Mohawk College is adopting Microsoft Teams as our Unified Communications (UC) platform.
The goal is to standardize and integrate services such as instant messaging, voice and video calling, virtual meetings and classrooms, team collaboration channels, content sharing and more, through a unified platform.
Unified Communications will ensure employees and students* have access to the technology, tools and resources they need to succeed in our flexible working and teaching environments. It will improve how we interact with each other digitally, increasing collaboration, productivity, and overall engagement.
* Mohawk College students are already on Exchange Online and will not be impacted by this change.
For more information, contact unifiedcommunications [at] mohawkcollege.ca (unifiedcommunications[at]mohawkcollege[dot]ca)
What's changing?
The migration from Skype for Business to Microsoft Teams will bring the following changes:
- Enhanced Teams license - new functionalities will become available, including interactive features for classrooms and meetings, voicemail, calendar, external calling, searching for contacts, and more.
- Skype for Business (Lync) will be phased out – instant messaging, voice and video calling, and meetings will take place in Teams. (Note: Until the entire college is on-boarded, any messages received through Lync will be redirected to Teams allowing you to respond)
- Employees will be assigned a 10—digit phone number to replace existing 4-digit extensions enabling all internal and external calls through the Teams application on computers and mobile devices.
- If you already have a 10-digit phone number, your number will not change.
- If you have a 4-digit extension, you will be assigned a new 10-digit phone number, and your extension will no longer work.
- Your desk phone will no longer function after migration - If required, you may order a headset. Additional information is included in the FAQ section.
- Zoom will be phased out for all employees starting June 1st. Microsoft Teams has been integrated into the Learning Management System (MyCanvas) and will be the new solution for video conferencing/remote teaching in MyCanvas effective the Spring/Summer 2025 term. Employees with Zoom series meetings in their Outlook calendars should reschedule using Teams.
- When your Mohawk College email is moved to the cloud (Microsoft 365), you will need to reconfigure your Outlook Profile. This includes:
- Configuring the Outlook Desktop app to access email through your work computer
- Configuring the mobile mail application to access email through your mobile devices (e.g. cellphones, tablets, etc.)
- Re-adding any shared mailboxes and calendars
- Setting up delegate access
Step-by-step instructions are included in the Post-Migration Guide and support is available through the IT Service Desk. (In case of any issues, email can be accessed through the Outlook Web App)
