Avaya to Teams Phone Migration: A Step-by-Step Guide

Companies are moving from on-premise Private Branch Exchange (PBX) systems to cloud-based Unified Communications as a Service (UCaaS) platforms.

For many businesses, this means going through a major move from older Avaya systems to Microsoft Teams Phone. A strong business case is the main reason for this shift.

But aside from this, it also comes down to a large drop in the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO).

A successful Avaya to Teams migration is not a sure thing. However, here’s how you can move from Avaya to Teams Phone, one step at a time, the right way.

When to Consider Migrating from Avaya to Teams Phone?

Deciding to switch away from an Avaya PBX that you have used for a long time is not just a tech update. It is a planned business choice. It points to a big change in how modern companies look after their communication, teamwork, and IT spending. 

An Avaya to Teams Phone migration lines up with a large, industry-wide trend that is changing the market.

This change also points to a basic shift in how money is planned. You move away from an on-premise Avaya system.

This is a Capital Expenditure (CapEx) with big costs up front. You move to a subscription-based service like Teams Phone.

It also changes the IT department's job from looking after physical equipment to supporting business services in the cloud. It means businesses no longer have to look for staff with special Avaya skills. 

Benefits of Migrating from Avaya to Teams Phone

Migrating from Avaya to Teams Phone system gives several major benefits that build a strong business case.

The advantages create a good return on investment and can change IT from a cost center into a business partner that actively contributes to company success.

1. A New Financial Model and Appealing TCO

The most direct benefit in an Avaya to Teams migratio is a big drop in the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO). This happens by getting rid of costs for physical hardware. You also cut out ongoing support contracts and complicated software licenses. 

• User feedback often points out that Avaya's model is very expensive. It is known for having many small, ongoing costs. The Teams Phone model gathers these costs into a more predictable subscription. 
• One study found that a migration led to savings of $1.5 million over three years. 
• Avaya's own marketing points out potential savings of $15 to $21 per user per month. This is done by letting customers use lower-tier Microsoft licenses.

2. Better Employee Performance and Connected Workflows

Besides saving money, an Avaya to Teams Phone migration opens up major improvements in productivity. It does this by combining communication tools into a single platform. Microsoft Teams brings together calls, video meetings, chat, and file sharing. 

• This gets rid of the need to keep switching between applications. This is a process that slows down users of separate systems. The platform's real strength is its deep, built-in connection with the Microsoft 365 suite. 
• This includes Outlook, SharePoint, and OneDrive. This creates a connected way of working that older systems cannot keep up with. 

3. A Path for Continuous Improvement

Picking Microsoft Teams is a planned move. It matches a company’s communications with how work will be done in the future.

• As a cloud-based platform, Teams gets continuous updates. It also receives regular feature additions. 
• By making the Avaya to Teams migration, businesses are putting money into a platform that will grow with their future business needs.

4. Proven Success with Real-World Numbers

The expected benefits of migration are backed up by many successful company projects that show concrete data.

• International Finance Firm: A global company with 55,000 employees moved from a mix of Avaya, Cisco, and Skype systems. By using a third-party automation platform, the company was able to cut down its total project time by 50%.
• North American Manufacturer: A business with 4,000 employees moved its phone service to Teams Phone in less than three months. The project came in at one-third of the expected budget. This quick rollout brought about major ongoing cost savings.
• AbbVie: The global biopharmaceutical company successfully moved 30,000 users to Microsoft Teams from its older Avaya systems. This showed the platform’s capacity to grow for large companies.

Step-by-Step Plan for Your Avaya to Teams Migration

A successful Avaya to Teams migration is a complicated project. It requires a clear plan, a strong technical base, and often, the help of experienced partners. For most large companies, a direct, all-at-once cutover has a high amount of risk.

The recommended method is a phased, hybrid process. This involves a time of coexistence where Avaya and Teams run at the same time. 

Phase 1: Assessment and Planning

A smooth Avaya to Teams migration begins with a full understanding of the current system and a clear vision for the future. This first stage is a planning activity to define what success will look like for your business.

• Define Goals and Success Measures: Clearly state the business aims of the migration. Identify key work situations that will benefit and define the measures for success, like cost savings, user satisfaction, and call quality.
• Conduct an Environment Inventory: Perform a complete review of the current Avaya system. This must include a detailed count of all users, needed features like hunt groups, all physical equipment including analog devices, and current carrier contracts.
• Perform a Network Readiness Assessment: This is a required and important step. The assessment must go beyond bandwidth checks to look at key Quality of Service (QoS) numbers like latency, jitter, and packet loss across the entire network path to the Microsoft 365 cloud.
• Analyze Feature Gaps: Using the inventory data, conduct a detailed feature comparison analysis to find any important function gaps between Avaya and the standard Teams Phone feature set.

Phase 2: Design and Pilot

With a clear plan ready, the next step in your Avaya to Teams migration is the direct technical work of designing the new environment and testing it with a sample group of users.

• Design the Teams Environment: Build the new Teams Phone environment. This includes setting up management rules for team creation, naming standards, and security procedures.
• Configure PSTN Connectivity: Set up the chosen connection model. This could be setting up certified Session Border Controllers (SBCs) for Direct Routing or starting with an Operator Connect partner.
• Identify a Pilot Group: Choose a representative group of users for a pilot program. This group should include various user types, like standard office workers, high-volume users, remote workers, and managers, to get thorough test results.
• Execute the Pilot: Deploy Teams Phone to the pilot group and run a structured test plan. Collect detailed feedback through surveys and interviews, and closely watch call quality to improve the full deployment plan.

Phase 3: Deployment and User Acceptance

The last phase in Avaya to Teams migration is about the people and process parts of the change. This means moving users in groups, making sure they are prepared, and creating processes for ongoing management.

• Carry Out User Training and Change Management: Create a detailed plan for user acceptance and change management. This is an important, non-technical factor for success. It should include a communication schedule and specific training materials for different user groups.
• Begin Batched Migration: Start migrating users from Avaya to Teams in planned, manageable groups according to the deployment schedule that was improved during the pilot phase.
• Coordinate Number Porting: Start the phone number porting process for each group of users. Be aware that this can be a complicated process that sometimes takes months in certain areas. It needs careful work with carriers.
• Give Extra Support: Give a period of heightened, dedicated support for each user group right after the Avaya to Teams migration. This will quickly solve any problems, build user confidence, and support a smooth transition.

Phase 4: Monitoring and Optimization

After deployment, the Avaya to Teams migration enters a continuous cycle of improvement. The new solution must be watched to follow key measures and improved to support long-term success.

• Set Up Performance Monitoring: Use a third-party monitoring solution to proactively check call quality, network health, and the end-user experience. This lets IT solve problems before they widely affect users.
• Gather Continuous Feedback: Create an ongoing feedback system to understand how users are adapting and to find chances for more improvement and training.
• Decommission Older Systems: As user groups are successfully moved and settled on Teams, begin removing the related Avaya hardware and canceling support contracts. This is necessary to get the expected cost savings.

Handling Common Issues in an Avaya to Teams Migration

During an Avaya to Teams migration, teams will run into problems. Proactively finding and dealing with these key difficulties is necessary for success. 

Not paying attention to them can lead to project delays, budget overruns, and unhappy users. The most common issues have to do with feature gaps, older device incompatibility, and the special needs of high-volume users.

1. The Feature Parity Gap: What You Might Lose

A frequent comment from users is that standard Microsoft Teams does not have many of the specific phone features that are normal in mature PBX systems like Avaya. While Teams takes care of the basic calling needs for most office workers, specialized functions may be missing.

• Specific Gaps: Often mentioned gaps include less developed versions of advanced call handling features like hunt groups and call pickup groups. Another big gap for customer-facing teams is the lack of built-in SMS/MMS support. Some users have said this is a reason to call off the project.
• Management Method: The key is to carry out a careful feature assessment and mapping activity during the planning phase. This means listing every feature currently used. You then have to decide how it will be recreated in Teams. For features with no direct substitute, a plan must be made up. This could be user training on new ways of working or using a third-party application. Managing user expectations with clear communication is very important.

2. The Legacy Device Dilemma: Phones, Faxes, and Pagers

Maybe the most overlooked difficulty during an Avaya to Teams migration is dealing with the large number of non-computer devices connected to the old phone system. 

• Incompatible Devices: A full inventory will turn up devices that cannot be directly moved. This includes analog devices like fax machines, credit card terminals, door entry systems, and postage meters. Many older Avaya IP phone models are also not compatible with Teams protocols.
• Management Methods: Working through this calls for a multi-part plan that must be budgeted for from the start. For necessary analog devices, an Analog Telephony Adapter (ATA) can be used to change the signal to one Teams can use through Direct Routing. 

3. Supporting High-Volume Users: Receptionists and Admins

While the standard Teams client works for the average user, it is often called inefficient and awkward for roles that handle many calls, such as receptionists and executive assistants. The user display is not designed for the quick call transfer, parking, and line monitoring that these users need to be productive.

• Different User Experiences: This issue shows that a single plan for everyone will not work out. The user base is split into standard users with basic needs and specialized users with advanced needs. If the needs of the specialized group are not met, their unhappiness and vocal complaints can damage the Avaya to Teams migration’s success.
• Management Method: The answer is to give these users a tool built for their job. Third-party attendant console applications from vendors like Landis Technologies connect directly with Teams. They have a user display designed for receptionists. These consoles have features like multi-line visibility and one-click transfers. They make a big difference and fill in an important function gap in the standard Teams experience.

Teams Phone is Not a Complete CCaaS Solution

A major misunderstanding can cause project failure and large budget problems. This is the idea that Microsoft Teams Phone can be a direct replacement for an Avaya system with contact center functions. 

It is important to understand that while Teams Phone is a capable Unified Communications as a Service (UCaaS) platform, it is not a complete Contact Center as a Service (CCaaS) solution.

Standard Teams Phone does not have the advanced functions needed by modern customer service departments. These missing features include:

• Omnichannel Routing: Teams does not manage customer contacts across voice, email, web chat, and SMS in a single, combined agent queue.
• Advanced Routing: Standard call queues cannot carry out true skills-based routing, which sends a customer to an agent with particular knowledge.
• Workforce Engagement Management (WEM): Teams has no built-in set of tools for quality management, call recording analysis, or agent scheduling.
• Deep Analytics: Its reporting is centered on call quality and user activity, not the operational measures like average handle time or first-call resolution that contact centers depend on.

Microsoft's plan is not to compete in this area. Instead, it is to support a strong network of certified CCaaS partners that connect with Teams. Because of this, businesses with formal contact centers must see this difference. They must budget for a certified third-party CCaaS solution as a required part of their migration plan.

Partner with Entrans for Your Avaya to Teams Migration

The migration from an Avaya system that has been in place for a long time to Teams Phone is a complicated project. An Avaya to Teams Phone Migration comes with many potential problems.

These can range from technical connection difficulties to user acceptance challenges.

Luckily, at Entrans, we’ve helped partners migrate from legacy CCaaS platforms like Avaya to cloud-based solutions like Genesys or Teams. Having worked with both Fortune 500 and Fortune 200 companies.

Also! Did we mention we launched our own AI agentic platform from scratch in under 6 months?

Want to see what we can do for you? Book a free consultation call with our team!

Avaya to Teams Migration: Frequently Asked Questions

1. Is an all-at-once cutover migration a good idea?

No, for most large companies, a direct, all-at-once cutover comes with a high amount of risk. The overwhelmingly recommended method is a phased, hybrid process. This means a time of coexistence where the Avaya system and Microsoft Teams run at the same time. This allows for a slow and controlled migration of users in manageable groups. This helps keep business operations going.

2. What is the biggest technical prerequisite for migration?

The single most important technical prerequisite is a complete network readiness assessment. Moving to Teams Phone will greatly take up more bandwidth and calls for more than just a simple speed check. The assessment is required. It must look at key Quality of Service (QoS) measures like latency, jitter, and packet loss. 

3. Can we reuse our current Avaya hardware?

In most cases, no. Most older Avaya IP phone models do not work with Microsoft Teams' protocols and cannot be reused. However, one key piece of equipment that may be reusable is Avaya's Session Border Controller for Enterprise (ASBCE). Version 8.1.1 and later is certified for Direct Routing with Microsoft Teams. 

4. How do we deal with E911 compliance in Microsoft Teams?

Following federal laws like Kari's Law and the RAY BAUM's Act is a legal and moral necessity that needs careful planning. Teams deals with 911 calls differently than a traditional PBX, where a phone is connected to a fixed location. Compliance calls for setting up dynamic E911 services within Teams to correctly identify a caller's location. 

5. How do we support receptionists and other high-volume users?

The standard Teams client is often called inefficient and awkward for jobs that call for constant call handling. The best practice is not to make these users adapt to a poor tool, but to give them one made for their job. The solution is to use a third-party attendant console application that connects with Teams.