As previously communicated in OnCampus, ITS is upgrading the campus phone system and moving faculty and staff to using Microsoft Teams. On Thursday, Jan. 14, 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. This change won’t affect physical phones in conference rooms, classrooms, or public areas.

ITS staff will be moving groups of phone extensions throughout the day, so you may not be on Teams calling until the evening. We will post progress updates several times during the day to our communication channels including our news feed at drake.edu/its and on the IT Service Portal at service.drake.edu/its.

We distributed headsets to all full-time employees last year. If you experience any headset issues, please consult the user guides linked from ITS Recommended Phone Headsets (FAQ). If you need further assistance, please submit a Telephone Issue request.

On Jan. 14, you’ll receive an email outlining how to get started along with the first steps you’ll need to take to set up your voicemail and begin using Teams to make calls.

There are links to ITS-curated resources at Using Microsoft Teams for Phone Calls and Voicemail (How-to) and Using Advanced Calling Features in Microsoft Teams (How-to).

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/.

— Chris Mielke, ITS