As your organization prepares to migrate from Cisco Broadsoft (SIP) to Teams Direct Routing, there are a number of items that will work a little differently with Microsoft than they have with Cisco Broadsoft. This guide will highlight the key changes that you should be aware of and the options available.

Users & Features

UC-One

Clients will no longer need their UC-One licenses with Evolve when converting to Teams Direct Routing. Your Microsoft Teams desktop, web & mobile clients serving as your new soft phone. Having multiple softphones deployed creates signaling issues and service interruptions, which negatively effect the user experience.   

Unified Messaging

The Unified Messaging license will also go away as clients move to Teams. All users converting to a Teams Direct Routing seats will have their Broadsoft voicemail box and unified messaging service disabled in favor of the Microsoft voicemail box, which includes voicemail to email & voicemail transcription by default.

Call Recording

Users with the ability to initiate (On Demand) or Pause/Resume call recordings today will lose that ability after converting to Teams. Clients looking to continue recording non Teams calls should be updating user profiles to Always On.

Faxing

Evolve's vFax product is NOT supported with Teams Enterprise Voice. vFax utilizes a Broadsoft Unified Messaging mailbox which is disabled and replaced by a Microsoft voicemail box when migrating over to Teams. Clients will need to upgrade to Cloud Fax, which offers much more feature/functionality for individual users and groups or leveraging traditional analog ports for their faxing needs.

Phone Numbers

All users converting over to Teams are REQUIRED to have a 10-digit phone number assigned to their profile. Teams has no concept of extensions, so if users were built as "extension-only" in OSSmosis, they will need to be rebuilt with a new DID. Whether the client has phone numbers available in reserve or needs Evolve to order new numbers, project managers will need to be made aware of which users need to be changed prior to converting. 

As a Customer Admin, what are my next steps before cutover?

Technical Preparation

• Voicemail:  Have users save voicemails from the voice platform as they will no longer have access to their mailboxes
  • Have users record their voicemail message in MS Teams or use the Microsoft voice transcription for a greeting
• Call Coverage:  Any user that answers calls for another user should setup read this document and setup the Microsoft Call Delegation feature
• Call Handling and Devices:  Review the Microsoft documentation for common call handling and devices
• Call Flow Settings:  Users must setup their call flow to ring their Teams application and optional devices for X number of seconds before going to voicemail or a cell phone.  Users that do NOT setup these features will get the defaults from Microsoft.  They have options to ring cell phones or download the Microsoft Teams mobile app.
• Microsoft Teams Mobile App:  Make sure your users download and use the MS Teams mobile app for Teams Voice and collaboration.  Ensure they can get signed in.

Phones

Teams Enabled vs SIP Handsets

Evolve's Teams Direct Routing solution supports Teams Enabled Handset as well as your existing SIP handsets. All users will have their primary Device Type updated to the Microsoft Teams Voice Trunk. Those clients looking to re-use existing SIP handsets will have those devices converted to a Shared Call Appearance on the user's profile.

For an optimal user experience Evolve recommends deploying Teams enabled handsets. They run an Android O/S with the native Teams application.  The phones support calendar sync, call history, speed dials, access to voicemail, and easy call handling, with a similar look & feel as the desktop and mobile applications.

Should you decide to use SIP handsets with Teams, there will be a few features that will not be support by Microsoft. They include:

• Busy Lamp Field
• Ad-Hock Conferencing
• Push to Talk
• Voicemail Button
• Call Reporting in Teams for calls made from SIP device to PSTN

Additionally, please be aware that Teams to Teams calls will NOT ring your SIP handset. Those calls do not leave the Microsoft network, so Broadsoft does not know the call is happening. Conversely, outbound calls from your SIP Handset to the PSTN will not be reflected in your Teams presence, since it does not hit Microsoft at any point. 

Common Area Phones

A common area phone is typically placed in an area like a lobby, kitchen, break room, or conference room.  Common area phones are associated with a user account that's assigned a Microsoft Common Area Phone license.  This license removes functions from the handset like voicemail, calendar, and call logs.  It does allow for directory access.  Phone status is always available. Phone is always logged in even after re-boot.  Client can not log out the phone without entering the Phone's Admin Password.  Phones still support MS Teams Hot Desking feature as well. 

Microsoft offers a Common Area Phone (CAP) license for use with Microsoft Teams and an M365 Phone System license.  The CAP license does not include the ability to dial out to the PSTN.  For that you need to purchase our Teams Essential seat to place outbound calls (PSTN).

Click HERE to review our Common Area Phone Overview

Location Services

Call Routing

Just as you have today with Broadsoft, Microsoft offers their own Auto Attendants & Call Queues (Hunt Groups) to assist with call routing throughout the organization. Although both platforms offer similar feature/functionality, we have identified a few advantages to using Microsoft over Broadsoft in regards to call flows. To review Microsoft's Planning Guide for using auto attendants & call queues click HERE 

MS Call Queues provide added functionality over Broadsoft Hunt Groups with their ability to determine the status/presence setting of an agent. This lack of visibility led to many challenges when implementing hunt groups with Teams and ultimately pushed us to recommend Call Queues in place of hunt groups for any hunt group that consists of ALL Teams based users.

-  For a more in-depth comparison of Hunt Group/Call Queue functionality click HERE 

-  Setting up a MS Call Queue

MS Auto Attendants offer some out of the box features that would be considered add-on services to Broadsoft. These features include the ability to create menu prompts by using text-to-speech (system-generated prompts) and enabling speech recognition to accept voice commands for hands-free navigation. 

-  Setting up a MS Auto Attendant

Even though your queues/attendants are built inside of Microsoft, phone numbers will continue to be managed via the OSSmosis Admin portal and forwarded to "pilot" numbers assigned to these Microsoft endpoints. This will make it easier to manage Business Continuity settings in the event that Microsoft experiences downtime or an outage. 

e911

With an increase in the number of Teams users working from home during the pandemic, it is the client's responsibility to notify Evolve IP and perform a relocation when offices are moving and/or employees are moving from one location to another to maintain current addresses for e911 OR when employees or devices move locations update the addresses for E911 directly in the OSSmosis portal. 

Network & Devices* 

VoIP Gateways 

Edgemarc Voice Gateways are only required if there are 25 SIP handsets or more on the Broadsoft platform.  They may still be deployed for fewer handsets, but not required. 

POE Switches

Network POE Switches will support Teams-enabled phones and SIP phones directly connected to Broadsoft. Evolve IP is currently running Teams phones using POE in our production environment. Power supplies and accessories for phones are sold separately and recommended for small offices and those working from home. 

*Gateways & switches are NOT required for MS Teams enabled devices (Phones, Conference Equipment, etc). Only those clients who will be retaining SIP Devices (Handsets, ATA's, SIP Algo Units) will need to keep this equipment in place. 

Office 365 

Clients with their Exchange mailbox hosted on premise will have their voicemails operate a little differently with Teams. In these scenarios, users will receive the email notification of a voicemail, but the Teams client will not show there is a voicemail. It will just display a message saying "We can't get your voicemail right now". Click HERE for additional information.

In addition to voicemails, the following items will not work when mailboxes are hosted on premise:

• The ability to configure connectors, bots or tabs
• Access to contacts stored in the user’s mailbox
• Legal Hold on private chat messages (stored in hidden folder in Exchange mailbox)
• Teams retention policies will not apply

Advanced Support

Adding Evolve IP as a Microsoft CSP

If you are not aware, clients can have more than one Microsoft Certified Service Provider (CSP).  Evolve IP requires clients to add them as one of their CSP providers, even if we don’t sell licensing.​ In doing so, Evolve IP will be able to perform Tier 2 and Tier 3 Advanced Support in the client’s Microsoft 365 tenant if the client has purchased the Evolve Teams Office 365 Enterprise Voice Advanced Support license on their sales order. Becoming one of the client's CSPs will also allow Evolve to open tickets with Microsoft on their behalf. ​