Phone System Changes
As communication preferences continue to change, DePaul is working to find the most convenient, efficient, and cost-effective ways to make and receive phone calls.
The trend is that people don’t use physical phones as much anymore. This reality is no different at DePaul. Usage of physical phones has steadily been declining with the ease and availability of Zoom, Teams, and smartphones. In fact, 92% of DePaul’s desk phones are used less than one hour per week to make or receive calls.
Although physical phones will be replaced and updated in locations like front desks and classrooms, it is not financially responsible to replace all of the soon-to-be outdated physical phones throughout the university.
In the coming months, the Networks and Telecom team in Information Services will be expanding Microsoft Teams to include its Teams Phone feature. DePaul users will continue to have the same dedicated phone number that they have had before to make and receive calls inside and outside of DePaul. After the upgrade, calls to this dedicated number will go to the Teams app on your laptop, phone, or web browser. Microsoft Teams will also include a phone keypad feature for dialing phone numbers within the app.
A number of well-marked exterior call boxes are located throughout the Lincoln Park campus. These emergency call boxes can be used to report a crime, a fire, or any type of emergency. These phones are managed by DePaul Public Safety.
DePaul faculty and staff are provided with telephones, voicemail, and technical assistance. Departments are no longer responsible for paying usage charges but budget managers are responsible for procuring new phones through Information Services via budget chargeback.
Phone moves, adds, and changes include moving an existing line to a new location, creating a new line, deleting a line that is no longer needed, or assigning an existing line to a different employee. Phone moves and changes are performed at no cost, however, departments will be charged for any new equipment that is needed.
View the models and prices of the phones that Information Services currently supports for departmental use.
Although individual phone users will be turning in their Cisco phones and moving to the Teams Phone feature, some phones, such as front desk and shared phones, will need to be replaced in order to maintain the functionality that a physical phone provides. DePaul will be migrating front desk and shared Cisco phones to the Teams-based AudioCodes C455HD IP Phone.
After the migration, you'll be able to make and receive calls from your DePaul-assigned 'office' phone number in the Microsoft Teams desktop, mobile, and web apps. Your office phone number will no longer be accessible from Jabber. Individuals can also delegate access to their phone number for others.
All DePaul students, faculty and staff have access to the Zoom collaboration tool. Zoom offers
Teams is Microsoft's unified communications platform which combines messaging, meetings, file storage, application integration, and voice and video calling into one collaborative team workspace.
DePaul students, faculty and staff can access their DePaul BlueM@il account using Outlook in a browser or get the Outlook app for personal computers or mobile devices.