The Organisation

Client: City, University of London 

Industry: Higher Education

Services: Microsoft Teams with Direct Routing

City, University of London has a rich history dating back to 1894.

Focused on business and the professions, City has been using education, research and enterprise to transform the lives of their students, community and the world for over a hundred years. City has five schools, serves 19,780 students and employs approximately 2,500 staff.

The Challenge

With unified communications playing an essential role for the recruitment of students and the support of staff across serval sites, City wanted to replace their underutilised Skype for Business platform and still be able to protect their existing investment in their Mitel telephone system. 

With Skype for Business online support reaching end-of-life on July 31 2021, City was encouraged to move to Microsoft Teams with Direct Routing to provide more flexibility and technological advancement. 



Microsoft Teams with Direct Routing would deliver a simple, cost-effective and fully integrated unified communications infrastructure for the University. A phone system in the cloud, Direct Routing would provide City with all the features of a traditional phone system and enable staff to securely make and receive external calls using Microsoft Teams on their chosen device, from any location.

The Solution

By creating a hybrid solution that integrated Microsoft Teams with the University’s existing Mitel telephone system, City can benefit from the following:

• Optimised ROI by capitalising existing investments of telephony hardware and Office 365 licensing.
• Staff empowered to work from any device, anywhere with simple and easy collaboration tools.
• Continued use of the current Mitel telephony platform until it reaches end of life, thereafter, seamlessly transition all staff to a single unified communications solution with no disruption.

Matthew Craughwell, Telecoms Team Leader at City, University of London, said.

“With the support of Altiatech, the set-up process was smooth and undisruptive. The integration of Microsoft Teams with our Mitel telephone system was carried out with the highest levels of professionalism. Microsoft Teams Direct Routing was very straightforward and was set up very quickly.”

The Results

City, University of London has now futureproofed its infrastructure with a secure unified communications solution and flexible telephony platform. 

Without the worry of security, faculty staff can share work, progress their meeting agendas and communicate with other external parties easily. Allowing for seamless engagement regardless of location, it has also empowered staff to work more efficiently. 

When COVID-19 hit the UK, and the Government recommended that people work from home. City was able to respond quickly and implement a robust remote working strategy with Microsoft Teams as their main online collaborative workspace.  Praising the City’s IT department as ‘IT heroes’, staff were able to work from home, maintain their communication channels and keep the University operational during lockdown. 

Pleased with the results of Microsoft Teams Direct Routing, the University’s Telecom team expanded its use and engaged with Altiatech’s Responsive Premium Support Services to help deliver a hassle free clearing experience in August 2020.

For Matthew, having Microsoft Teams Direct Routing was a huge benefit, he explained. 

"The University telecom team has had the least stressful Clearing I've experienced, and that's most likely down to working with Altiatech. Thank you for your assistance with helping us adopt Microsoft Teams Direct Routing into the University!

It's been hugely beneficial during the current pandemic."