Retiring a Third-Party Phone Layer for Native Teams Calling

The challenge

Calling ran through a third-party system bolted onto Teams. It worked, but it meant paying for and administering a layer that Microsoft now provides natively — and routing calls to a workforce that is rarely at a desk was harder than it needed to be.

Where we came in

The existing setup was not broken, which is exactly why it had survived. The question was not whether it worked but whether it still earned its cost and complexity, and once Teams Phone covered the same ground natively, it no longer did.

What we did

• Ported the main line and a direct line away from the previous provider to Microsoft
• Configured Teams Phone licensing and the resource accounts behind call routing
• Built an auto-attendant that routes callers to the right person's mobile directly
• Deployed and provisioned desk handsets for reception
• Completed on-site installation and user training

Where it landed

• Calling runs natively on Teams Phone with the intermediary layer removed
• Numbers were ported without loss of service and the auto-attendant routes to mobiles
• Closed out on a completed migration-and-training milestone