VOIP Transitions

 

I&ITS is working with the CAO’s office for a university wide transition to a Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) phone service in order to modernize, standardize, and reduce operating expenses in UTM’s current telecommunications environment.

The implementation phase of the project will continue in January, 2019, ending by September, 2019. Some of the key savings that will be realized by moving during this time period are as follows:

        - Avoiding increased monthly prices of existing and future Bell Centrex landlines potentially coming in late December 2019

        - Reduced voicemail costs

        - Transition costs that will be incurred for migrations outside of the University of Toronto (U of T) migration period

As part of this project, I&ITS will work with stakeholders in each department to identify and transition from Bell Centrex lines to VoIP. This will be done in conjunction with BroadConnect Telecom (BCT), U of T’s VoIP vendor, and U of T’s Telecommunications department. We will also be working to eliminate any unused numbers on the UTM campus.

If you would like to learn more about VoIP technology and features, as well as get answers to some commonly asked questions, we invite you to go to http://telecommunications.utoronto.ca/1208-2/1-voip-faqs/.

 

Contact Us

For any additional enquiries or concerns you may have, please do not hesitate to contact the IT Service Desk at helpdesk.utm@utoronto.ca, Tel. 905-828-5344 or submit a ticket on Service Now.

 

Frequently Asked Questions

Q. What would it look like for my department on the day of the migration?

• There will be a one-day downtime for lines moving to VOIP. On the scheduled day of your department’s phone migrations, Technicians will come in the afternoon and setup the new handsets and remove the old handsets. We do not know or have control over when the porting will occur, but it usually happens in the mornings. The morning after all lines should have completed porting and technicians will re-visit and validate the transition.]

Q. Do I need to be there when it happens?

• Staff and Faculty do NOT need to be present for the transition to occur.

Q. What about my voicemail?

• All lines will come with Voicemail and will need to be setup by pressing the ‘Voicemail’ button and entering the default password: 654123. Any existing voicemail will be deleted.

Q. Will there be a guide for the new equipment?

• A pamphlet will be provided for each VOIP device setup.

Q. What will happen to my old phone?

• We will take away your old phones as those can no longer be used.

Q. Will there be training provided?

• Training sessions for staff and faculty are on Fri 15/02/19 and Thu 18/04/19 in DH2070 from 12:00pm to 1pm, drop in attendance.
• TBD: Fri 07/06/19, details on room and location to be provided 1 – 2 weeks in advance.

 

Transitions Timeline

	Start	Finish
Transition and Clean up	Mon 21/01/19	Fri 21/06/19
Recreation and Athletic Wellness Centre	Mon 21/01/19	Thu 24/01/19
HCC Phase 1	Thu 24/01/19	Thu 24/01/19
CCIT Phase 1	Thu 24/01/19	Thu 24/01/19
Business Services	Thu 24/01/19	Fri 25/01/19
Office of the Dean	Mon 28/01/19	Thu 31/01/19
Accessibility	Thu 31/01/19	Fri 01/02/19
Biomedical Communication	Mon 04/02/19	Wed 06/02/19
CSE	Wed 06/02/19	Wed 06/02/19
Conference Services	Wed 06/02/19	Fri 08/02/19
Economics	Mon 11/02/19	Fri 15/02/19
Geography	Tue 19/02/19	Fri 22/02/19
HR	Mon 25/02/19	Wed 27/02/19
CPS	Wed 27/02/19	Fri 08/03/19
Parking and Transportation	Mon 11/03/19	Mon 11/03/19
Career Centre Phase 1	Mon 11/03/19	Tue 12/03/19
MCS	Tue 12/03/19	Thu 14/03/19
SHRL Phase 1	Wed 14/03/19	Fri 15/03/19
IMI MGT MMPA	Mon 18/03/19	Fri 29/03/19
Tri-Campus Sexual Violence Prevention Centre	Mon 08/04/19	Mon 08/04/19
Career Centre Phase 2	Mon 08/04/19	Mon 08/04/19
IEC	Mon 08/04/19	Tue 09/04/19
Anthropology	Tue 09/04/19	Fri 12/04/19
Student Affairs	Mon 15/04/19	Tue 16/04/19
Career Centre Phase 3	Tue 16/04/19	Wed 17/04/19
SHRL Reserved	Wed 17/04/19	Tue 23/04/19
Visual Studies	Tue 23/04/19	Fri 26/04/19
Biology	Mon 29/04/19	Wed 15/05/19
CCIT Phase 2	Mon 20/05/19	Thu 23/05/19
OVPP and CAO	Thu 23/05/19	Fri 24/05/19
Psychology	Mon 27/05/19	Tue 11/06/19
HCC Phase 2	Tue 11/06/19	Thu 13/06/19
MAM	Thu 13/06/19	Wed 19/06/19
ELC	Wed 19/06/19	Thu 20/06/19
Career Centre Phase 4	Thu 20/06/19	Thu 20/06/19
Campus Police	Thu 20/06/19	Fri 21/06/19

 

 

ServiceNow – New Service Portal

 

UTM Information & Instructional Technology Services (I&ITS) is proud to announce the launch of the new UTM Service Portal on Wednesday, August 16th. It will be a single point of contact to request services from multiple campus providers.

 

The initial launch will include I&ITS, Police Services (Door Access & Physical Security only) and Facilities. All this will be available from a single, convenient location, found at https://uoft.service-now.com/utm.

 

There have also been significant changes and improvements to how I&ITS services are requested. As well as a clean and user-friendly interface, you can look forward to the following:

 

• Designed for use on desktop and mobile devices.
• New search feature – use keywords to quickly find all I&ITS services and knowledge articles.
• Revised service catalogue – submit requests for specific services. The service catalogue has been reorganized and re-labelled based on campus community input and best practices for higher education institutions.
• "Get Help" – quick and straightforward access to report an issue or ask a question.
• New knowledge base – introducing self-help and how-to articles to save you time and resolve common issues. Look for the knowledge base to grow over time as new knowledge articles are developed.

 

Once the new Service Portal goes live on August 16th, we encourage you to drop by the IT Service Desk for a complete demo. We'll be happy to walk you through all of the various improvements and changes so you can easily request the services you need, when you need them.

 

Please note that after August 16th, links to existing ServiceNow tickets that you have in old emails from the ServiceNow system will no longer work. If you need to check on active or closed tickets, make sure to go to your service catalogue home page.

 

Stay tuned for more project annoucements, as well as the launch a new Facilities request system.