Let’s talk about your situation: Is your telephone system ready for an upgrade? Do you believe that the right way to go might be to integrate your phones with Microsoft Teams, to get all your communications and collaboration in one place?

Yet somehow time passes, and the upgrade never gets off the ground?

Relax. First, this is normal. When you deal with telephony, you suddenly realize there’s a lot to learn that can easily send the project down on the “To Do” list. Second, CGNET has brief, inexpensive consulting services that can get you through the wall to the finish line with no more pain.

We break the telephone upgrade into three short projects. At the end of each stage, you have the knowledge to decide whether to continue.

Stage One

The first stage determines the upgrade’s cost and feasibility, the necessary service options, and how the upgrade will fit with your infrastructure. This involves collecting information from everything from how costs would change, to what features users want, to how your network and firewall would support connections to the cloud and the phone network. We give you a comprehensive report of our findings.

Microsoft is moving its real-time communications in Skype for Business into Microsoft Teams. We can base the upgrade either on Teams or Skype for Business, as you prefer.

At this point, you decide whether you’re ready for a pilot project. If so, we help you run a pilot.

Stage Two

The second stage, the pilot program, covers all the details to get your pioneers up and running, from choosing the pilot group, through determining what numbers and features they need, to assigning licenses, porting extensions, configuring and activating their numbers. Then we test the network, test calling to the PSTN, let the pilot run and document the test results and user comments.

During the pilot, we work with the users to stimulate their adoption with known effective change management techniques.

At this point, you’re ready for the “Go, no go.” Decision about rolling out to the whole organization.

Stage Three

If the decision is “Go!” we send out a project update to the organization. We then assign extensions to the production group, configure users and features and activate the numbers. We test calling within the network and to and from the PSTN and document the results. We develop change management materials and training sessions, deliver the training and follow up with “at the elbow” advice. We gather user feedback and provide further advice until everybody is up and running.

Finally, we help develop the operational roles necessary to keep the system maintained and everybody happy.

Time and Money

You can choose any or all the stages described above. We can run and price them separately or together.

Every organization is a little bit different in what it needs and how quickly it can adopt a new technology. We look forward to meeting with you to develop a project customized to what you want. Contact us at d.callahan@cgnet.com.