provide their IP address to have it whitelisted by Evolve IP at the time of conversion as this is a security measure so we don't allow any user to connect to our network and pull down their full phone configuration files. | |
Open Seating or "Hoteling" - A traditional phone system feature that allows a phone to sit idle and only call 911 until a user logs into the phone. This requires Broadsoft voicemail and added licensing. A timer can be set that if a user does not log out, the phone can default back to login screen. | Open Seating or "Hoteling" - Requires businesses to have Teams enabled devices. All of these phone natively support hoteling because any user can sign in and out of a phone. The feature is included with the phone system license. All internal and PSTN calling will ring the handset when a user is signed into the phone. | ||
| Cisco Broadsoft Call Center - This functionality can remain in tact when migrating over to Microsoft Teams. However, there are some adjustments users will need to make because if an agent presses the decline button in Teams or signs out of the application entirely, they may "answer the call with their voicemail". See notes to the right. | Cisco Broadsoft Call Center - Think of Microsoft Teams as your soft client to the phone system only. Agents and Supervisors should only use the application for answering and ending calls. All other functions of the Call Center should be performed using our Unity Agent application or buttons on the phone designed to interact with the Call Center directly. Agents and Supervisors MUST make some setting changes to their voicemail and call termination in Microsoft Teams to ensure that unanswered calls overflow by design in the call center and are not "picked up" by the agent's voicemail. Also, if an agent is on a Teams to Teams call, their presence will not show up in the call center queue and they may be presented with a call. | ***CHANGE MANAGEMENT. You need to update guides, communicate and work with your call center leadership for best practices. You are adding the Microsoft phone system into the technology equation. While the call center can remain in tact by design, the use AND settings agents and supervisors need to make will ensure proper call flow for your customers. | |
| Evolve Contact Suite - This functionality can remain in tact when migrating over to Microsoft Teams. However, there are some adjustments users will need to make because if an agent presses the decline button in Teams or signs out of the application entirely, they may "answer the call with their voicemail". See notes to the right. | Evolve Contact Suite - Think of Microsoft Teams as your soft client to the phone system only. Agents and Supervisors should only use the application for answering and ending calls. All other functions of the Contact Center should be performed using our Evolve Contact Suite application designed to interact with the Contact Center directly. Agents and Supervisors MUST make some setting changes to their voicemail and call termination in Microsoft Teams to ensure that unanswered calls overflow by design in the contact center and are not "picked up" by the agent's voicemail. Also, if an agent is on a Teams to Teams call, their presence will not show up in the contact center queue and they may be presented with a call. | ***CHANGE MANAGEMENT. You need to update guides, communicate and work with your contact center leadership for best practices. You are adding the Microsoft phone system into the technology equation. While the call center can remain in tact by design, the use AND settings agents and supervisors need to make will ensure proper call flow for your customers. | |
| CDR (Phone System) Reporting - Customers have been using OSSmosis for CDR reporting for years, this will be expected to continue uninterrupted. Please see the note to the right. | CDR (Phone System) Reporting - You have now added the Microsoft Phone system into the technology equation. As a result, there is one caveat to CDR reporting. Evolve IP does not capture the internal Teams to Teams calling in the reports. In addition, there are added reports from Microsoft in the Teams Admin center to enhance the offering from Evolve and capture those Teams to Teams calls. | ***Please review our article on Teams Voice Reporting Guide for more information on the Evolve IP options and further details on the Microsoft reports. | |
| UC-One Application - Designed for IM, Group Chat, and Basic Collaboration | MS Teams Application - Designed for Advanced collaboration with persistent chat history, meetings up to 300 participants with video, channels for projects and topics; voice built to easily work with business and home firewalls without changes and more | Businesses will be thrilled with the soft client from Microsoft not requiring a deeper level of SIP settings, firewall openings, and ports activated for the voice portion to work! | |
| Common Area Phones - These phones commonly used in lobby areas, kitchens, break rooms, and more are accessed by any employee to call internally, 911, and usually very little outbound calling. These can remain SIP phones with now downside calling internally or externally. | Common Area Phones - These phones can be converted to Teams Common Area Phones (CAP) with appropriate Microsoft licensing so they can be used for Direct Routing. Businesses deciding to convert CAP phones are doing so because they want to be "all-in" on one platform. Along with Meeting Room devices, it means all phones and end points, at the customer's discretion, register to the MS phone system primarily. | ||
| Meeting Room Devices - Many Evolve IP clients have deployed audio only devices in conference rooms using standard Polycom or Yealink SIP units. They can remain in place untouched OR convert over to Microsoft Common Area licensing. | Meeting Room Devices - Keep your existing SIP devices in place or consider alternatives with additional licensing. The Teams solutions will provide easy to use devices and a better user experience. 1- Small USB devices for huddle spaces that users connect their laptops. 2 - MS Teams certified meeting room systems with audio and video. | ||
| WAN / LAN Management - Evolve IP has sold, leased, and managed switches, routers, firewalls, Internet bandwidth, and SD-WAN solutions. These may all remain in place in tact. Customers should evaluate if there is a driver for change or keep in place. Evolve IP can continue to manage these solutions with MS Teams Direct Routing. | WAN / LAN Management - There is no equivalent on the Microsoft side. In 2021, Evolve IP will evaluate the newer offering by Microsoft and their partners for the need and benefits of Survivable Branch Appliances for larger offices where a WAN outage customers still want intra-office dialing. | ||
| VoIP Gateways - Evolve IP deployed Edgemarc VoIP gateways to have a device on-site to proxy traffic to our platform and gather statistics for troubleshooting and effectuate better call quality. For businesses moving to MS Teams, we recommend that if you keep 10 SIP devices at your facility that you leave this in place, we actually require it for locations with 25 or more devices because we care about call quality. Customers may have also purchased Voice Continuity- we recommend this remain in place if the VoIP Gateway remains in place. | VoIP Gateways - There is no equivalent on the Microsoft side. Instead, we require customer to review and plan for the network recommendations provided by Microsoft for Teams Direct Routing. Please click this link: Planning for Microsoft Teams Direct Routing You WILL need to address your firewall traffic, IP addresses, and port openings to allow for Teams phones. |
User Features and Solutions
Here is a list of common features, solutions and 3rd party applications that Evolve IP customers utilize today that need to be: #1 considered for user behavior changes (it operates differently and maybe better, but provides the same business outcome like call coverage), #2 it needs to be replaced with a similar or better solution.
| Customer Initials | Current UC Solution powered by Cisco (BEFORE) | New UC Solution powered by Microsoft Teams (AFTER) | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Voicemail - Simple voicemail with the ability to email the .wav file to users. Not integrated with user's mailbox- the user must delete the voicemail in both places. | Voicemail - More advanced with transcription and tied to a user's exchange mailbox to easily delete from email or within the Teams app and the ability to change playback speeds. | ||
| vFax - Tied to a user's voicemail box in the feature above. Simply inbound-only .tif file image of the fax message. No outbound. Without voicemail, a user cannot have vFax. | Cloud Fax - 3rd party service from Evolve IP. Provides inbound and outbound faxing with different packages for heavier users. Provides the ability to push drivers and executables using AD. Supports PDF and other file types. | ||
| Receptionist Application - Receptionists handling calls for the main numbers for locations need to be able to easily transfer calls to the right person. Our current application provides just that along with accurate phone presence for all users when they are busy on a call, available, or in DND mode. | Receptionist Application -Product Roadmap | ***Product Roadmap: | |
| Call Recording On-Demand - Provide the ability for users to manually start a recording, then provide the ability to pause and resume the recording. The user can stop the recording using at any time. These were buttons on SIP phones. | Call Recording On-Demand - There are 2 options: 1) Use a 3rd party application like Unity to provide access to the CR On-Demand features. 2) Set the users to always record all calls and no access to buttons to pause / resume recording. Feature on Evolve IP product roadmap for 2H 2021 to provide a web app inside of MS Teams with these controls. | ||
| Phone Numbers - Users had the option for only being an extension from a main number or having their own personal direct dial number. Many users at Evolve are built as "extension-only" with a format xxxxxxxxxx.xxxxx | Phone Numbers - Users must have their own personal direct dial number. This may be published or remain unpublished. Extension-only users will need to convert to have a 10-digit phone number with Teams Direct Routing. Businesses with "extension-only" numbers where the user is simply an extension off of the main number for a location will need a new 10-digit number assigned, even if it remains unpublished. | This requirement for full 10-digit numbers is a requirement from Microsoft to use their phone system product with Direct Routing and not an Evolve IP requirement/limitation | |
Hunt Groups - Ring one or more users in a variety of ring patterns and users answer on their SIP soft or physical device. If a user declines, the call pattern continues. With MS Teams, our voice platform only gets 1 type of event from Microsoft.... answer call. That means if a user presses the decline button or is totally signed out of all Teams apps, it answers the hunt group call with the user's voicemail box (not desired). | MS Teams Call Queue - In nearly all situations, Evolve IP will build your hunt group as a Standard Teams user (at your contracted rate) and point it at a MS Teams Call Queue. The users will then have the ability to sign out of Teams or decline calls and it will not adversely affect the call queue calls. This setup does not require "agents" to sign into queues, not additional licensing from Microsoft. Call queues are included. | There may be some additional nuances when moving from hunt groups to call queues. Evolve IP will work through those with a consultative approach. Please review our article regarding Cisco Hunt Groups with Teams Voice for more info. | |
| Conferencing - Traditionally, this has been audio conferencing only on the Evolve IP platform. This may be removed and the users' dial-in numbers and passcodes would change. | Conferencing - Microsoft offers web-based audio and video calling for every Teams user with up to 300 participants. That means users from any laptop, tablet or smart phone connected to any Internet connection can host or join meetings. If your users would like the added feature of a dial-in number and PIN for participants to access the meeting from traditional dialing on cell phones and desk phones, then customers will need to buy the Microsoft Audio Conference license. | Typical retail Microsoft AC licensing per user is $4/ month. Enterprise agreements, education, and non-profit organizations may get discounts. | |
Premium User No Device / Virtual Extensions / Mobile Only Users - These users were primarily setup so they could have their cell phone ring for calls from the Evolve IP phone system for extension calling, Auto-attendants, and hunt groups. In some cases, they would use an application to generate outgoing calls from the platform, with their business caller ID. They can remain in place for customers where it suits their needs. This will work as expected for DID calling. We caution if these users need to be part of a hunt group or other services. | Mobile Only Teams User - With the new Teams solution, these users all get the Teams mobile app for receiving and placing calls, along with access to their settings. Simply count them as a user in your one of your 3 seats types based on needs (Essentials, Standard, or Plus). Users that enabled and configured Find-Me/Follow-me features would now simply use the mobile app from Microsoft Teams OR set their preferences to ring their cell phone using the Microsoft features. | ||
CRM Integration - For users with CRM integration, provided by either of our partners (Tenfold and Go Integrator), these applications can remain in place and will be billed as a separate line item going forward. You will need either Teams Standard or Teams Plus seat types for this licensing to be added for users. CAUTION - See right notes. | CRM Integration - Keep the Evolve IP solution in place. The CRM integration market is not mature with Microsoft Teams because of the developing APIs. | **CAUTION - For CRM Integration with Microsoft Teams, it works flawlessly with users getting direct dial calls or calls from auto-attendants and contact centers. However, when moving users over to Microsoft Teams call queues, it breaks the integration logic. Consult with your Solutions Engineer for options. | |
| Contacts - Historically, customers tend to think of contacts as being those from your enterprise corporate directory. With Microsoft Teams, that will continue, but it's pulled from Teams using Active Directory or Azure AD. Users will find a person in chat, seed dial lists, or create their own contacts manually. So, it's all there, but just in different locations in Microsoft Teams. | Contacts - It's important to note that now, by default, in addition to the points made to the left, Microsoft Teams natively integrates with user's Outlook contacts. So, when a user is in the Calls section of Teams, they can search contacts which pulls from their personal contacts in Outlook for ease of use. |
Applications and Features Expected to Function as Designed after the Conversion
- Unity Desktop
- Analog Lines for Fax Machines and Overhead Paging