Summary 

The University of Sunshine Coast (UniSC) is a rapidly growing higher education institution in Queensland, Australia. To keep pace with the growth of their campuses across South-East Queensland, the University faced the challenge of upgrading its existing communication infrastructure. From legacy ISDN phone lines and physical Session Border Controllers (SBCs), to pure cloud-based telephony as they migrated from on premises Skype for Business to Microsoft Teams Phone (Teams Calling). 

UniSC looked to Rapid Circle to execute a smooth and successful transition – across infrastructure, software, and change management. The project was completed in June 2023, with highly anticipated positive end-user impact and significant cost savings. Every staff member now has Teams Phone capabilities, and the University is ready to use further digital transformation opportunities with Microsoft 365. 

“Rapid Circle not only helped us manage the risk during a critical transformation, but they also helped us keep an eye on our broader technology strategy and the vision and ensuring that we were thinking about how Microsoft Teams would fit into our digital workplace.”

Andrei Clewett, Associate CIO, UniSC 

Background 

UniSC has supported their community in southeast Queensland for the past 25 years, proving themselves to be a university that changes the lives of its students. With future-focused degrees, world-leading sustainability research and 5-star teaching, it’s no surprise they’ve outpaced the sector’s growth over the last decade. 

What was once a small University, now presides over seven campuses in metropolitan and regional Queensland, stretching from Moreton Bay to Fraser Coast, with four more sites including the Thompson Institute and three Clinical Trial Centres. 

We interviewed Andrei Clewett (Project Sponsor and Associate CIO), Brett Ferguson, Tech Lead, and Neil Harrison, Project Manager, Microsoft Teams for Staff, about their experience partnering with Rapid Circle on this transformational project. 

Challenge 

Communication is paramount for any organisation, but especially for one as dispersed as UniSC. Their communication journey started early. Initially, the university provided traditional telephony services via an on-premises PABX platform. Once this solution hit end of life, they transitioned to Skype for Business, which was supported on-premises via infrastructure deployed and managed in house, in the University’s data centres. 

UniSC’s communication infrastructure was running on multiple legacy systems, including outdated ISDN trunks, with on-premises Session Border Controllers and Skype for Business server infrastructure – which was soon to be out of support. This introduced significant risk to core communications across the University, which could potentially lead to disruption for both Academic and Professional staff. 

“We were using legacy connectivity technology to bridge into the Skype for Business environment and high speed E2 connections and session border controllers which were doing the translation.”  

Andrei Clewett, Associate CIO, UniSC 

Moreover, the ICT department wanted to empower the workforce to focus on research and teaching, rather than being held back by out-of-date technology. Having recently invested in Microsoft E5 licensing, they wanted to harness its full potential. This included rolling out and adopting Microsoft Teams and Teams Phone – replacing Skype for Business for all communications. In addition to the migration, the University aimed to decommission their existing telephone provider and move all services to the cloud, requiring detailed planning and execution. 

This highly technical project had a large people change management aspect to it, with employees and the broader IT team needing to learn needing to learn how to use a new software platform after using Skype for Business for years. 

“We’re invested in Microsoft. We’re looking to provide a toolset to the staff and students that’s very comprehensive and the voice product is included in that. So, it was a natural progression to be able to use that advanced licensing and move to the voice platform in the cloud.”  

Andrei Clewett, Associate CIO, UniSC 

UniSC’s communication software and infrastructure relied on outdated technology, so they needed a vendor’s help to make sure this essential project went smoothly. 

When UniSC went to market for a suitably qualified Microsoft Partner to support them on their journey to Teams Phone, Rapid Circle’s in-depth experience in Converged Communications won the RFQ (Request for Quotation). The two organisations set to work on creating a plan to seamlessly migrate the university from Skype for Business to Teams and Teams Calling and catapult them into the cloud. 

Solution 

Starting in December 2022, in a staged and agile approach, UniSC and Rapid Circle set to work on moving the University from their legacy telephony environment, ISDN lines, 2800 direct-in-dial numbers and on-premises SBCs to Teams Phone. This included the deployment of Azure hosted SBCs that would give UniSC the flexibility needed to support the migration phase, cloud hosted SIP Trunks to support calls to and from the PSTN (Public Switched Telephone Network) network, and the many bespoke SIP requirements that most Universities need to support. 

“The initial engagement that we had with Rapid Circle at the outset was seminal given all the different moving components that we had to migrate. We had to lift and shift SBCs and we had to have the architecture design in place prior to doing any of that. Then the migration to get us to cloud based SBCs with links back into the on-Prem systems. We then decommissioned those on-Prem systems one by one, eventually leading to a nice clean state.”  

Brett Ferguson, Tech Lead, UniSC 

The next phase of the solution was to decommission Skype for Business and move the 3,500 users (staff and handsets) over to Microsoft Teams Phone. This was also done in the staged approach, including a white glove approach for key stakeholders – Executives and their Executive Assistants. The final part of the migration was completed in early July 2023, where 1500 employees and over a thousand phones were migrated to Teams Phone. 

“Due to the strategic design of the migration process, we were able to minimise the impact on end-users. UniSC implemented a phased migration approach, migrating users in small batches to reduce the risk of disruption to the workforce. This allowed for a seamless transition with minimal interruption to productivity.”  

Andrew Fix, Global Solutions Director at Rapid Circle 

Rapid Circle’s comprehensive change management approach, including train-the-trainer workshops and internal communications through UniSC’s intranet, played a crucial role in ensuring the success of this transition. 

“Rapid Circle helped in running workshops or lead and ran workshops to understand what the organisation might require. They then structured packages and helped us train the trainer, train the executive and undertake change”  

Andrei Clewett, Associate CIO, UniSC 

Result 

The implementation of Teams Calling at UniSC by Rapid Circle yielded impressive results. The strategic architecture minimised end-user impact during migration, while the granular migration strategy reduced risks and disruptions and the simplified infrastructure management resulted in lower support requirements.  

Every staff member now has Teams Phone capabilities, and significant cost savings were achieved through the discontinuation of a telephone provider. The successful decommissioning of on-premises servers allowed UniSC to fully embrace the cloud. 

With the help of Rapid Circle, UniSC have now enabled Microsoft Teams Phone. They are now undertaking a project to embrace Teams for collaboration across the University, including SharePoint for Intranet and other components of their information management architecture. 

“The user adoption has been exceptionally good. Lightyears ahead of what we had with Skype for Business. I think there was a lot of demand already, so the adoption happened very quickly.”  

Neil Harrison, Project Manager, Microsoft Teams for Staff, UniSC 

The next stage of the university’s M365 adoption is to transition from Zoom based meeting rooms, lecture, and tutorial spaces with Microsoft Teams. Providing more of the Microsoft ecosystem to students during their time at the University. 

“Our approach is to embed as many of the Microsoft technologies into the student experience. These are applications our students need to understand to be work ready across many of our discipline areas, from business to teaching and everything in between. Having exposure to tools like Teams, SharePoint and OneDrive helps our graduates to be more employable once they complete their time at UniSC.”  

Neil Harrison, Project Manager, Microsoft Teams for Staff, UniSC 

Andrew Fix, Global Solutions Director at Rapid Circle, highlighted the company’s values and collaboration with UniSC: 

“Rapid Circle really lived through its values throughout this project, and we’re incredibly proud of the results that we’ve achieved in collaboration with UniSC. It couldn’t have been achieved without that mutual collaboration, and openness. We’ve laid the platform and are helping them achieve what’s next in their digital transformation journey.” 

Andrew Fix, Global Solutions Director at Rapid Circle 

Recommendation 

Rapid Circle’s ability in Teams Calling and its commitment to collaboration and excellence proved instrumental in supporting UniSC’s transition to a more advanced and efficient communication system, marking a significant milestone in their digital transformation journey. 

In their words: 

“If you’re looking for a partner to do it with, I’d highly recommend Rapid Circle due to the way that they clearly communicate. Their agility and flexibility meant we were able to meet the changing needs inside a project as we discovered new requirements inside our environment. Their ability to help us align strategically and that focus on the reliability and the experience every day, whether that’s a change experience for a customer or whether that’s keeping a system stable while you’re transforming it.” 

“I knew the change was complex and with complexity there can often be unforeseen issues. I was mindful and feeling cautious leading into the change, but I can’t believe how well it went. Rapid Circle was critical in helping us migrate to SIP based connectivity and direct routing. That allowed us to configure our cloud and communications environments to make them more resilient, and higher performing. It was a complex high-risk change and they made it simple and transitioned without unforeseen outages.”   

Andrei Clewett, Associate CIO, UniSC  

“Rapid Circle’s involvement was critical in the success of this project; we couldn’t have done it without them.”  

Brett Ferguson, Tech Lead, UniSC 

“Rapid Circle’s involvement was integral. We wouldn’t have delivered it without them, no question about it. From an internal perspective, there is only so much you can do inside a business day. So, you have to rely on your trusted partners.” 

Neil Harrison, Project Manager, Microsoft Teams for Staff, UniSC