Managing Telephony over Teams and Chorus

Information about managing calls and people between the two phone systems: Telephony over Teams and Chorus

Notice: Telephony replacement project

In response to BT switching off analogue lines in January 2027, the Telephony Replacement Project is currently coordinating the replacement of centrally managed analogue and critical phone lines.  In future (likely later in 2025) the project will also be reviewing the Chorus VOIP (digital line) service. For more information see the Telephony replacement project webpage.

 

Chorus and Telephony over Teams run as separate phone systems. A University phone number is either on the Chorus phone system or on Teams, it can’t be on both at the same time. Your number will stay the same if you move from one system to the other.

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As of summer 2022, most people have a Chorus phone, but 1500 have been given Telephony over Teams.

  • If you have a desk phone that you use to make and receive calls, then you are very likely to be on Chorus
  • If you have a dial pad when you go the "calls" section of Teams, then you have Telephony over Teams

You can make calls between the two systems and you can use 5-digit internal extension numbers to call between a Chorus phone and a Telephony over Teams number.

You can transfer calls between a Chorus phone and Telephony over Teams, but the way you do this depends on which system you are using:

There are two separate voicemail systems for Chorus and Telephony over Teams.

Group working allows people to answer each other’s phones or have a call go to anyone in the group.

Everyone in a group must either have a Chorus desk phone or have Telephony over Teams, you cannot have a Hunt group or a Pickup group containing members in both systems.

There are similar options for group working in Chorus and using Telephony over Teams, although they are called different things:

Description Chorus Telephony over Teams
Answer calls on behalf of colleagues Pickup group Call group
Make and answer calls on behalf of a manager Executive Assistant working Call delegation
Answer an enquiries line staffed by multiple team members Hunt group Call queue

 

There is guidance for setting up group working in both systems:

An initial set of people are moving from Chorus to Telephony over Teams in May/June 2022 as part of the Chorus upgrade project, because Telephony over Teams replaces the features they will no longer have in Chorus (Softphone, OSMO mobile phone app and the web portal to set their preferred device) following the upgrade.

You don’t need a physical desk phone to make calls on Teams, but, if you would prefer one, you can purchase handsets for Teams and there is a list of recommended devices on the Telephony over Teams supported devices page. Please note that these are not provided by IT Services.

If you want to switch from Chorus to Telephony over Teams (and are not included in the group of people moving in May/June 2022), please contact your local IT support. Likewise, if you are on Telephony over Teams and decide you want to move back to Chorus and be able to use your desk phone again, then please contact your local IT support.

 

Some phone lines must remain on Chorus and cannot be moved over to Telephony over Teams:

  • Phone lines that belong to people in areas of the University that are not on Nexus, such as Oxford University Innovation and the Saïd Business School
  • Critical or analogue lines
  • Phone lines on contact centers
  • Special phones, such as intercoms or Gigaset DECT phones

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