Voice projects: what to think about, and when

A best-practice guide for partners moving customers onto Hosted Network voice. What you need to plan for depends on the path you’re taking — a trunk into a system you run, or a full phone system we deploy. Here’s how to think it through, who handles what, and where the opportunities are — and if you’re not sure where to start, we’re here to help.

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Start here

First, pick your path: how involved do you want us?

There isn’t one migration path. What happens on our side depends on what you’re buying: a trunk to plug into a phone system you already run, or a full phone system we scope, deploy and configure for you. Number porting is part of both — what changes is when you do it.

You run the system

SIP or Teams trunk

Your customer has an existing phone system and you’re buying the trunk from us. Our side of this is simple.

  1. Start the number port first. It’s the longest lead time in the whole job, so get it moving early.
  2. Order the trunk when you’re ready. It activates instantly, so there’s no point ordering it early and having it sit there.
  3. Connect and cut over. Point your system at the trunk, and the numbers land when the port completes.
We set it up for you

Full phone system, deployed by us

You’re getting us to set it up — paid setup or our managed offering. This is a project, and it won’t happen overnight.

  1. Scope it. Our data collection form captures everyone who needs a phone: names, emails and extensions.
  2. Map the call flows. We work through how calls are routed, the rules behind them, and where calls land when no one answers.
  3. We deploy and configure. We set the system up to the scope, and check the call flows against your data.
  4. Line everything up. We sequence the number port, the configuration and the cutover so they land together.
  5. Train the users. We hand over a working system; training your customer’s users is what makes the cutover land smoothly.
Porting is worth thinking about early — but it’s a timing call. On a trunk, kick the port off first because it takes the longest. On a full phone system, we line the port up with the deployment and the cutover instead. Either way, we project-manage the release from your current carrier.
Which path is right for you?

Pre-made cake, or raw ingredients?

The journey also depends on your team’s VoIP experience and the product you’re buying. Choose your own destiny based on where you’re at — and change the mix from one project to the next.

New to voice

Start turnkey

We’d always recommend starting with a turnkey solution: we do the setup and the management while you build confidence.

Somewhere in the middle

Get us to configure it

Got the skills but not the time or resources right now? Buy the products and pay us for the configuration.

Experienced with VoIP

Run it yourself

You’ve got the in-house resources and skills — take the raw ingredients and run the migration your way.

Not sure which one you are? That’s exactly what our free solutions design is for — a short call with one of our technical resources, and you’ll leave with a recommended approach for your project.

Book a free solutions design call
What we can move

From a whole phone system down to a single number

Whatever the scope — a full phone system we deploy, a trunk into a system you run, or just the numbers — there’s a defined path for it.

Phone systems

Full phone system

We scope, deploy and configure the PBX for you from a data collection form and your call flows.

Trunks

SIP & Teams trunks

Provisioned in minutes. You configure and connect them to your own system at your own pace.

Number porting

Local number porting

Part of every migration. A standardised process — we port the numbers and project-manage the release from your current carrier.

New to deploying phone systems? Take advantage of our managed services and we’ll do the heavy lifting, running it as a project so the whole thing goes smoothly.
Who does what

Your customer, your call on how much we do

How involved we are is entirely up to you. Most of our solutions are turnkey — you can take the products and run the migration yourself, or pay us for setup, project management or a fully managed offering, independently. When you do get us involved, here’s the typical split.

In the migration You (the partner) Hosted Network
Phone system configuration Tell us how it should be set up, via our data collection form. Deploy, configure and provision the phone system for you.
SIP / Teams trunks Configure and connect at your leisure. Provision the trunk, usually within minutes.
Handset configuration All yours if you source your own handsets. Buying them from us? Check what your product includes. Included with some products (e.g. VoIP bundles); an optional extra on others (e.g. 3CX bundles).
Number porting Pick the timing that suits your customer. Project-manage the port and handle all carrier communication.
User training Train your customer’s users, and we recommend charging for it. Hand over a fully working system.
Margin opportunity

User training makes the project — and it’s billable

Training is where voice projects most often fail, simply because it doesn’t get done. Put it in your scope as a professional services line: your customer’s users actually learn the new system, the cutover lands smoothly, and you add margin to the project. Everyone wins.

Timelines

How long it takes depends on the path

SIP / Teams trunk

Live in minutes

Provisioning is instant from our side.

Local number porting

Standardised

Timelines are set out in the porting process, and we project-manage the release.

Full phone system

Scales with the deployment

Around a week for a handful of users, a few weeks or more for a very large site.

Two workflows, running in parallel. Number porting and phone-system setup are separate. They overlap but don’t have to finish at the same time, so we sequence them around you.
The journey

What a typical phone system migration looks like

Whoever you’re migrating with — us or anyone else — a full phone system migration follows the same arc. Timings scale with the size of the site; use this as the starting point for your own project plan.

Week 1

Scope it

Gather users, extensions and call flows, and agree what the new system needs to do.

Week 1

Lodge the number port

Kick it off early — it has the longest lead time and runs alongside everything else.

Weeks 2–3

Deploy & configure

Set up the system, configure the call flows and provision the handsets.

Week 3

Test the call flows

Run test calls through the menus, queues, voicemail and after-hours routing.

Week 4

Train & cut over

Train users just before the switch, then the port completes and calls land on the new system.

Week 4+

Bed it in

Tweak the flows from real-world feedback and close the project out.

Transparency

What can go wrong, and what we do

Voice projects run smoothly when two things are right: the call flow, and the training. Number porting has a couple of gotchas worth setting expectations on too.

At cutover

Call-flow configuration

A cutover usually only stumbles when something in the call flow isn’t set right, like the wrong person left out of a queue, so their calls don’t come through. We check the flow against your data.

Most common

Skipping user training

The most common reason a project starts badly is users not being trained on the new system. We recommend including training in your fee.

Porting delays and rejections. A port request can be rejected — the account ID doesn’t match, or the single number you’ve requested turns out to be tied to a 100-number range that has to be disassociated before it can move. There can be some back-and-forth, and on timing we’re at the mercy of the losing carrier — it’s down to them to release the numbers. The good news: we handle all of it and walk you through anything that comes up. Just allow for it in your timeline.
Call routing issues after a port. Once a port completes, the other carriers (Optus, Vocus and the rest) update their databases to point the number to us. In roughly 1 in 100 ports a record doesn’t update cleanly and calls from one network misbehave. If that happens, we work with the carriers to get it fixed.

Want to de-risk it up front? Book a free solutions design call and we’ll walk through these against your specific project.

Our advice

Doing a big migration? Start small anyway

Whether you’re moving a large customer base off another provider or trying our voice offering for the first time, the advice is the same: start with one of your smaller customers rather than handing us your largest on day one. You get comfortable with how we work, how we support you and who to contact when, before the stakes are high. And when the big migration comes, we’ll put project management around it and run it at the pace and speed you’re comfortable with.

Crawl before you walk, walk before you run!

Not sure where to start?

We provide free solutions design. Book a call with one of our technical resources and you’ll leave with a recommended approach for your project — whether or not you buy anything from us.

Book a free solutions design call