Salesforce has published a retirement date for Open CTI: February 28, 2028.
If your organization relies on Salesforce’s Open CTI for telephony integration, this is a good time to consider how your voice strategy looks going forward.
For IT leaders, Salesforce Admins, and customer experience teams, the key question isn’t “How to Migrate from Open CTI to Service Cloud Voice,” but rather what the key steps are to building a scalable and effective voice strategy in light of these changes.
This article explains what Open CTI’s end of life means for you, and how the decision to migrate to Service Cloud Voice (now known as Salesforce Voice) changes your Salesforce workspace and workflows.
Read Salesforce’s Open CTI retirement announcement here.
Open CTI End-of-Life: What it Actually Means
Open CTI has been a reliable browser-based integration framework inside Salesforce for more than a decade. It allowed third-party telephony platforms to surface call controls, screen pops, and activity logging within the Salesforce interface.
Salesforce has now confirmed that Open CTI will be retired in 2028. That doesn’t mean it stops working tomorrow. It does mean organizations should put a transition plan in place well before the retirement date to avoid last-minute disruption.
If you are live on Open CTI today, your operations can remain stable while you plan your next steps.
AI, Automation, and the Future of Voice in Salesforce
There is significant discussion around AI within Service Cloud Voice – including capabilities such as transcription, summarization, and guided workflows within the Salesforce Voice workspace.
The availability and scope of these capabilities depend on your Salesforce configuration, licensing model, and rollout plan. They should be evaluated as part of your broader Open CTI migration strategy rather than assumed as automatic outcomes of switching platforms.
But AI readiness starts with architecture.
If your telephony foundation is stable and voice activity is consistently and accurately represented inside Salesforce, you establish a clean base for evolving your voice experience over time.
Service Cloud Voice: A Shift in the Workspace
The move from Open CTI to Service Cloud Voice represents a structural change in how voice is handled inside Salesforce.
With Open CTI, telephony lives outside Salesforce and is surfaced through integration. With Service Cloud Voice, Salesforce becomes the native voice workspace.
Instead of embedding a third-party dialer, Service Cloud Voice:
- Takes closer control of the call lifecycle.
- Connects call events to CRM data in real time.
- Enables native AI features across voice interactions.
That shift changes how voice activity is represented in the CRM and how agents interact with calls. Call controls, wrap-up, and outcomes live inside the Service Cloud Voice workspace rather than within a browser-embedded softphone panel.
For organizations planning an OpenCTI to Service Cloud Voice migration, the important distinction isn’t feature comparison – it’s architectural alignment.
Can I Keep My Existing Phone System?
The short answer is typically yes, but this shouldn’t be rushed into. As mentioned above, this is the time to plan how your voice architecture looks going forward, and to optimize and consolidate your stack where you can.
For example, if you are already using Microsoft Teams / Microsoft 365 for your daily communications, you can use Teams as your telephony system too. This can help reduce vendor sprawl, costs, and create a cleaner foundation for AI-enabled service.
That means:
- One identity layer
- One security and compliance model
- One collaboration platform
- One cloud-native voice architecture
You can speak to Open CTI to Service Cloud Voice migration expert about the options available to you.
Migrating from OpenCTI to Service Cloud Voice: Your Options Available
The right approach depends on your current licensing, operational readiness, and appetite for change. Open CTI migration does not have to be all-or-nothing.
Most organizations fall into one of three paths:
| Migration Tier | Architecture Approach | Best When | What You Get First | How It Evolves |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Transformation-Ready: SCV-First (Future-Aligned Path) | Adopt Salesforce Service Cloud Voice (SCV) as the standard agent voice workspace. | You’re ready to align early with Salesforce’s long-term voice direction. | Salesforce becomes the voice workspace, with call controls and wrap-up managed in SCV and voice outcomes captured in Salesforce’s SCV record model. | Expansion across teams once workflows, reporting, and adoption are validated. |
| Pilot and Validate: Controlled Transition (Phased Plan) | Maintain Open CTI in production for now while piloting SCV. | You want to keep operations stable while validating licensing, workflows, and rollout timing. | A stable current-state environment plus a structured pilot of the SCV workspace. | Gradual rollout by team, region, or business unit once readiness is confirmed. |
| Optimize Before You Transform: Capture-First (Keep Options Open) | Prioritize accurate voice activity capture inside Salesforce without committing to the SCV workspace yet. | You want to improve CRM data quality now while deferring a workspace change. | Cleaner Salesforce records that reflect voice activity, with minimal disruption to existing agent workflows. | Adoption of the SCV workspace later, when licensing and operational timing align. |
Final Thoughts: Build for Evolution, Not Stability
The most important decision isn’t choosing the wrong software today. It’s locking yourself into an architecture that prevents you from adapting tomorrow.
As AI capabilities accelerate, your telephony integration must:
- Be adaptable
- Be modular
- Support hybrid models
- Enable rapid experimentation
If you’d like advice tailored to your specific voice setup and requirements, one of our SCV migration experts will happily talk you through your options.
Request a call with an Service Cloud Voice migration expert here.
Open CTI to Service Cloud Voice Migration – FAQs
Salesforce has published a retirement date of February 28, 2028 for Open CTI. Organizations currently using Open CTI should plan their transition before that date to avoid disruption to their business once the functionality is disabled, according to Salesforce’s published timeline.
Salesforce has stated a retirement date. The practical approach is to migrate before 2028 so you are not dependent on Open CTI beyond the supported period. Salesforce states: “After this date, Open CTI implementations will no longer function”.
Service Cloud Voice (SCV) is Salesforce’s native voice workspace for service teams. It changes how agents handle calls inside Salesforce and how voice activity is represented on customer records.
Rather than surfacing telephony through a browser-based CTI panel, SCV provides a Salesforce-managed voice workspace.
One of the biggest misconceptions around the Open CTI to Service Cloud Voice migration is that everything must change at once. For organizations standardized on Microsoft 365 and Microsoft Teams Phone, that’s not the case.
Your Teams calling foundation can remain anchored in Microsoft.
Numbers, PSTN connectivity, routing, queues, dial plans, and calling policies can continue to be managed in Teams Admin Center. Calls still follow Teams routing behavior based on your existing configuration.
Service Cloud Voice changes the Salesforce workspace – not the way Teams calling is governed.
That distinction is critical for enterprise IT teams who want to avoid duplicating telephony configuration in multiple systems.
The primary change is the Salesforce agent workspace.
With SCV, call controls and wrap-up live in Salesforce, voice activity is captured using Salesforce’s SCV record model, and reporting and workflow logic may be structured differently.
Your telephony governance, routing, and numbering typically remain managed within your telephony platform.
No. The Open CTI retirement means organizations need a transition plan, but it does not require an immediate move to Service Cloud Voice. Many teams adopt a phased approach, validating SCV in controlled pilots before expanding.
A typical Open CTI migration plan includes:
- Auditing your current Open CTI setup.
- Documenting custom workflows and reporting dependencies.
- Defining your future-state voice experience in Salesforce.
- Piloting Service Cloud Voice with a controlled user group.
- Expanding gradually once validated.
Migration timelines vary depending on complexity, integrations, and organizational readiness.
In many cases, yes. A phased rollout allows organizations to maintain Open CTI in production while piloting SCV with selected teams. This reduces operational risk and supports gradual adoption.
Open CTI is a browser-based telephony integration framework that surfaces external phone systems inside Salesforce.
Service Cloud Voice is a Salesforce-native voice workspace that changes how calls and outcomes are represented within the CRM.
The key difference is architectural: SCV shifts the agent voice experience directly into Salesforce rather than relying on embedded CTI panels.
No. Historical data stored in Salesforce (such as Tasks, Activities, or custom objects) remains in your org. However, reporting models and object mappings may need to be adjusted when moving to the SCV record model.
A data audit is recommended before migration.
Migration timelines depend on organizational complexity. Smaller deployments may take several months. Mid-sized organizations often require a phased rollout. Enterprise environments may take longer due to routing logic, compliance, and global considerations.
The safest approach is to begin planning well in advance of 2028.
Not necessarily. Service Cloud Voice supports multiple telephony models. Some organizations retain their current provider, while others use the transition as an opportunity to reassess their voice architecture.
The decision depends on licensing, integration requirements, if you already have Microsoft Teams, and a long-term strategy.
Common challenges include:
- Rebuilding agent workflows
- Adjusting reporting structures
- Updating automation tied to call events
- Training agents on a new workspace
- Aligning compliance processes
A structured migration plan reduces disruption and helps validate scope before scaling.
Most organizations follow one of three paths:
- Move directly to SCV as the standard workspace.
- Pilot SCV while maintaining Open CTI in production.
- Improve voice activity capture first, then adopt SCV later.
Choosing the right tier depends on operational readiness and licensing alignment.
Service Cloud Voice enables Salesforce-native voice workflows that may include capabilities such as transcription, summarization, and guided experiences.
The availability and scope of these features depend on your Salesforce configuration and licensing model. AI adoption should be evaluated as part of your broader migration roadmap rather than assumed as automatic.
Service Cloud Voice is the voice workspace Salesforce is investing in going forward. Future-proofing, however, depends less on specific features and more on maintaining clean architecture:
- Stable telephony governance.
- Accurate voice activity representation.
- Clear separation between calling infrastructure and CRM workflows.
Organizations that align those foundations early reduce avoidable rework later.
The retirement date means you should begin planning before 2028. Organizations that start early can phase rollout, validate pilots, and align licensing cycles without rushing major architectural decisions.
