High Country Workplace Technologies helped the City of Cheyenne, Wyoming, migrate from an established Mitel phone system to RingCentral across more than 30 municipal locations while preserving critical public telephone numbers, departmental call flows and resident-facing services.
City of Cheyenne Mitel-to-RingCentral migration at a glance
Customer: City of Cheyenne, Wyoming
Industry: Local government
Environment: More than 30 municipal locations
Previous phone system: Mitel
New communications platform: RingCentral
Implementation partner: High Country Workplace Technologies
Migration approach: Structured discovery, configuration, number porting, testing and cutover support
HCWT relationship: Communications vendor to the City since 2014
Primary goals: Centralize administration, improve mobility, preserve municipal call flows and modernize communications without disrupting public services
What communications challenge did the City of Cheyenne face?
The City of Cheyenne needed to move an established, multi-location Mitel phone environment to the cloud without disrupting the telephone numbers and departmental workflows that residents and City employees relied upon.
Cheyenne’s communications environment connected employees across administrative offices, public works, utilities, police facilities, recreation operations, public facilities and remote municipal locations.
Migrating this environment required much more than replacing desk phones. The project involved hundreds of users, extensions and published telephone numbers, along with departmental auto attendants, queues, shared lines and specialized call-routing requirements.
HCWT and the City needed to:
- Inventory hundreds of users, extensions and telephone numbers
- Coordinate communications across more than 30 municipal locations
- Rebuild departmental auto attendants, queues and shared lines
- Preserve published main numbers and direct telephone numbers
- Protect access to resident-facing services during number porting
- Support administrative offices, public facilities and remote sites
- Provide communications for office, mobile and field personnel
- Preserve important departmental workflows
- Minimize disruption during the transition to RingCentral
Why did the City of Cheyenne select RingCentral?
The City selected RingCentral to establish a centrally managed cloud communications platform capable of supporting employees across departments, facilities and work locations.
RingCentral gave the City a flexible platform for managing calling across municipal operations while providing desktop and mobile communications for authorized employees. It also created a scalable foundation for reporting, mobility, centralized administration and future integrations.
The migration enabled the City to standardize communications across departments while continuing to provide the individual call flows and routing required by different municipal services.
How did HCWT migrate Cheyenne from Mitel to RingCentral?
HCWT managed the City’s transition through a structured process that included discovery, configuration, number porting, testing, cutover assistance and post-migration support.
1. Discover the existing environment
HCWT documented the City’s users, extensions, locations, telephone numbers and departmental requirements.
This discovery process was essential because municipal phone systems often contain years of accumulated call-routing rules, published numbers, shared lines and department-specific workflows. Those details must be understood before the existing PBX is replaced.
2. Rebuild users and call flows
HCWT helped configure users, features, auto attendants, queues and call flows within RingCentral.
Rather than treating every department identically, the migration accounted for the different ways City offices and public-facing departments receive, route and manage telephone calls.
3. Coordinate number porting and testing
HCWT helped coordinate the transfer of the City’s telephone numbers and verified inbound and outbound calling.
Careful number management was especially important because residents, businesses and other government agencies depend on established City telephone numbers to reach the correct municipal services.
Testing helped confirm that main numbers, direct numbers, departmental routing and other calling functions operated as intended before and during cutover.
4. Support administrators and employees
HCWT assisted City administrators and users through cutover and stabilization.
Post-migration support gave the City an experienced partner that understood both the previous Mitel environment and the newly implemented RingCentral platform.
A trusted communications relationship dating back to 2014
HCWT’s work with the City of Cheyenne did not begin with the RingCentral migration.
In 2014, the City selected HCWT to migrate its legacy Avaya PBX to Mitel. HCWT has continued serving as Cheyenne’s communications vendor since that initial modernization project.
When the City was ready to move from Mitel to RingCentral, it again trusted HCWT to manage the transition.
That continued relationship is a testament to the HCWT service delivery model. HCWT does not approach a communications deployment as a one-time equipment sale. Its team works to understand the customer’s environment, support the system after implementation and remain available as technology and operational requirements evolve.
The City’s decision to continue working with HCWT through multiple generations of communications technology demonstrates the value of:
- Consistent service and technical support
- Long-term knowledge of the customer’s environment
- Experience with both legacy and modern platforms
- Reliable project planning and implementation
- Vendor-neutral technology guidance
- Continued support after the initial deployment
Why did HCWT’s prior knowledge of Cheyenne matter?
HCWT already understood the City’s locations, departments, telephone numbers, network environment and operational needs.
That institutional knowledge allowed HCWT to plan around actual municipal workflows rather than approaching the deployment as a generic phone-system replacement.
HCWT understood how the City’s communications environment had evolved from Avaya to Mitel and could apply that knowledge when designing the move from Mitel to RingCentral.
This continuity reduced the need for the City to educate an entirely new provider about its environment and helped HCWT identify important dependencies earlier in the migration process.
For a municipality, that knowledge can be particularly valuable because telephone service touches public works, utilities, public safety, recreation, administrative departments and numerous resident-facing services.
What were the results of the RingCentral migration?
The City of Cheyenne now has a cloud communications platform capable of supporting employees across departments, facilities and work locations.
The migration preserved the public numbers and department-specific workflows residents rely upon while giving City personnel a more flexible platform for ongoing administration and future requirements.
Centralized administration
The City can manage communications more consistently across its municipal locations through a centralized cloud platform.
Connected departments
RingCentral provides a common communications environment while allowing departments to retain the routing and workflows needed for their individual operations.
Greater flexibility
The platform supports communications for office-based, mobile and remote employees across the City’s organization.
Preserved public access
The project protected established telephone numbers and call flows used by residents to reach City departments and services.
Future-ready communications
Cheyenne now has a scalable platform that can evolve as the City’s reporting, mobility, integration and service requirements change.
Continued local expertise
The City continues to have an experienced communications partner familiar with its previous Avaya and Mitel systems as well as its current RingCentral environment.
Why is long-term vendor continuity valuable to a municipality?
Long-term vendor continuity gives a municipality access to a communications partner that understands its departments, locations, published telephone numbers, network environment and operational history.
Municipal communications systems rarely remain static. Departments move, facilities open or close, employees change, telephone numbers are added, call flows are updated and new applications must be integrated.
A long-term partner can help the organization manage those changes without repeatedly starting the discovery process from the beginning.
HCWT’s relationship with the City of Cheyenne demonstrates this model:
- 2014: HCWT migrated the City from its legacy Avaya PBX to Mitel.
- 2014 onward: HCWT continued serving as the City’s communications vendor.
- Current modernization: HCWT helped migrate the City’s established Mitel environment to RingCentral.
- Ongoing: HCWT continues to support the City as its requirements evolve.
Frequently asked questions
Can a city migrate from Mitel to RingCentral?
Yes. A city can migrate from Mitel to RingCentral after documenting its locations, users, extensions, telephone numbers, call flows, queues, auto attendants, devices, carrier services, network requirements and public-facing operations.
Can RingCentral support multiple municipal locations?
Yes. RingCentral can provide centrally managed cloud communications across administrative offices, public works facilities, utilities, recreation facilities, public safety locations and other municipal sites.
How do you protect public telephone numbers during a municipal migration?
The implementation team should create a complete telephone-number inventory, confirm ownership and carrier records, document existing routing, coordinate number porting, test inbound and outbound calling, and establish escalation procedures for cutover.
Can municipal departments keep different call flows?
Yes. Individual departments can retain customized auto attendants, queues, schedules, shared lines and call-routing rules while operating on a common cloud communications platform.
Why does legacy PBX experience matter?
Experience with systems such as Avaya and Mitel helps the migration partner understand how existing extensions, hunt groups, call coverage, auto attendants, voicemail, analog services and department-specific features may need to be recreated in the new environment.
Does HCWT support government RingCentral migrations?
Yes. HCWT helps cities, counties, special districts, utilities and other public agencies evaluate, design, implement and support RingCentral communications environments.
Can HCWT support both cloud and on-premises phone systems?
Yes. HCWT supports cloud, on-premises and hybrid communications solutions, including RingCentral, Mitel and Avaya environments. This allows HCWT to help agencies select a migration strategy based on their operational, technical and budget requirements.
Does HCWT provide support after implementation?
Yes. HCWT provides implementation assistance, administrator and user support, cutover assistance, stabilization services and ongoing communications support options.
Planning a government phone-system modernization?
HCWT helps municipalities, counties, special districts, utilities and public agencies migrate from Avaya, Mitel, Cisco, ShoreTel, Nortel, NEC and other legacy systems to modern cloud, on-premises or hybrid communications platforms.
Our services can include:
- Existing PBX discovery
- User, extension and number inventories
- Departmental call-flow documentation
- Network-readiness assessments
- RingCentral design and configuration
- Auto attendant and call-queue development
- Telephone-number porting
- Device planning and deployment
- Paging and analog endpoint planning
- E911 and dispatchable-location planning
- User and administrator training
- Cutover and testing
- Post-migration support
Contact HCWT to schedule a school district or university review.