From Copper to Cloud

Upgrading U-M’s telephone service to the modern age

Telephone Service Upgrade Project

The Team

Andy Palms - Executive Director, ITS Infrastructure (Service Sponsor)

Hideko Mills - Director of Business Services, ITS Infrastructure (Service Owner)

Pradip Patel - Director of Data Engineering, ITS Infrastructure (Service Owner)

Eric Brannon: Senior IT Project Manager

Siba El Dallal: Lead Performance Support Analyst

Tracy Fischer: ITS Service Center Supervisor

Clarence Gipson: Infrastructure Project Manager

Deborah Gowan: Director of Informations Systems

Terri Griffis: Operations Manager

Charles Haggerty: Service Center Consultant - NOC

Kat Hanchon: Marketing & Communications Specialist

Joel Iverson: Senior Marketing & Communications Specialist

Andy Rosenzweig: Business Planning Manager

Jared Walfish: Information Systems Manager

Bridget Weise Knyal: Senior Performance Support Analyst

Karen Winston-Brown: Infrastructure Service Order Manager

Michelle Zuelke: Senior Performance Support Analyst

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The Copper

�…lots and lots of copper

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The Copper

Existing infrastructure is from 1984.

• The breakup of AT&T in 1982 fostered telephone privatization �and new technologies.
• U-M installed a Private Branch Exchange (PBX) and upgraded �all twisted-pair copper cabling �on all U-M campuses.
• Every location was able to have its �own number on a system U-M controlled.

The Copper

• The wall full of cotton candy looking masses in this photo are copper wires that connect campus, a.k.a. “The Last Mile.”
• The system was extremely robust and the core of it has not gone down since it was turned on in 1985. However, some components are beginning to fail.

Even More Copper

The Original Plan

In 2019, funding was approved to upgrade the phone system with two main goals:

• First, modernize the back-end equipment on premise.
• Most desksets would have remained.
• There would have been very little change in the service model.
• Second, slowly shift to softphones and the cloud.

COVID-19 Flipped the Project Priorities

• Initial project plan had to pivot when the university went remote.
• Placing and receiving U-M phone calls became a challenge.
• Faculty and staff made huge changes in how they taught class, held meetings and worked remotely.
• Telephone upgrade changed to implement softphone solution first while also upgrading the necessary on-premise infrastructure.
• Eliminate the need to maintain on premise equipment.
• Upgrade to a system designed for the modern workplace.
• Enable a U-M phone number to work anywhere rather than one location

The Cloud — a Faster Move to Softphones

U-M faculty and staff needed:

• The ability to place and receive U-M calls anywhere in the world.
• To use any device including their computer, cell phone or desk phone.
• To make the transition as easy as possible by using an existing application.

Why a softphone?

• A softphone application enables the above.
• Mobile. Flexible. Personal. Consistent. Easy to manage.

Investigating the Cloud

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Technical Requirements

Drafting

OSP

Assignments

TriplePlay

ISP

Billing

ServORD

Provisioning

Location Data

Elevator

PSAP-DPSS

Voicemail

DNS/DHCP/NTP

Directory

Toll Fraud

Threat Intel

Monitor Sys.

Tracking System

IMS/Mobile

Federal Regulations

State Regulations

PSAP- National

Emergency

Research Connect

NRENUM

Transport

IP Call Control

Digital Call Control

Com-Carrier

Operator

Conference

Contact Center

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Benefits of Bring Your Own Carrier/

Bring Your Own Private Branch Exchange (PBX)

• Own the infrastructure.
• Agility to switch to a different vendor quickly, if needed.
• Manage and maintain the routing.
• Reliable emergency phones maintained by existing on-premise infrastructure.
• Retain maximum flexibility for routing calls internal to U-M, or external.
• Keep all of our options.

Faster Transitions

Bring Your Own Carrier (BYOC) and Bring Your Own PBX (BYOP) allow us:

• Directory number control
• No need to port or re-port phone numbers as they transition from on-premise to the cloud.
• No mediary with outside carriers
• Zero dependency on any outside vendor to transition �individual numbers.

Nearly 4,900 lines have transitioned since the transition started.

(as of 11/17/2022)

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Selecting a Good Fit for U-M

• Requests for Proposal issued early 2020.
• Pilot program with campus stakeholders was created to test vendors’ software.
• Vendor selected after considerable feedback from pilot users:
• which features they liked.
• what they needed while working from home or office.
• Contract signed with Lumen and Zoom in May 2022.

Challenges and Solutions�

Learning from the process and �what we discovered

Reimagining Enterprise Telephone Service

Planning and Process

Unraveling 35 years of traditional service and moving to Zoom takes some time.

• Maintaining traditional service.
• Completely changing process for Zoom service.
• Retooling our process of implementing phone service.
• Change management is critical to reframing.

Challenge: Meeting Everyone’s Needs

• U-M is diverse, and different units have different telecommunication needs.
• Provide a customizable solution to make the out-of-the-box configurable.
• Configure what is necessary and seamlessly meet people’s needs across the campuses.
• COVID-19 had shifted everything we knew prior to the pandemic.

Solution: Campus Partnerships

• Partnered with campus stakeholders through Advisory Group.
• Invited Unit Ambassadors (UAs) to help the process run smoothly.
• Engaged Service Request System (SRS) users in their departments to ensure phone numbers submitted for transition.

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Challenge: Integrating with Existing Services

• Logical to integrate the phone service with an existing �service like Zoom.
• Integration isn’t as simple as it seems on paper.
• Two major services (video conferencing and telephone) from one product, managed by two different service managers.
• Example, both groups have to understand operational implications of software upgrades to both services.

Solution: Collaboration

• Zoom Phone provides a better UX with an existing service.
• Working closely with service managers.
• Nurturing vendor relationships, which benefits end-user experience.
• Establishing clear roles and responsibilities to deliver good customer experience.

Challenge: Collecting ALL the Information

Gathering the right info for transitions:

• Who is using this line?
• What type of line is it?
• When does this line need to transition?
• Where is the line supposed to be?

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Uniqnames and location information are critical data for transition to softphones.

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Solution: Collaborative Data Collection

• Campus partners provide data through the Service Request System (SRS).
• Transition rate is directly dependent on data input.
• Requires more assistance from submitters than other rollouts or upgrades.

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Collaborative Data Collection

Units verify and enter data needed for the transition in the Telephone Upgrade Request Form, e.g. phone numbers, uniqnames and locations.

Dashboards and Reports

Dashboards and reports keep submitters apprised of whose number is transitioning when, and allows them to pause transitions if necessary.

Communicating with Ambassadors & Users

150+ Unit Ambassadors, representing units on all three campuses

• Bi-weekly UA meetings and open office hours
• Communication Toolkit - project information, knowledge base articles, copies of notification emails, next steps, checklists and more.
• Ask questions and get feedback to make sure we’re meeting the needs of end users.
• We’ve spent hundreds of hours developing processes based on user feedback.

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Zoom Phone Transition Communication Cadence

**Emails go out almost daily for this project.

Leveraging Migration Automation Effectively

Internal and vendor migration automation improved speed.

Migrating 2000 lines from existing service �to Zoom Phone:

• Manual provision and deprovision �would take 11 days
• Automated it takes about 5 minutes.
• increased volume transitioned �per week.
• more accurate information.

SRS Automation Accomplishments

• Automated validation provided �a way for SRS submitters and �Unit Ambassadors to pause.
• ~4,900 lines moved to U-M �Zoom Phone since July 2022.
• 535 resolved tickets since July 20.
• 25% decrease in tickets after implementing automation functions in September 2022.

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Challenge: Disposal of Old Desksets

How do we safely and effectively dispose of 25K devices over a 2-year period?

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Project will make ~25,000 desk phones obsolete.

• Huge volume of equipment.
• Phones are mostly without value, not worth the cost of trying to resell.

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Solution: Creative Exceptions

Collaborated with Property Disposition on unique, simplified surplus-materials process.

• Individual itemization not required; express ramp to recycling step.
• Exception to normal requirement to data-sanitize every device with storage.

Worked with Environment, Health & Safety on streamlining aspects of e-waste disposal.

• ITS provides shared drop-off location; units can arrange their own collection boxes.
• Project covers cost of e-waste recycling.

These special arrangements are for this project only—anything else goes through established property disposition and e-waste procedures.

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Collecting Old Phones

• Units have deployed 28 “Gaylord” boxes across campus for collecting used desksets.
• Two boxes have been collected so far, with more than 1,000 pounds of telephones recycled as e-waste.

New Challenges Evolve into New Solutions

Future Phone Functionality

• Desksets offer a more traditional user experience and are necessary for some daily functions of the university.
• Emergency phones will be connected via analog lines
• Elevator phones
• Blue light and red box emergency phones
• Area of Rescue phones
• SMS/texting allows for an even more complete U-M service and further enable people to not use their cell phone number for U-M business

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Big and Ongoing Thanks

• Unit Ambassadors
• TAs
• ITS Tech Shop
• SRS Users across campus
• Everyone who has helped

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Questions

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Resources to Learn More

Project Website

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Service Website

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Don’t take just our word for it.

“The system is easy to use and readily accessible from my Zoom account. The transcribed voice message via email is of good quality.”

- Dr. Jan Hu, dean of the School of Dentistry

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“ITS has been a great partner on this transition and has been very transparent about what problems they are able to address at present, what they are ready to tackle next, and what they have yet to solve. They have also been willing to pivot and make changes to processes when they didn't work for units. There are still hurdles to overcome, but thus far the users that have migrated have had a smooth transition and a positive experience.”

- Andrea Bolash, director of institutional research with the College of Engineering �and Unit Ambassador for the project

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Tableau Dashboard

Challenge: Process & Distribute Headsets

• Ensure each Zoom softphone-only customer has a choice of headset.
• Needed processes for distribution, communication, verification.

Solution: Inter-Campus Partnerships

• Partnerships with Tech Shop, Dearborn ITS and Flint ITS.
• Developed process to allow purchase through the Tech Shop website.
• Partnered with Flint and Dearborn to create headset distribution process on those campuses.

Tech questions - Pradip

• Data privacy - location data tracking - who has it and how are we protecting it in cloud
• Pradip will provide some data -
• Compliance - PCI, HIPPA, - See Zoom on IA site
• How to protect - UM has a policy - FOIA as a public institution
• Upload for Music on hold - admin only. Copyright and reputational
• Worked with the vendorEmergency Call Routing
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