We were recently engaged by a large retailing company to streamline and automate the introduction of Microsoft Teams into new teams and locations. The retailer’s old Cisco PBX system is being retired and due to regional expansion, there is a requirement to stand up new sites quickly which includes provisioning auto attendants.

Most of the problems related to the deployment and configuration of auto attendants arise from the need to present a multi-level set of menus to callers, along with call queues to handle the routing and distribution of calls to the respective teams within the site. It sounds simple but it really isn’t without automation.

Microsoft Teams Admin Center provides access to the configuration but requires an administrator with elevated permissions (Teams Administrator role) and access to every setup parameter across the Teams tenant. PowerShell offers a way to run this in bulk but requires expertise in the deployment teams and with maintaining scripts, which wasn’t available to the retailer.

The retailer engaged VOSS to fully template the configuration of new sites into a VOSS automation loading workbook. This allows the rapid configuration of new sites in a standardized way, with the flexibility to adapt certain items such as the site name that was incorporated into the auto attendant messages.

The benefits of this approach include:

• Sites can be deployed quickly, simply, and efficiently
• Each site is standardized but with flexibility to incorporate local requirements
• The need for lengthy testing is minimized, as the retailer gets it “right first time”
• The whole process can be managed by a local deployment team

The deployment is managed by a single VOSS Bulk Loader Workbook. Local parameters are configured on an intuitive input sheet, with a single sheet representing overall configuration defaults for the site. Individual sheets represent the various levels of the auto attendant, and further sheets represent each supporting call distribution queue. Calls are generally distributed to a Microsoft Team for easy maintenance.

Building out each new site is now managed without the need for any elevated permissions, in conjunction with a nominated local site owner, and with all changes fully logged into the audit trail.

Once deployed and in operation, simpler changes can be accommodated by the local site owner through the VOSS Automate portal. This provides access to a subset of the configuration (for example open business hours or holiday periods only) without access to the broader and more complex setup. The VOSS portal also restricts the site owner’s visibility to auto attendants or call queues at that one site, which tightens up security and mitigates risk. Again, any changes that are made are logged in the audit trail.

If you would like to know more about this functionality, or require more information on VOSS, please follow the links below.