Telephone Service Migration Project

In July 2023, after consultation with and endorsements from the CSULB President and Executive team, the Division of Information Technology began a campus-wide project to implement a new telephone system.  Over the course of a phased rollout, the traditional phone system and equipment will be replaced with Microsoft Teams Calling, which uses the existing Teams platform to make and receive telephone calls on a computer or mobile device.  The project is designed to retire the University’s 40-year-old telephone system and replace it with a modern, feature-rich, reliable infrastructure to enhance the campus’ voice communication service.

Employees are being migrated to the new phone-calling system in phases by college and/or campus unit during the Fall 2023 semester and throughout Spring 2024. In the weeks before your college or campus unit migration, employees will receive targeted email and other communications with information about what you need to do to prepare for your migration, where to find information about Teams Voice Calling, and how to get help.

 Things to Know & How to Prepare

What to Expect

During the time your campus phone number is ported (migrated) to the Teams Voice system, it cannot receive or be used to conduct phone calls, and no voicemail messages can be recorded, accessed, or queued.  Please plan on having no access to your campus phone number and voicemail for approximately one hour on the morning of your migration date.

Using Teams Voice

  • Make a test call & check sound & microphone settings for your devices
  • Set up your Voice Mail
  • Update Location Settings for Microsoft Teams if you're working remotely
  • Find Help & Learn More about Teams Voice

For those who rely on specialized/complex campus phone services such as call queues, call groups, common/shared phones, and so on, this section will include helpful information.  For now, check out:

 

The CSULB Teams Calls implementation is designed to bring together the University voice communication service that’s integrated with campus’ Teams conferencing system as well as the campus’ email and calendaring services.  The project is intended to advance key information technology goals for the campus as outlined in Beach 2030 and Beach 2030 Strategic Plan.

Current Environment and Challenges

Telephone service remains a mission-critical communication component for the campus community. For more than 40 years, the University has been well-served by a traditional telephone system. The pandemic, however, catapulted CSULB into adoption of new technologies that have altered the way employees communicate and work.  Our campus workplace has changed from a static set of on-campus office locations with desktop computers and physical telephones to a dynamic assortment of remote and on-campus workspaces outfitted with laptops, an assortment of mobile devices, and software-based communication resources.

Accordingly, the existing telephone system and its associated funding basis no longer functions as the most practicable option to serve our campus community, and an alternative voice communication infrastructure has become necessary.

Solution

The optimal phone-system replacement for our campus, endorsed in consultation with the University President and Executive Team, is Teams Calls. The calling system provides a modern cloud-based telephony service with a range of features, readily integrates with the Teams system currently available to all employees and requires no additional hardware or software installations. Updating the campus’ phone technology likewise presents the opportunity to recalibrate the existing CSULB telephony funding model to increase its transparency and provide greater alignment with technology usage and service advancements. 

Benefits

The new Teams calling service will benefit the university, its colleges, and departments by providing a feature-rich, reliable messaging infrastructure to enhance voice communication. The application’s technical foundation, Microsoft Teams, integrates with campus email and calendaring functionality, includes ample storage, fulfills critical university security safeguards, provides anti-spam filtering capabilities, and supports access for individuals with disabilities. It provides:

  • A modernized voice communications infrastructure for the University
  • A unified system to facilitate quick voice communication for employees on and off campus
  • A global phone number list within the system that’s readily available to employees
  • Higher education best practices for voice communications security, accessibility, compliance, and disaster recovery
  • Up-to-date telephone user interface