Managed Collaboration Migration


Transitioning your current Hosted Collaboration Solution (HCS) Licenses to SaskTel Managed Collaboration

Cisco has made changes to their software licensing. This has resulted in SaskTel being required to transition all Hosted Collaboration Solution (HCS) customers to a new license model.

SaskTel is ready to start transitioning HCS customers to Managed Collaboration. These license changes are happening internally at SaskTel and will not affect your business operations. Soon HCS will also be re-branded as SaskTel Managed Collaboration to align with Cisco’s exit of the HCS branding.

For this transition to occur, SaskTel requires information regarding your account.

Managed Collaboration includes Cisco Collaboration Flex licensing.  This licensing requires a Cisco Smart Account, so your Collaboration licenses can be used with your Cisco voice solution. These licenses must be consumed from your Cisco smart account and not the Cisco Partner (SaskTel’s) account as it has been in the past.

For SaskTel to transition your current HCS licenses to Cisco’s new model (Managed Collaboration), we require that you to provide us with some information about your Smart Account. This information will enable us to connect your new licenses with your current HCS service.


Cisco Collaboration - Smart Account ID Process

The Smart Account’s structure is demonstrated in the chart below. It consists of two major components: The Smart Account and Child Virtual Accounts, as described:


Step 1 – Smart Account Information

Do you know if your organization has a Smart Account with Cisco? If so, are you able to provide the following information for that Smart Account?

  • The Domain Identifier, and
  • Customer Smart Account Name

If you have not had an opportunity to setup an account, please create one by clicking ‘Get a Smart Account’ on the Cisco Smart Account website.

Please note that a Cisco.com (CCO) ID is required to register for a Smart Account. An informational PowerPoint about setting up a Cisco.com ID can be found at Creating A CCO ID



Step 2 – Create a Virtual Account

Within your Smart Account, you will need to create a Virtual Account to hold the new Managed Collaboration licenses. The account will separate your Managed Collaboration licenses that will be managed by SaskTel from any other Cisco smart licensing your organization uses.

If possible, please name the virtual account as follows: skl-customername-managed

Please visit this Cisco documentation on how to create a virtual account.

Once you have completed the creation of a new virtual account, please provide SaskTel the name of the Virtual Account, so we are able to synchronize that with the SaskTel Managed Collaboration licensing server.

Step 3 – Establish Synchronization

With the virtual account information from the last step, SaskTel will submit a request to access your virtual account to start the synchronization. Please watch for this request and approve it using your Virtual Account Administrator access.

Approval can be completed by following the steps outlined in this Cisco documentation.

Note: The Scope of Access in step 7 needs to be “Selected Virtual Accounts” and the “Virtual Account Administrator” user role after that.

Once SaskTel has established the relationship between your owned virtual account and HCS license server, your Managed Collaboration FLEX licensing will be applied.

Once you have your Cisco Smart Account ID details, please reach out to managed.collab@sasktel.com so SaskTel’s team can assist you further.

If you would like help from one of our Cisco technical experts to locate your Cisco Smart Account ID, please let your SaskTel Representative know, and a meeting can be arranged.



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