Auto Attendant Objects
The
auto attendant provides an automated phone answering function,
essentially replicating a human secretary. The auto attendant answers
the incoming calls, provides helpful prompts, and directs the caller to
the appropriate services. The UM auto attendant objects can be found in
the Exchange Management Console on the UM Auto Attendant tab of the
Organization, Unified Messaging container.
The auto attendant
supports both phone key press (DTMF) and voice commands. This
sophisticated voice recognition technology allows the caller to navigate
the menus and prompts with nothing more than their voice if they want
to.
The auto attendant
objects support the following configurable features:
Customized
greetings and menus for business hours and nonbusiness hours
Predefined and custom schedule
to specify business hours and time zone
Holiday schedule for exceptions to the
business hour schedule
Operator extension and allowing transfer to operator
during business and nonbusiness hours
Key mapping to enable the transfer of callers to
specific extensions or other auto attendants based on hard-coded key
presses or voice commands.
Note
Everyone has felt the
frustration of moving through an automated call system and not being
able to reach an operator or a live person. With unified messaging, the
Exchange Server administrator now has control over that behavior.
The auto attendant can
allow or disallow transfer to the operator by specifically allowing or
disallowing transfer to the operator during business and nonbusiness
hours.
The author’s
recommendation is to allow transfers to the operator at least during
business hours to reduce caller frustration.
Each auto attendant can be
mapped to specific extensions to provide a customized set of prompts.
For example, an organization could set up one auto attendant to support
the sales organization calls with specific prompts for handling calls to
sales. The organization could then set up a second auto attendant to
support the service organization with specific prompts for technical
support and help. These would service different pilot numbers, depending
on the number that the caller used.
A front-end menu can
be created with key mapping and an auto attendant with customized
prompts. This allows the organization in the previous example to create a
top-level auto attendant that would prompt callers to “Press or say 1
for Sales or 2 for Service” and then perform the appropriate transfer. Figure 2 shows the key mapping configuration, which
would be accompanied by customized prompts.
The
initial greeting can be customized as well. There are two default
greetings, one for business hours and a second for off-hours. By default
the system says Welcome to Microsoft Exchange Server. In most
implementations you want to customize this to your company name and
include other relevant information. Customized greetings must be in a
specific format. They must be saved as PCM/16bit/8kHz/Mono .WAV files.
Each auto attendant can have a unique set of customized greetings and
prompts.
There is no limit to the
number of auto attendants that can be created in Active Directory. An
auto attendant can only be associated with a single dial plan, though a
dial plan can be associated with multiple auto attendants.
Unified Messaging
Server Objects
In Active
Directory, the Unified Messaging server object is a logical
representation of the physical Exchange Server 2010 Unified Messaging
server. The UM server objects can be found in the Exchange Management
Console in the Server Configuration, Unified Messaging container.
The Microsoft
Exchange Unified Messaging service (umservice.exe) is the service that instantiates
the unified messaging functionality that runs under the Local System
account. It is dependent on the Microsoft Exchange Active Directory
Topology service and the Microsoft Exchange Speech Engine service.
The major configuration
task for the Unified Messaging server object is to specify the
associated dial plans, of which there can be more than one. The Unified
Messaging server must be associated with a dial plan to function. The
other configurable parameters for the service are the maximum concurrent calls (default is
100) and maximum concurrent faxes (default is 100).
The Unified
Messaging server checks for changes when the service is started and
every 10 minutes thereafter. Changes take effect as soon as they are
detected by the server.
After determining the
dial plans for which it is associated, the server then locates and
establishes communications with the appropriate IP/VoIP gateways.
Much like the UM IP
gateway, the Unified Messaging server is created as enabled. The server
can be disabled via the Exchange Management Console or via the Exchange
Management Shell for graceful shutdown or maintenance. This can be
executed either immediately (which disconnects any current calls) or by
specifying to disable after completing calls. The latter mode disables
the server for any new calls but does not disconnect any current calls.
Any current calls will be allowed to complete.
Unified Messaging
Users
There is actually not
an Active Directory object for unified messaging users. Rather, the
unified messaging properties are stored in the Active Directory user
account and the Exchange Server 2010 mailbox. Voice mail messages and
fax mail messages are stored in the user’s mailbox.
These properties can
be found in the Exchange Management Console in the properties of the
user’s account in the Recipient Configuration, Mailbox folder. Within
the user account properties, the unified messaging settings are under
the Mailbox Features tab in the properties of the Unified Messaging
feature. After navigating to the Unified Messaging feature, the
properties button is clicked to access the feature properties.
When enabling a user for
unified messaging, the associated UM mailbox policy and extension must
be specified. The link to the mailbox policy provides a one-to-one link
to the UM dial plan.
The user’s mailbox quotas
apply to both voice mail messages and fax messages. If the user’s quota
settings prevent the user from receiving email (that is, the user’s
mailbox is full), then unified messaging functionality will be impacted.
Callers attempting to leave a message will not be allowed to leave a
message and will be informed that the user’s mailbox is full.
Note
Interestingly, if a
user’s mailbox is almost full, a caller will be allowed to leave a
message for the user even if that message will cause the mailbox to
exceed its quota. For example, consider a user who only has 25KB before
they exceed their quota and are prevented from receiving messages. A
caller could leave a minute long 100-KB voice message. However, the next
caller would not be able to leave a message for the user.
Exchange Server
2010 unified messaging includes a number of features to control the size
of voice mail messages to help control the storage impacts.
UM Web Services
A component that is not
represented in Active Directory is the UM Web Services. This is a web
service that is installed on Exchange Server 2010 servers that have the
Client Access role.
The service is used for
the following:
This service requires that
at least one Exchange Server 2010 server run the Client Access, Hub
Transport, and mailbox server roles in addition to the Unified Messaging
role.
