Western Continues Adoption of Microsoft Teams Voice

As part of the university’s project to retire its unsupported, legacy phone systems, we are migrating our individual and department phone numbers to Microsoft Teams Voice.  This new technology service makes it possible to answer your work phone from anywhere you do your work, on campus or remote.

More importantly, Microsoft Teams is part of Western’s Microsoft 365 platform, integrating traditional phone calling with our email, calendars, cloud file storage, and other modern applications.   Taken together, these advancements are transforming communication and collaboration at Western, positioning us to better serve our students in a new, digital-first world.

The project team is on track to have all individuals and departments migrated to Teams Voice by the end of the Fall 2020 term including all Skype for Business users migrated by the end of October 2020.  We have one migration date at the end of October focused on migrating the remaining Skype for Business users.  Three migration dates are scheduled in November and December 2020.  Any department or individual who has not yet been migrated will be notified of their migration date soon.

To date, over 1,400 phone numbers have been migrated to Teams Voice, including some of our highest-traffic numbers (Admissions, Financial Aid, the Student Health Center, and the Campus Operator, just to name a few).  Once Teams Voice has been rolled out to all departments, the project will begin working on migrating other phone services, such as elevators and emergency phones, with the goal of fully decommissioning the legacy phone system on campus by December 2021.

If you have any questions about the adoption of Teams Voice, please see the ATUS support article at https://atus.wwu.edu/kb/teams-voice, or email Deborah Frost, Project Manager, at dfrost@wwu.edu.