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Unifi ed Messaging is the integration of voice, fax, and e-mail messages into the user’s Inbox.. Exchange Server 2007 Unifi ed Messaging connects Exchange Server with the existing teleph

Unifi ed Messaging is the integration of voice, fax, and e-mail messages into the user’s Inbox

Exchange Server 2007 Unifi ed Messaging connects Exchange Server with the existing telephony network infrastructure to provide access to different kinds of messages in a single location After reading this chapter, you will have a thorough understanding of Unifi ed Messaging and the way

it is integrated into Exchange 2007 Furthermore, you will know the different Unifi ed Messaging components and features that make up the Exchange 2007 Unifi ed Messaging service

Bear in mind that this chapter is an introduction to the feature set provided by the Unifi ed Messaging server role, and not a comprehensive chapter on how to confi gure and integrate UM with your existing PBX infrastructure

What Is Exchange 2007 Unifi ed Messaging?

Unifi ed Messaging brings voice, fax, and e-mail messages together into one mailbox that is accessible

by telephone or e-mail on a computer or mobile device

Normally, you would manage your voicemail and fax messages in a different way than you would manage your e-mail It usually requires various clients and methods to acquire these different messages E-mail is read on a computer with something like Outlook or a Web mail client,

voicemail messages are obtained through the telephone, and fax messages come to—and are sent from—physical fax machines, or they are integrated into a messaging system through a third-party application Besides the different access methods, the process also results in separate address lists for each of the three messaging types, making it hard to keep all of the address lists straight

SOME INDEPENDENT ADVICE

Once you have implemented Exchange 2007, you will fi nd Unifi ed Messaging a valuable extra service Calculate the costs of maintaining your current voicemail, auto attendant, and fax servers and compare it with the costs of a Unifi ed Messaging service that probably provides more functionality than all of your current systems combined In most cases, you will see that Unifi ed Messaging is not only more useful, but also costs less

To install the Unifi ed Messaging role, there must be a mailbox server, client access server, and a Hub Transport server available The Unifi ed Messaging role can be installed on the same server as the other roles (except the Edge Transport server role), and can also be installed on a dedicated server You can select the feature in the custom installation screen, as shown in Figure 11.1

Unifi ed Messaging brings the different message types together and provides a single point of

access to these messages, resulting in a better user experience To provide this, Exchange Server 2007 contains the following core features:

■ Call answering

■ Fax receiving

■ Outlook Voice Access (OVA)

■ Automated Attendant

These features are discussed in more detail in the next section

Figure 11.1 Exchange Setup Wizard Custom Installation

Exchange 2007 Unifi ed Messaging Features

Exchange 2007 gives users Unifi ed Messaging features such as call answering, fax receiving, Outlook voice access, and an Auto Attendant

Call Answering

The Call Answering feature consists of functions to answer incoming calls on behalf of the mailbox owner, play their personal greeting, record a voicemail message, and submit the recorded voicemail message from a caller to the mailbox as an attachment to an e-mail message The voicemail messages are attached to e-mail messages as WMA-fi les which can be played from within the Outlook client or

on a phone by clicking the “play on phone” link in the e-mail message (see Figure 11.2) The name

of the sender of the message that contains the voicemail is determined by using Caller-ID and the global address list and contacts To set a personal greeting, the mailbox owner has to gain access to their mailbox by using a phone The feature that provides phone access to the mailbox is called Outlook Voice Access, which will be covered later in this section As all messages are routed through the Hub Transport server, voicemail messages are also routed through this server This way, transport rules can be applied to these messages

BEST PRACTICES ACCORDING TO MICROSOFT

Consolidate sites and systems by implementing Exchange 2007 Unifi ed Messaging All voicemail and fax systems in branch offi ces can be consolidated into one Unifi ed Messaging server Replacing individual offi ces’ voice mail systems with a single

centralized system can drastically lower support and maintenance costs for the voicemail system by eliminating the most expensive component: legacy voice mail hardware

NOTE

For more information, read the Unified Messaging whitepaper at

www.microsoft.com/exchange/evaluation/um.mspx

Fax Receiving

When someone sends a fax message to a recipient on the Unifi ed Messaging system, the Unifi ed

Messaging server handles the call Incoming fax calls are answered and routed the same way voice

calls are The only difference is the attachment Fax messages contain a TIFF fi le as an attachment,

which carries the fax message

Outlook Voice Access

Outlook Voice Access (OVA) provides access to a mailbox through any telephone To gain this access, users dial a subscriber access number that is confi gured in a dial plan A dial plan is made from rules that determine how calls are routed in the Unifi ed Messaging environment When a call is made to

the subscriber access number, the system will present a welcome message and ask the user for the

pin-code to gain access to the mailbox If authorization is successful, a series of voice commands

provides ways to:

■ Listen to e-mail and voice mail messages

■ Reply, delete, forward, and save e-mail and voice messages

■ Listen to appointments and meeting information

■ Accept or decline requests

■ Send an “I’ll be late” message to all meeting attendees

■ Reply to meeting requests by sending a spoken message to all attendees

Figure 11.2 An Example Exchange Voice Mail Message

■ Cancel a meeting

■ Access the global address list and their personal contacts to locate contact details

or send a voice message

■ Change their PIN-code, spoken name, or Voicemail greeting

BEST PRACTICES ACCORDING TO MICROSOFT

Use the Outlook 2007 client which is part of the Offi ce 2007 suite For Unifi ed

Messaging, the advantage of using the Outlook 2007 client with Exchange 2007

is that users can change their Unifi ed Messaging settings from within their

Outlook client

The interaction with the Outlook Voice Access system is based on automatic speech recognition (ASR), but it is also possible to perform many actions by using Touch-Tone dialing Unifi ed

Messaging language packs are available that allow the OVA system to speak additional languages to callers These packs contain pre-recorded prompts like “Welcome You are connected to Microsoft Exchange,” in the selected language They also enable text-to-speech so content can be read to the caller in the language the message was written in

Auto Attendants are replacements for human operators Auto Attendants can provide anonymous

incoming calls with a series of voice prompts that help them locate the appropriate department or employee and place a call to that number The Auto Attendant consists of voice prompts (WAV fi les) that callers get to hear instead of a human operator This feature can also be used with Touch-Tone or speech inputs The Auto Attendants are completely customizable so as to meet the business needs of any organization

SOME INDEPENDENT ADVICE

Install Unifi ed Messaging language packs for all languages in which you will receive e-mail To provide a great user experience, make sure the text-to-speech module can read all the messages in a correct manner

NOTE

Unifi ed Messaging language packs can be downloaded at www.microsoft.com/ downloads/details

aspx?familyid=A59E41BD-5760-45EF-8299-1DC57601D9BD&displaylang=en