As we’ve previously communicated in OnCampus, ITS is upgrading the campus phone system and moving faculty and staff to using Microsoft Teams for calling. This change only affects extensions assigned to employees. We are not taking away physical phones in conference rooms, classrooms, or public areas. 

On Thursday, Jan. 14, 2021, the Microsoft Teams client will replace traditional handsets and allow faculty and staff to make and receive telephone calls using their office extension from anywhere they are connected to the Internet. 

To prepare for this change, we distributed headsets to all full-time employees before Thanksgiving. If you are encountering any issues with the headset you received, please review the user guides linked from ITS Recommended Phone Headsets (FAQ). If that doesn’t resolve your issues, or if you did not receive a headset in campus mail, please submit a Telephone Issue request.  

On the day of the change, we’ll send everyone an email outlining how to get started and the first steps you need to take to set up your voicemail and begin using Teams for all your calling. 

If you’d like to learn more ahead of this change, please review the resources we’ve curated at Using Microsoft Teams for Phone Calls and Voicemail (How-to). These include links on specific elements of calling and voicemail usage and a video overview.

You’ll be able to make calls from either the Teams desktop or mobile app and email notification of voicemail messages is automatically set up with Microsoft Teams calling. 

We’ve also created a FAQ page that we’ll keep up into the beginning of the spring semester at drake.edu/its/teamscalling/. If you don’t see your question there, please share it with us at drake.edu/its/giveitsfeedback/ and we will contact you with a response and add it to the FAQ when appropriate.   

— Chris Mielke, ITS