monitoring Archives | VOSS Solutions Digital Workplace Management Tue, 14 Apr 2026 11:49:32 +0000 en-US hourly 1 Microsoft E7: AI-powered productivity meets smarter licensing https://www.voss-solutions.com/blog/2026/e7-ai-productivity-smarter-licensing/ https://www.voss-solutions.com/blog/2026/e7-ai-productivity-smarter-licensing/#respond Tue, 17 Mar 2026 08:23:07 +0000 https://www.voss-solutions.com/?p=26115 Microsoft E7: AI-powered productivity meets smarter licensing Author: Tim Jalland, Program Director, VOSS Solutions Tuesday March 17, 2026 Microsoft’s new Microsoft 365 E7 license represents the next step in the evolution of the AI-powered workplace. In simple terms, E7 combines everything [...]

The post Microsoft E7: AI-powered productivity meets smarter licensing appeared first on VOSS Solutions.

]]>

Microsoft E7: AI-powered productivity meets smarter licensing

Apple podcast square iconSpotify square iconYouTube square iconRSS feed square icon

Author: Tim Jalland,
Program Director,
VOSS Solutions

Tuesday March 17, 2026

Microsoft’s new Microsoft 365 E7 license represents the next step in the evolution of the AI-powered workplace. In simple terms, E7 combines everything already included in Microsoft 365 E5 with Microsoft’s expanding portfolio of AI capabilities, including Microsoft 365 Copilot and additional intelligent automation and security features.

For organizations already investing in E5, the new tier offers a relatively small price increase to unlock a powerful layer of AI-driven productivity. For the right employees, that’s a compelling proposition. But the real opportunity isn’t simply upgrading everyone to E7. It’s making smarter decisions about who actually needs it.

What Microsoft 365 E7 adds

E5 already delivers a comprehensive enterprise platform across Microsoft 365, including advanced security, compliance, and analytics capabilities through services such as Microsoft Defender and Microsoft Purview. E7 builds on that foundation by introducing a deeper AI productivity layer.

Through Microsoft Copilot, AI assistance is embedded directly into everyday tools like Microsoft Teams, Microsoft Outlook, Microsoft Excel, and Microsoft PowerPoint. Instead of switching between tools or manually searching for information, employees can use AI to summarize meetings, draft documents, analyze data, generate insights, and automate repetitive work. The result is a more productive digital workplace where routine tasks are accelerated, and employees can focus on higher-value work.

Microsoft 365 E7: The frontier worker suite pricing table

Table from TrustedTech

Does every employee need E7?

While the new license introduces impressive capabilities, it won’t deliver the same value to every employee. AI productivity tools have the biggest impact for knowledge workers who spend much of their time creating content, analyzing information, and collaborating across teams. This typically includes roles such as executives, project managers, consultants, analysts, marketing professionals, and developers. For these employees, tools like Copilot can dramatically reduce time spent on manual tasks and help speed up research, decision-making, and content creation.

However, many employees simply don’t require that level of functionality. Frontline staff, operational roles, or employees who rarely create documents or presentations may see far less benefit from an E7 license. Rolling out E7 across the entire workforce could therefore drive up licensing costs without delivering proportional productivity gains. A more effective strategy is precision licensing—ensuring employees who can benefit from AI receive the right tools, while others remain on the most appropriate tier.

Why license intelligence matters more than ever

As Microsoft continues to expand its AI offerings, license management is becoming significantly more complex.

Organizations need clear visibility into how licenses are being used, which capabilities employees rely on, and where there may be opportunities to optimize. Without this insight, businesses risk overspending on premium licenses that deliver limited value, while other employees may be missing tools that could meaningfully improve their productivity.

In an AI-driven workplace, license decisions need to be informed by real usage data rather than guesswork.

How VOSS helps organizations maximize Microsoft licensing

The VOSS platform helps enterprises manage Microsoft environments with far greater visibility and control.

VOSS enables optimization and usage tracking. Our customers gain detailed insight into how Microsoft licenses and features are being used across the business. This makes it easier to identify underutilized licenses, reassign them where needed, and ensure high-value tools like E7 are allocated to the users who will benefit most.

VOSS introduces stronger governance and control. Policy-driven administration allows our customers to define clear rules around assigning and delegating licenses, preventing uncontrolled license sprawl while maintaining consistent standards across departments and regions.

VOSS provides monitoring and alerts for licensing changes. Microsoft licensing evolves quickly, with new bundles, updates, and occasional deprecations. VOSS monitors these changes, and alerts administrators when action may be required, helping organizations maintain an optimized and future-ready licensing environment.

AI value comes from smart deployment

The introduction of Microsoft 365 E7 highlights Microsoft’s commitment to embedding AI across the digital workplace. For employees who can fully leverage tools like Copilot, the potential productivity gains are substantial. But the real value comes from deploying those capabilities intelligently.

Organizations that combine powerful licenses like E7 with data-driven license management will see the greatest return – empowering the employees who need AI most while maintaining control over licensing costs across the wider workforce.

If you would like to discuss your Microsoft usage in more detail, please get in touch.

The post Microsoft E7: AI-powered productivity meets smarter licensing appeared first on VOSS Solutions.

]]>
https://www.voss-solutions.com/blog/2026/e7-ai-productivity-smarter-licensing/feed/ 0
The hidden cost of Microsoft Teams calling issues https://www.voss-solutions.com/blog/2026/hidden-cost-microsoft-teams-calling-issues/ https://www.voss-solutions.com/blog/2026/hidden-cost-microsoft-teams-calling-issues/#respond Tue, 03 Mar 2026 11:43:26 +0000 https://www.voss-solutions.com/?p=25952 The hidden cost of Microsoft Teams calling issues How proactive monitoring changes the equation Author: Tim Jalland, Program Director, VOSS Solutions Tuesday March 03, 2026 With Microsoft Teams firmly established as the collaboration platform of choice for small, medium, and [...]

The post The hidden cost of Microsoft Teams calling issues appeared first on VOSS Solutions.

]]>

The hidden cost of Microsoft Teams calling issues

How proactive monitoring changes the equation

Apple podcast square iconSpotify square iconYouTube square iconRSS feed square icon

Author: Tim Jalland,
Program Director,
VOSS Solutions

Tuesday March 03, 2026

With Microsoft Teams firmly established as the collaboration platform of choice for small, medium, and large organizations alike – now serving over 350 million active users – its role has expanded far beyond messaging and meetings. For many enterprises, Microsoft Teams Calling has become a critical business service, supporting customer engagement, partner collaboration, and day-to-day internal operations.

As reliance increases, so does the importance of ensuring that Teams Calling delivers a consistent, high-quality user experience. When voice quality degrades or calls fail, the impact is immediate and tangible – disrupting conversations, delaying decisions, and ultimately affecting productivity, customer satisfaction, and revenue.

However, Teams Calling does not operate in isolation. It depends on a chain of interconnected components, including:

  • The user’s device and peripherals
  • Local network and Wi-Fi conditions
  • Corporate infrastructure and connectivity
  • Microsoft 365 and Teams cloud services
  • PSTN connectivity and carrier infrastructure

Each link in this chain must perform correctly. When one element fails or underperforms, the user experiences poor call quality – and identifying the root cause can be complex.

The operational burden of troubleshooting Teams Calling

When call quality issues occur, the most visible symptom is a support ticket. These tickets often require multiple diagnostic steps, cross-team collaboration, and specialist expertise to resolve. This consumes valuable IT resources and increases operational costs, but the true impact extends further.

Many users never report issues at all. Instead, they adapt – tolerating degraded service, avoiding calls, or switching to alternative communication methods. This “silent suffering” creates hidden productivity losses across the organization.

Industry experience suggests that unreported issues may outnumber reported tickets by a factor of five to ten. This means the visible support burden represents only a fraction of the true operational and business impact.

The Teams Calling maturity ladder: From reactive to proactive operations

Organizations typically address Teams Calling quality through a progression of operational maturity.

LEVEL 1.
Native Microsoft tools and analytics

Most organizations begin with the native tools available within the Microsoft ecosystem, using Teams Admin Center data and exporting telemetry into tools such as Power BI for analysis.

While valuable for reporting and trend analysis, these tools are primarily designed for analytics rather than operational monitoring. They help explain what has happened but provide limited capability to detect and resolve issues quickly – and even less ability to prevent them.

LEVEL 2.
Monitoring and reactive troubleshooting

The next step is implementing dedicated monitoring tools designed specifically for Teams Calling environments. These tools provide real-time visibility into call quality across users and locations, alerting when service degradation occurs, detailed diagnostic information across endpoints, networks, and services, and faster identification of root causes.

This significantly reduces troubleshooting time, improves user experience, and lowers the operational burden on IT teams. However, this approach remains largely reactive — responding after users have already experienced an issue.

LEVEL 3.
Proactive monitoring and synthetic testing

Organizations who adopt proactive monitoring tend to be the most mature. Rather than waiting for real users to encounter problems, proactive monitoring simulates user activity across the Teams ecosystem. Synthetic calls and automated tests continuously validate service health, identifying issues before they affect users.

This enables IT teams to detect degradation early, resolve issues before users are impacted, reduce support ticket volumes, improve service reliability and user confidence, and optimize resource utilization. Proactive monitoring shifts operations from reactive firefighting to controlled, predictable service management.

Examples of Proactive Monitoring

VOSS Dashboard navigation showing audio and video quality and reliability trends

Top level quality indicators on a Microsoft Teams Phone service

Typical VOSS dashboards showing connectivity test results and average Latency, loss and jitter.

Proactive monitoring agents in action, illustrating tests running along with key quality metrics over time

Quantifying the business impact: Introducing the trouble ticket tamer

While the operational benefits of proactive monitoring are clear, many organizations struggle to quantify the financial impact. How much do Teams Calling issues really cost? And what is the measurable return on investing in proactive monitoring?

To answer this, Kevin Kieller of enableUC – a recognized Microsoft Teams expert with extensive customer experience – developed the Trouble Ticket Tamer model. This model quantifies the true cost of Teams Calling issues across three key dimensions:

  • Lost productivity from affected users
  • Lost revenue from disrupted customer interactions
  • Additional IT labor required to diagnose and resolve issues

The model compares scenarios with and without proactive monitoring, revealing the potential cost savings and operational efficiency gains.

Explore your organization’s potential savings

The calculator allows you to enter key parameters specific to your organization, such as:

  • Number of Teams Calling users
  • Support ticket volumes
  • IT labor costs
  • Revenue per employee

Based on these four inputs, the tool estimates the true annual cost of Teams Calling issues, the hidden cost of unreported problems, and the operational savings achievable through proactive monitoring. For many organizations, the results reveal substantial hidden costs – and a compelling financial justification for improving monitoring maturity.

From reactive support to proactive service assurance

As Microsoft Teams becomes the primary voice platform for modern enterprises, maintaining call quality is no longer simply a technical concern – it is a business imperative. Organizations that rely solely on reactive troubleshooting incur hidden costs in productivity, support overhead, and lost business opportunity. By adopting proactive monitoring, enterprises can transform Teams Calling operations — improving reliability, reducing support burden, and protecting business performance.

The Trouble Ticket Tamer provides a clear, data-driven way to understand this impact and build a strong business case for proactive monitoring.

Discover more

Explore the Trouble Ticket Tamer calculator to understand the potential impact in your organization, or speak to VOSS to learn how proactive monitoring and analytics can help you deliver a reliable, high-quality Microsoft Teams Calling experience at scale.

Trouble Ticket Tamer v3.0

Trouble Ticket Tamer

Simply enter your data and see how much you could be saving!



Reduction in Ticket Volume
Estimated Savings with Proactive Monitoring
Detailed Summary
Category Without Proactive Monitoring With Proactive Monitoring Savings
Model Development

Input for the detailed model that the Trouble Ticket Tamer is based on leveraged collective expertise of EnableUC, discussions with IT professionals responsible for managing Teams environments, and Microsoft MVPs (most valuable professionals), along with online research.

Sources of Teams Outages and Service Degradation

While creating the detailed model Trouble Ticket Tamer is based on, we identified 11 issue categories that can lead to Teams outages or degraded service. Each has a likelihood, impact scope, and potential for mitigation through proactive monitoring. We rated each category using our expertise, input from IT professionals and Microsoft MVPs, and online research.

Source Description Availability Disruption % Impact Scope
Core services issues The Teams service itself is covered by three different SLAs (Dec 1, 2024) 99.9% for chat and meetings, 99.999% for PSTN calls, auto attendants, and call queues, 99.9% “good” voice quality (VoIP or PSTN) 99.99% 0.01% Broad
Supporting service issues Even if Teams is “up”, occasionally supporting services, such as Active Directory (aka Entra) or MFA (multi-factor authentication) can prevent users from accessing Teams. 99.99% 0.01% Broad
Hardware issues Occasionally individual users experience hardware issues; these could be related to their laptop, headset, or external camera. 99.99% 0.01% Individual
Software issues More often other software running on a user’s laptop cause issues with Teams, either because CPU or memory resources are overloaded or because a video device is “in use” by another application. Pending Windows updates can also cause issues. 99.95% 0.05% Individual
Human error causing configuration issue Typically a misconfiguration, e.g. firewall rule, expired certificate. 99.90% 0.10% Location (or Broad)
Network issues Remote users may experience issues with their Internet provider. Occasionally office-based networks, especially WiFi may encounter problems. 99.70% 0.30% Varies
Security issues Cybersecurity issue - could impact entire org; disruption for security/Comms/PR because of this incident. 99.90% 0.10% Location (or Broad)
Loss of power Power disruptions due to scheduled maintenance or outages. 99.90% 0.10% Varies
Physical infrastructure damage Occasionally an office may be inaccessible due to construction, events, or accidents. 99.98% 0.02% Location
Weather issues Inability to physically access specific site. The United States has seen a 67% increase in major power outages from weather-related events since 2000. In 2023, the U.S. experienced 28 separate weather and climate disasters, resulting in $92 billion in damages. 99.90% 0.10% Location
End-user error/issues Primarily productivity degradation due to user training "blindspots"; no tickets because users don’t realize inefficiency. 99% 1.00% Individual
Mitigation Strategies

Based on our research, our model uses the following default values:

Source Primary Strategy Secondary Strategy Issues Avoided w/ Monitoring
Core services issuesDetect and communicate75%
Supporting service issuesDetect and communicate75%
Hardware issuesReact efficientlyDetect and communicate5%
Software issuesReact efficientlyDetect and communicate5%
Human error (config)Detect and correctDetect and communicate75%
Network issuesDetect and correctDetect and communicate90%
Security issuesDetect and communicate50%
Loss of powerDetect and communicate75%
Physical damageDetect and communicate80%
Weather issuesDetect and communicate90%
End-user error/issues*TrainingOn-going training0%
*While proactive monitoring can help mitigate many issues, in our assessment, end-user errors or issues, caused by not understanding how to use Microsoft Team effectively, can best be mitigated through enhanced initial and on-going end-user training.

Mitigation Approaches

Detect and Correct: Synthetic transactions, utilized as part of proactive monitoring, can notify IT teams of potential issues before they impact end users. For instance, a misconfiguration that leads to an outage outside regular business hours may be identified in advance, allowing IT to diagnose and resolve the problem prior to the next work cycle.

Detect and Communicate: Proactive monitoring may also highlight widespread or location-specific incidents. While some challenges may fall outside IT's direct control, timely communication and suggested alternatives are essential. For example, rescheduling meetings if Teams is unavailable, leveraging alternative platforms such as Zoom or Webex (which many large organizations retain for such contingencies), or recommending temporary remote work arrangements can help mitigate disruption.

To maximize the effectiveness of mitigation strategies, preparatory measures should be undertaken. This includes user training on backup solutions (e.g., ensuring all personnel understand how to use mobile hotspots if their primary network is affected) and drafting preemptive communications for anticipated scenarios such as office closures resulting from weather, power outages, or physical infrastructure failures.

React Efficiently: Certain issues—primarily those related to individual hardware or software—may be challenging to avert entirely. The focus here should be rapid resolution, supported by advance planning such as maintaining an inventory of spare devices and components, as well as implementing proven processes for replacing hardware while safeguarding data and configurations. Organizations may also provide loaner laptops to maintain productivity while permanent replacements are arranged.

The post The hidden cost of Microsoft Teams calling issues appeared first on VOSS Solutions.

]]>
https://www.voss-solutions.com/blog/2026/hidden-cost-microsoft-teams-calling-issues/feed/ 0
From monitoring to mastery: Why governance is the missing link in digital workplace management https://www.voss-solutions.com/blog/2026/why-governance-is-the-missing-link/ https://www.voss-solutions.com/blog/2026/why-governance-is-the-missing-link/#respond Tue, 20 Jan 2026 11:06:37 +0000 https://www.voss-solutions.com/?p=24585 Connecting the Digital Workplace to SBC as a Service Author: Jamie Litherland Solution Manager, VOSS Tuesday, January 20, 2026 As we move into 2026, enterprises are entering a new phase of Microsoft cloud maturity. Most organizations now have strong monitoring foundations in place; [...]

The post From monitoring to mastery: Why governance is the missing link in digital workplace management appeared first on VOSS Solutions.

]]>

monitoring

Author: Jamie Litherland
Solution Manager, VOSS

Tuesday, January 20, 2026

As we move into 2026, enterprises are entering a new phase of Microsoft cloud maturity. Most organizations now have strong monitoring foundations in place; they can see what’s happening across their collaboration environments with more clarity than ever before. Dashboards, performance metrics, and alerting capabilities have become commonplace. But this visibility highlights a deeper truth: Monitoring alone is not enough. To truly optimize and protect a modern Microsoft tenant, organizations need governance – the ability to shape how their environment behaves, not just watch for what goes wrong.

Where visibility ends and governance begins

Monitoring tools excel at telling IT teams when something breaks or drifts out of alignment. What they don’t explain is why these issues occur in the first place, or how to prevent them from recurring. Many enterprises still struggle with inconsistent configuration standards, unclear ownership, rising license costs, and unpredictable user experience across regions. They can see the symptoms, but they lack the overarching structure to prevent them.

This gap is more pronounced in global organizations. With multiple regions, business units, and local administrators, Microsoft 365 environments naturally become fragmented over time. A change made in one region might contradict a global standard; a misconfiguration in one country can introduce risk for the entire organization. Monitoring highlights these inconsistencies, but only governance can eliminate them.

The shift from reactive to proactive operations

True governance transforms digital workplace operations from reactive firefighting to proactive management. Rather than waiting for alerts to signal a problem, IT teams establish rules, guardrails, and processes that keep the environment secure, compliant, and efficient by default.

This shift requires more than dashboards. It depends on having structured processes, aligned roles, clear boundaries, and tools that enforce policy across the entire Microsoft ecosystem. Without governance, even the most advanced monitoring platform acts only as a rear-view mirror.

How VOSS enables governance across Microsoft 365

VOSS closes this gap by enabling our customers to automate and control their Microsoft environments with precision. Instead of treating monitoring as the final step, VOSS integrates it into a wider governance framework that shapes the entire operational lifecycle.

At the heart of this approach is policy-driven automation, which ensures environments behave consistently no matter how large or distributed the organization becomes. Routine operations such as provisioning, configuration updates, and license assignments follow predefined rules – reducing risk while maintaining global standards.

Delegated administration adds another layer of structure. By aligning permissions directly to a customer’s hierarchy, VOSS allows regional teams to act independently without compromising security or consistency. This balance of autonomy and control is critical for large enterprises operating across multiple time zones and regulatory environments.

Hierarchy modeling ties everything together. VOSS mirrors the company’s real-world structure inside the management platform, making it possible to apply policies that align with business reality – not generic templates. Instead of managing one giant tenant, IT teams gain a clear view of departments, regions, subsidiaries, and service boundaries, making governance scalable and intuitive.

The business impact: Cost, compliance, and consistency

When a VOSS customer adopts governance as a core operational principle, the results extend far beyond efficiency. Costs become more predictable as license usage stabilizes and misconfigurations decrease. Compliance risk reduces because only authorized users can make changes, and every action is traceable. And perhaps most importantly, user experience becomes more consistent, with fewer disruptions and greater reliability across the business. 

Monitoring shows what is happening today. Governance ensures what will happen tomorrow. 

illustration with two sides. One with monitoring shows what is happening today and the other side showing Governance ensures what will happen tomorrow

A smarter way forward for 2026

As enterprises continue to scale their Microsoft environments in 2026, the gap between visibility and control will become even more significant. Observability platforms will keep evolving, but without governance they can only react to what has already occurred.

The organizations that thrive in the year ahead will be those that treat monitoring as a component of their strategy – not the strategy itself. Governance is the missing link that transforms insights into action, policies into stability, and complexity into clarity. VOSS gives our customers that capability. We turn monitoring into mastery. To find out more, please get in touch.

The post From monitoring to mastery: Why governance is the missing link in digital workplace management appeared first on VOSS Solutions.

]]>
https://www.voss-solutions.com/blog/2026/why-governance-is-the-missing-link/feed/ 0
VOSS announces Version 25.3 https://www.voss-solutions.com/news/2026/voss-announces-version-25-3/ https://www.voss-solutions.com/news/2026/voss-announces-version-25-3/#respond Tue, 06 Jan 2026 11:54:15 +0000 https://www.voss-solutions.com/?p=24313 VOSS announces Version 25.3  Powerful advances in AI, security, segmentation, and digital experience monitoring for Microsoft 365 and UC solutions  Tuesday January 6, 2026 – VOSS, an award-winning leader in digital workplace management technology, today announced its latest release, delivering major enhancements that help enterprises harness AI to simplify operations, strengthen security, and [...]

The post VOSS announces Version 25.3 appeared first on VOSS Solutions.

]]>

VOSS announces Version 25.3 

Powerful advances in AI, security, segmentation, and digital experience monitoring for Microsoft 365 and UC solutions 

Tuesday January 6, 2026 – VOSS, an award-winning leader in digital workplace management technology, today announced its latest release, delivering major enhancements that help enterprises harness AI to simplify operations, strengthen security, and unlock deeper visibility across their collaboration environments.

The VOSS platform unifies four essential capabilities – automation, monitoring, analytics, and AI – within a single architecture, enabling resilient, multi-vendor automation at scale without reliance on fragile scripts or disconnected tools. This latest release is anchored by significant innovations in AI-driven outcomes, Microsoft security management, Teams data segmentation, and digital experience monitoring – bringing measurable business value to IT and operational teams.

Headline enhancements in VOSS v25.3

VOSS introduces a broad range of operational improvements and new capabilities across the platform. Highlights include:

Wingman AI assistant: Expanded capabilities that drive operational efficiency

VOSS v25.3 introduces significant advancements to the Wingman AI Assistant, designed to reduce administrative effort and accelerate task completion. Key enhancements include:

  • A new agentic chat interface with conversation history, real-time progress indicators, and contextual awareness. Admins can maintain multiple parallel threads – each with its own purpose and context – allowing faster and more intelligent decision-making across complex workflows.
  • Expanded action recommendations that now cover the full administrative menu, enabling admins to trigger tasks rapidly and consistently, reducing training requirements and increasing adoption.
  • Broader data access across monitoring, analytics, and other platform components, allowing Wingman to answer richer, cross-domain queries and generate more meaningful outcomes. This builds on Wingman’s existing on-demand analytics capability, making it even easier for admins to surface insights instantly without navigating multiple tools.
  • A new guided troubleshooting workflow, launching with Microsoft Teams call quality use cases. This structured, intelligent workflow helps admins diagnose and resolve issues more quickly – cutting time to resolution and improving service reliability.

These enhancements transform Wingman into a true operational copilot, reducing workload on administrators, improving service quality, and scaling expertise across teams.

Microsoft Defender: Segmenting large Microsoft 365 tenants to allow local domain administration for office applications and endpoints

VOSS v25.3 extends the platform’s trusted segmentation, RBAC, and configurable experience models into the Microsoft security ecosystem. The release includes support for a foundational set of MACDs and dashboards for Microsoft Defender for Office and Defender for Endpoint, enabling organizations to:

  • Deliver controlled and segmented administrative access for local SecOps teams without the need for global administrative rights to the Microsoft tenant.
  • Respond faster to security-related needs without compromising governance or consistency.
  • Provide business-aligned visibility into Defender metrics and security posture.

With this latest innovation, organizations can decentralize and accelerate security operations – while maintaining full control and compliance through VOSS’ consistent governance model.

User-based segmentation for Microsoft Teams call data: Precision access and governance

The new release introduces user-based segmentation for Microsoft Teams call data using a flexible ‘business hierarchy’ — which gives enterprises clearer, more structured visibility into call performance across the organization. This enhancement enables IT and operational teams to:

  • View call quality and performance metrics aligned to the organization’s hierarchy.
  • Drill down into regions, departments, brands, or user groups for faster identification of service-impacting issues.
  • Troubleshoot more effectively with targeted analytics and segmented data access.
  • Maintain granular RBAC and delegate visibility only where required.

The result is stronger oversight, improved measurement, and deeper insights—helping teams detect issues earlier, resolve them faster, and maintain a consistently high-quality calling experience across the business.

Digital experience dashboards on the VOSS platform

Organizations can now deploy and manage digital experience monitoring (DEM) agent analytics directly through the VOSS platform, introducing true proactive monitoring, for services like Microsoft Teams and Cisco Webex. By running continuous synthetic tests across critical user journeys—such as logins, calls, meetings, and messaging—admins gain real-time visibility into the full-service path, not just what the cloud reports.

This shift from reactive to proactive monitoring means issues can be identified long before a user raises a ticket. DEM agents surface early warning signs, highlight performance degradation, and reveal regional or network-specific anomalies that traditional tools may miss. With end-to-end insight into the digital experience, IT teams can stay ahead of service-impacting problems, reduce downtime, and ensure users enjoy consistently reliable collaboration services.

Webex insights dashboards on the VOSS platform

As part of ongoing product consolidation, VOSS has enhanced its Webex analytics experience with updated and newly added dashboards covering users, workspaces, devices, licenses, and more – giving organizations improved visibility across their Webex deployments. This hierarchy makes it easy to drill into site-level status or view performance across the entire estate.

Other notable system updates include support for alternative virtualization solutions like VMware Esxi 8, HyperV, and Nutanix, as well as improved SNMP data management.

Dan Payne, CTO, VOSS Solutions

Dan Payne, Chief Technology Officer at VOSS, commented; “With VOSS v25.3, organizations gain a more intelligent, secure, and operationally efficient platform for managing their collaboration and digital workplace environments. By expanding AI-driven automation, strengthening governance across Microsoft ecosystems, and deepening visibility into user experience and service health, VOSS continues to deliver innovation that will help our customers scale with confidence.”

This release reinforces VOSS’ commitment to empowering IT teams with the tools they need to operate faster, smarter, and with greater control – today and into the future. To find out more about VOSS 25.3, please contact info@voss-solutions.com.

The post VOSS announces Version 25.3 appeared first on VOSS Solutions.

]]>
https://www.voss-solutions.com/news/2026/voss-announces-version-25-3/feed/ 0
Deeper visibility into Genesys Cloud: New monitoring capabilities now available through VOSS https://www.voss-solutions.com/blog/2025/deeper-visibility-into-genesys-cloud/ https://www.voss-solutions.com/blog/2025/deeper-visibility-into-genesys-cloud/#respond Wed, 10 Dec 2025 13:09:18 +0000 https://www.voss-solutions.com/?p=24114 Connecting the Digital Workplace to SBC as a Service Author: Jamie Litherland Solution Manager, VOSS Wednesday, December 10, 2025 Last week’s partnership announcement with Virsae marked a major step forward in how enterprises monitor and optimize their contact center environments. We are already [...]

The post Deeper visibility into Genesys Cloud: New monitoring capabilities now available through VOSS appeared first on VOSS Solutions.

]]>

monitoring

Author: Jamie Litherland
Solution Manager, VOSS

Wednesday, December 10, 2025

Last week’s partnership announcement with Virsae marked a major step forward in how enterprises monitor and optimize their contact center environments. We are already putting that partnership into action. Running a contact center means orchestrating interactions across voice, digital channels, bots, and AI-driven workflows. For Genesys Cloud users, achieving a complete, real-time view of performance has been a long-standing challenge.

With VOSS’ new monitoring capabilities, powered by Virsae’s advanced telemetry, that changes. You can now view the entire customer experience – from call quality and conversation segments to cloud events and license usage – through a single, unified lens. This end-to-end visibility helps teams detect issues earlier, resolve them faster, and optimize workflows with confidence, transforming how you manage the customer journey.

VSM - Virsae Service Management logo

Why deeper Genesys Cloud visibility matters

Genesys Cloud is built for modern, omnichannel engagement. But the very flexibility that makes it powerful also makes it harder to diagnose issues quickly. Calls move through multiple stages, digital interactions jump between bots and agents, and performance depends on everything from network connectivity to routing logic to license assignments. When something goes wrong, teams often face a slow and fragmented troubleshooting process.

By bringing Genesys Cloud telemetry into the VOSS ecosystem, we’re giving your operations teams a much clearer understanding of how your contact center is performing. This includes visibility into call flows, how different conversation segments behave, and whether cloud events or system states may be influencing quality or performance. It also includes insights into license consumption and usage patterns, helping you ensure you’re deploying the platform efficiently.

What’s new for VOSS customers

The most significant change is the depth of real-time operational insight now available. Your team can see how calls and digital interactions progress through Genesys Cloud, where delays or failures occur, and how those issues relate to the wider collaboration ecosystem. Instead of relying on separate tools or incomplete data, you can now correlate what’s happening in Genesys Cloud with what’s happening across Microsoft Teams, Cisco environments, SBCs, networks, and devices.

When combined with an agent deployed on user workstations and devices, this becomes genuine end-to-end visibility. A call can be traced from the endpoint, through the network, across the SBC, into the Genesys Cloud service, and through its various conversation stages. This unified view dramatically simplifies root-cause diagnostics and makes it easier to maintain consistent service quality.

How this adds value

This new capability will give your organization the ability to move from reactive firefighting to proactive service management. Deeper telemetry means issues can be identified earlier, performance degradations can be spotted before users notice them, and troubleshooting can be completed in minutes rather than hours. It also strengthens the foundation for AI-driven operations – because better data always leads to better insights, predictions, and automated workflows.

If you are looking to optimize costs, the ability to monitor license usage provides new clarity around resource allocation. And for CX leaders, understanding how different stages of a customer interaction behave helps refine journeys, improve agent performance, and enhance overall service delivery.

Who will benefit

These enhancements are particularly valuable for customers running Genesys Cloud alongside Microsoft or Cisco platforms, or for anyone managing a hybrid collaboration and CX environment. The more moving parts there are, the more important unified visibility becomes – and that’s exactly what this development delivers.

Looking ahead

Adding Genesys Cloud monitoring to the VOSS ecosystem marks an important step in expanding our cross-platform intelligence. It opens the door to richer analytics, smarter automation, and future AI-driven capabilities that depend on strong telemetry. As we continue to build out this integration, customers can expect even deeper insight and more powerful ways to optimize their contact center operations.

If you’d like to discuss this latest development in more detail, please get in touch!

The post Deeper visibility into Genesys Cloud: New monitoring capabilities now available through VOSS appeared first on VOSS Solutions.

]]>
https://www.voss-solutions.com/blog/2025/deeper-visibility-into-genesys-cloud/feed/ 0
The human factor: Why working with VOSS feels different https://www.voss-solutions.com/blog/2025/the-human-factor-why-working-with-voss-feels-different/ https://www.voss-solutions.com/blog/2025/the-human-factor-why-working-with-voss-feels-different/#respond Tue, 23 Sep 2025 10:05:24 +0000 https://www.voss-solutions.com/?p=23238 Connecting the Digital Workplace to SBC as a Service Author: Jamie Litherland Solution Manager, VOSS Tuesday, September 23, 2025 In the world of UC management, most conversations focus on features: Dashboards, analytics, automation, and AI. Of course, these capabilities matter, but the truth is, even [...]

The post The human factor: Why working with VOSS feels different appeared first on VOSS Solutions.

]]>

monitoring

Author: Jamie Litherland
Solution Manager, VOSS

Tuesday, September 23, 2025

In the world of UC management, most conversations focus on features: Dashboards, analytics, automation, and AI. Of course, these capabilities matter, but the truth is, even the most advanced platform falls short without the right level of service behind it. The way your provider supports you can be the difference between a smooth-running digital workplace and constant firefighting.

Unfortunately, enterprises tell us the same story about legacy UC tool providers:

  • Reactive, not proactive – Tickets drag on for weeks, and real help rarely comes until the next release cycle.
  • One-size-fits-all – Support teams offer generic advice that doesn’t fit unique business challenges.
  • Limited partnership – Instead of feeling like an extension of your IT team, the vendor becomes just another bottleneck.

The result? IT teams are left stranded in critical moments, and the business pays the price with downtime, inefficiency, and growing frustration.

The VOSS difference: More than software

At VOSS, we believe technology is only part of the solution. The other part just as important is how we work with you. That's why our customers consistently tell us our service is one of the biggest reasons they stay with us. 

We listen first

Every organization is different. Our starting point is understanding your specific UC challenges and goals.

We adapt to you

From bespoke workflow automation to fine-tuned reporting, we configure our solutions to fit your business — not the other way around.

We move fast

When issues arise, our teams respond quickly and decisively. We don’t leave you waiting on a roadmap; we deliver practical solutions that work now.

We act as trusted partners

Customers see us as an extension of their IT teams. We share knowledge, anticipate challenges, and collaborate on strategies to drive long-term success.

Real-world impact

Here’s what that looks like in practice:

  • If a global enterprise needs a new provisioning workflow to support a sudden business change, we work with them to build and deploy it.
  • If a service provider struggles with reporting gaps that slow their billing cycle, we help design custom automated analytics, saving hours of manual effort every month.
  • Multiple customers have told us our support team spotted potential issues before they became outages, avoiding costly downtime altogether.

These aren’t exceptions; they’re how we operate every day.

Why it matters

The hidden cost of poor service doesn’t just cause frustration; it causes lost productivity, longer outages, missed opportunities, and reduced trust in your UC tools. By contrast, when your provider acts as a true partner, you gain agility, confidence, and the freedom to focus on innovation instead of maintenance. In other words: great technology matters, but great service turns that technology into real business value.

Closing thought

At VOSS, we don’t just deliver a platform. We deliver peace of mind, partnership, and progress. And that’s why our customers stay with us. If you would like to discuss the challenges with your current vendor, please get in touch.

Keep up to date with our latest blogs and subscribe today

The post The human factor: Why working with VOSS feels different appeared first on VOSS Solutions.

]]>
https://www.voss-solutions.com/blog/2025/the-human-factor-why-working-with-voss-feels-different/feed/ 0
The hidden cost of legacy UC tools (and how to avoid them) https://www.voss-solutions.com/blog/2025/how-to-avoid-the-hidden-cost-of-legacy-uc-tools/ https://www.voss-solutions.com/blog/2025/how-to-avoid-the-hidden-cost-of-legacy-uc-tools/#respond Wed, 17 Sep 2025 09:18:46 +0000 https://www.voss-solutions.com/?p=23215 Connecting the Digital Workplace to SBC as a Service Author: Jamie Litherland Solution Manager, VOSS Wednesday, September 17, 2025 On the surface, legacy UC monitoring tools can seem “good enough.” They’ve been in place for years, deliver familiar reports, and may even be bundled with [...]

The post The hidden cost of legacy UC tools (and how to avoid them) appeared first on VOSS Solutions.

]]>

monitoring

Author: Jamie Litherland
Solution Manager, VOSS

Wednesday, September 17, 2025

On the surface, legacy UC monitoring tools can seem “good enough.” They’ve been in place for years, deliver familiar reports, and may even be bundled with other vendor services. But behind the scenes, these outdated platforms quietly drain budgets, frustrate IT teams, and limit agility. In 2025, the true cost of sticking with legacy tools is simply too high to ignore.

The hidden costs of staying put

Inefficiency at scale – Modern enterprises rarely operate on a single UC platform. Teams, Webex, and other collaboration tools coexist across the business. Legacy monitoring solutions were not designed for this reality and quickly break down under the complexity, leaving blind spots, siloed data, and frustrated administrators trying to connect the dots.

Poor customer service – Support from legacy vendors is often reactive and underwhelming. Long ticket cycles, limited expertise, and “wait until the next release” responses leave IT teams stranded during critical incidents. Instead of being a partner, these providers act as bottlenecks, increasing downtime and reducing trust in the tools themselves.

Vendor lock-in & roadmap shifts – Many legacy UC monitoring tools are tied tightly to a single collaboration vendor. This creates dependency: if that platform changes its pricing, discontinues features, or pivots its roadmap, enterprises are forced to follow suit, even if the changes don’t align with their strategy. The result is higher costs, reduced flexibility, and exposure to risks outside of IT’s control. By contrast, modern multi-platform management and monitoring solutions give organizations freedom of choice, insulating them from sudden shifts in a single vendor’s direction.

Slow innovation – Legacy UC providers typically lag years behind in adopting modern capabilities such as AI-driven insights, hybrid work analytics, or proactive remediation. Enterprises that stick with these tools quickly fall behind their competitors, paying more for solutions that deliver less.

High operational expense – Legacy UC tools often rely on manual processes, custom scripts, and duplicate workflows. IT teams spend valuable hours maintaining the system, chasing issues, and piecing together reports – time that could be spent on higher-value projects. The result is inflated labor costs and slower response times whenever problems arise.

Security & compliance risks – With regulations evolving and threats growing more sophisticated, outdated monitoring platforms often fail to keep pace. Missing integrations or delayed security updates can create compliance gaps and vulnerabilities – hidden costs that only surface when something goes wrong.

Impact on the employee experience – Poor monitoring and limited remediation don’t just affect IT teams, they ripple across the organization. Call quality issues go unresolved, collaboration tools underperform, and employees lose confidence in their UC environment. The hidden cost here is productivity, engagement, and ultimately, business performance.

Do any of these frustrations above ring true for you? If so, read on!

The smarter alternative: the VOSS way

Forward-thinking enterprises are rethinking their UC management strategy and moving to VOSS. We deliver more than monitoring – offering automation, real-time remediation, and business analytics; all in one platform. This not only reduces operational overhead but also futureproofs your UC investment.

  • Control costs by streamlining routine tasks and eliminating manual processes. 
  • Boost efficiency with end-to-end visibility and actionable insights across all UC platforms. 
  • Stay agile by decoupling from vendor lock-in and adapting quickly to technology and business shifts. 
  • Elevate support with a partner that's proactive, responsive, and aligned to customer outcomes. 
  • Drive ROI with a platform designed to grow with your enterprise, not hold it back. 

Time to rethink your tools

The hidden costs of legacy UC tools aren’t just about inflated budgets, they’re about missed opportunities, slower innovation, and higher risk. By moving beyond the old way and embracing the VOSS way, enterprises can unlock efficiency, agility, and measurable cost savings. Please get in touch to discuss your requirements.

Keep up to date with our latest blogs and subscribe today

The post The hidden cost of legacy UC tools (and how to avoid them) appeared first on VOSS Solutions.

]]>
https://www.voss-solutions.com/blog/2025/how-to-avoid-the-hidden-cost-of-legacy-uc-tools/feed/ 0
How to switch UC monitoring providers – without losing your data https://www.voss-solutions.com/blog/2025/switch-uc-monitoring-providers-without-losing-your-data/ https://www.voss-solutions.com/blog/2025/switch-uc-monitoring-providers-without-losing-your-data/#respond Tue, 09 Sep 2025 09:37:31 +0000 https://www.voss-solutions.com/?p=22738 Connecting the Digital Workplace to SBC as a Service Author: Jamie Litherland Solution Manager, VOSS Tuesday, September 09, 2025 Many enterprises are rethinking their UC monitoring strategy. The pressure is rising as business leaders want better employee experience, higher uptime, and lower costs. IT teams [...]

The post How to switch UC monitoring providers – without losing your data appeared first on VOSS Solutions.

]]>

monitoring

Author: Jamie Litherland
Solution Manager, VOSS

Tuesday, September 09, 2025

Many enterprises are rethinking their UC monitoring strategy. The pressure is rising as business leaders want better employee experience, higher uptime, and lower costs. IT teams can’t afford to be weighed down by tools that only offer visibility. For many, that means switching providers. But there’s one big blocker that stops organizations in their tracks: The fear of losing historical data.

Years of call quality metrics, adoption trends, and performance baselines underpin critical reporting, compliance, and decision-making. Lose that, and you lose continuity. It’s no wonder this fear holds organizations back. But I’m here to tell you that switching providers doesn’t mean starting from scratch.

The challenge of switching at scale

For large enterprises, migrating between UC monitoring platforms is daunting. There is so much to consider:

  • Hundreds of sites, thousands of users, and multiple platforms (Microsoft Teams, Cisco Webex, SIP trunks, legacy PBXs)
  • Years of accumulated performance and usage data
  • Business reports that rely on historical baselines to show progress or justify investment

When operating at scale, there is a real danger that a mismanaged migration could create data gaps, break adoption reports, or disrupt compliance audits. That’s why so many organizations stay put – even when their current tool no longer meets their needs, or their provider is giving poor service.

Industry trends demand change

The pace of UC evolution means clinging to a “visibility-only” tool is the bigger risk. Consider what’s driving enterprises to rethink their monitoring strategy in 2025:

  • Hybrid work is here to stay, driving complexity across networks and platforms
  • AI is bringing a new level of disruption that cannot be ignored
  • Vendor updates and consolidation are accelerating, increasing the risk of downtime
  • AI and automation are setting new expectations for predictive, proactive operations
  • Budget pressures mean IT must deliver more with the same (or fewer) resources

In this landscape, monitoring alone is not enough. Organizations need platforms that not only retain their historical insights but also automate, remediate, and optimize going forward.

Beyond fear: how data migration really works

A provider switch doesn’t have to mean lost visibility. With the right approach, enterprises can carry their historical data into the new platform and preserve business continuity. The process looks like this:

  • Export & validate – Existing data is extracted and cleaned for accuracy
  • Transform & map – Metrics are aligned to the new system’s schema
  • Ingest & consolidate – Data is imported, ensuring continuity of trends, baselines, and reports
  • Test & optimize – Historical and live data are validated to ensure accuracy and usability.

Handled correctly, the result is seamless: no gaps in reporting, no broken SLAs, no lost insight.

VOSS makes migration low risk

At VOSS, we’ve helped global enterprises and service providers switch UC monitoring platforms without losing a single day of visibility. Our proven migration pathways ensure:

  • Historical data retention for reporting continuity and compliance
  • Integration across multiple vendors and platforms, so nothing gets left behind
  • Seamless transition into a platform that goes beyond monitoring — into automation, remediation, and optimization

You keep the insight you’ve built, while gaining the intelligence and flexibility you need for the future. But it’s not just about technology. It’s also about knowing your vendor is giving you the best service you need – so you can stay agile, respond to change quickly, and have confidence that every conversation with your account team is adding value, not adding cost. With VOSS, the relationship is as seamless as the migration.

Looking ahead: switching as a springboard

Switching UC monitoring providers doesn’t have to be a risk. With the right partner, organizations can preserve historical value, unlock new capabilities, and future-proof their UC management strategy.

By 2026, the leaders won’t be those holding on to outdated monitoring tools. They’ll be the ones that turn migration into momentum, combining visibility with automation and intelligence to deliver smarter, more resilient collaboration environments that are ready to solve the latest challenges facing your business.

Keep up to date with our latest blogs and subscribe today

The post How to switch UC monitoring providers – without losing your data appeared first on VOSS Solutions.

]]>
https://www.voss-solutions.com/blog/2025/switch-uc-monitoring-providers-without-losing-your-data/feed/ 0
Beyond visibility: Why UC monitoring alone isn’t enough in 2025 https://www.voss-solutions.com/blog/2025/beyond-visibility-why-uc-monitoring-not-enough/ https://www.voss-solutions.com/blog/2025/beyond-visibility-why-uc-monitoring-not-enough/#respond Tue, 02 Sep 2025 10:11:37 +0000 https://www.voss-solutions.com/?p=22729 Connecting the Digital Workplace to SBC as a Service Author: Jamie Litherland Solution Manager, VOSS Tuesday September, 02, 2025 In recent years, hybrid working and the globalization of teams have firmly position UC at the center of modern enterprises, and organizations have rightly invested in [...]

The post Beyond visibility: Why UC monitoring alone isn’t enough in 2025 appeared first on VOSS Solutions.

]]>

monitoring

Author: Jamie Litherland
Solution Manager, VOSS

Tuesday September, 02, 2025

In recent years, hybrid working and the globalization of teams have firmly position UC at the center of modern enterprises, and organizations have rightly invested in performance monitoring tools to stay ahead. Visibility into call quality, usage, and performance metrics remains essential for delivering a great user experience.

But here’s the reality: In 2025, visibility alone won’t get you where you need to be. As UC environments grow more complex and AI reshapes expectations, monitoring is no longer the endgame – it’s the foundation. The future demands intelligent, automated, self-healing systems that predict, prevent, and resolve issues before they ever impact users.

Monitoring is only the first step

Monitoring tools help identify issues, but they don’t fix them. They alert you when something goes wrong — but someone still has to investigate, diagnose, and manually resolve the problem. For large organizations, that means:

  • Lengthy resolution times
  • An increased IT workload
  • Frustrated users waiting for service to be restored

In other words, you’re still reactive. And in 2025, reactive is not enough.

The challenge of scale

Today’s UC environments span multiple vendors, cloud platforms, and hybrid deployments. Microsoft Teams, Cisco Webex, SIP trunks, legacy PBXs are all part of the mix. When something breaks, pinpointing the root cause across these systems is like finding a needle in a haystack.

Simply knowing there’s an issue isn’t enough. You need the ability to resolve it quickly and proactively – ideally before users notice.

Industry trends demand more than monitoring

Business leaders are pushing for better employee experience, higher uptime, and lower costs. IT teams are under pressure to deliver all three, without growing headcount. Meanwhile:

  • Hybrid work is here to stay, increasing UC complexity
  • Vendor consolidation and platform updates happen faster than ever, adding risk
  • AI and automation are transforming operational models, setting new benchmarks for efficiency

Organizations that adapt to these trends will stay ahead. Those that don’t risk falling behind.

Beyond visibility: Automation, remediation, and insight

This is where VOSS comes in. We take you beyond passive monitoring and into active UC management, so you can:

  • Automate repetitive tasks like provisioning and configuration
  • Trigger real-time remediation when performance thresholds are breached
  • Apply policy-based controls to ensure consistency and compliance
  • Use analytics for continuous optimization, not just troubleshooting

The result? Faster resolution times, fewer tickets, lower costs, and a better user experience.

For those already on the right track

If you’ve invested in UC performance monitoring, you’ve taken an important first step. You understand the value of visibility. Now imagine what’s possible when visibility is combined with control, automation, and intelligence.

Looking ahead: The future of UC management

The next wave of UC management is proactive and self-healing. Automation and AI will play a critical role in predicting and resolving issues before they disrupt business. The organizations leading in 2025 will be those that turn data into action and complexity into simplicity.

Ready to take the next step?

Don’t stop at visibility. Move to a model where insight drives action, where UC runs smoothly without constant firefighting, and where IT is free to focus on strategic priorities.

Discover how VOSS transforms monitoring into full-stack UC management.

The post Beyond visibility: Why UC monitoring alone isn’t enough in 2025 appeared first on VOSS Solutions.

]]>
https://www.voss-solutions.com/blog/2025/beyond-visibility-why-uc-monitoring-not-enough/feed/ 0