Turbocharging telephony on Microsoft Teams Phone: Fast, accurate and efficient bulk migrations

Microsoft Teams boasts over 320 million active users, yet only 20 million use telephony. Contrast that with the fact that many organizations are still operating on premise telephony (PBX) systems, with a desire to migrate these systems to the cloud, and you can see why there is a pent-up demand for a fast, accurate, and efficient way to facilitate this transition.

One common question we are often asked is how to approach this migration in a way that:

• Maintains the user experience
• Addresses their detailed needs
• Avoids transferring unwanted configurations, and
• Ensures minimal disruption while remaining cost-effective

The answer is bulk automation.

When migrating large groups – for example site-based or regional batches of 5,000 to 15,000 users – a common approach is PowerShell scripting. This method uses a “.TXT/.CSV” input file or similar, containing a list of users and migration details alongside a set of PowerShell commands, all initiated on a local Windows server. While effective in some cases, this comes with significant drawbacks:

• Requires highly skilled Microsoft specialists to execute
• Creates security risks due to elevated permissions on the Microsoft tenant
• Is error prone, due to the number of manual steps involved
• Provides limited logging for audits and diagnostics, and
• Offers minimal feedback during the migration process, making it difficult to monitor progress.

Alternatively, organizations invest in automation, such as bespoke tools or self-built tools around Microsoft Power Automate. This takes time and requires both specialist skills and ongoing support. Importantly, with this method, each user is handled as a single thread, perhaps taking a much as two minutes per user migration. Suddenly a 5,000-user batch migration becomes a 7-day (or more!) marathon … and that’s assuming non-stop processing each day with no errors or dropouts along the way.

Bulk automation provides the answer for migrating large batches of users efficiently and seamlessly. Here’s how the process works, and some key considerations when choosing an automated migration tool:

1. Automated data extraction: Information is extracted from the existing PBX for review
2. Configuration optimization: Usage data is applied to identify and remove unnecessary configurations
3. Batch selection: Users are filtered and selected as part of the migration batch
4. Configuration mapping: Data is mapped from the legacy system (e.g., Cisco) to Microsoft Teams Phone, with non-mappable features flagged for review
5. Controlled loading: The full batch is transferred to Microsoft Teams as an entity, then split into smaller chunks (e.g., 100 users per chunk) for finer control, loading and immediate feedback on the process
6. Respectful migration: Each chunk is processed systematically, including licensing, telephone numbers, voice configurations, and policies. Backoff algorithms prevent tenant overload, while token credentials are refreshed automatically, and retries are initiated during network congestion or failures
7. Comprehensive logging: Every step is logged into an audit trail, ensuring a complete record and identifying errors for correction and replay

At VOSS, we leverage VOSS Migrate to fully automate the steps outlined above, delivering fast, accurate, and efficient migrations without burdening your IT team. What’s more, VOSS Migrate includes an intuitive portal that makes this whole process straightforward and even, dare I say it, enjoyable.

The result? Each user migration typically takes seconds – a significant improvement over the two-minute-per-user timeframe highlighted earlier, and with no errors.

If you’d like to learn more about VOSS, VOSS Migrate, or how to run large-scale migrations to Microsoft Teams Phone, please contact us.