Cloud

Case Study: Why One Community College Chose Cloud Collaboration

Butler Community College picked Microsoft Teams when it was time to upgrade an aging on-premises phone system.

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Andy Viano is a journalist and editor at EdTech: Focus on Higher Education.

Butler Community College’s transition from an on-premises phone system to cloud collaboration tools provided by Microsoft was truly a team effort.

The Kansas-based community college’s small IT staff did much of the heavy lifting, guided by partners at CDW•G. Together, they worked for more than two months on a phased migration that took hundreds of users through training for the implementation of Microsoft Teams, which is now seamlessly integrated into the college’s day-to-day operations.

Butler’s IT staff chose Teams for the reasons many higher ed institutions are choosing cloud collaboration tools: flexibility for faculty, staff and students; integration with the rest of a Microsoft suite already in place; long-term cost savings; and ease of management. Still, the journey to get there required some coordination.

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To facilitate the transition, Butler moved between 30 and 35 users to the new system every night. A CDW•G engineer created a direct routing model bridging Microsoft Teams and the college’s existing phone service provider. A switch sent calls first to the phone service provider, then to the campus router, and finally to Microsoft — all in a matter of milliseconds to ensure no calls were lost during the transitional period.

Our latest in-depth case study examines how CDW•G and Butler Community College worked together to implement Microsoft Teams cloud collaboration tools. To get the full story and find out how Butler made the move, click the banner below.