Exchange Unified Messaging
Businesses operations have seen rapid change in recent years, but the systems that service these businesses often have not kept pace with the changes. Voice mail systems remain artifacts of the workplace of the past. Exchange Unified Messaging aims to break down the walls between different messaging systems, increasing productivity while consolidating infrastructure and letting you get more from your existing IT investments.
Some of the features Exchange Unified Messaging offers include:
Voice and Fax Messaging
Microsoft Exchange Server can receive a voice mail or fax message. These messages become available through all Exchange clients, including Microsoft Office Outlook, Office Outlook Web Access, Office Outlook Mobile, mail clients of Exchange ActiveSync licensees, and Office Outlook Voice Access. Employees have access to all their vital business communications from virtually anywhere.
Multiple Dial Plans on a Single System
A single Exchange server can support multiple dial plans on a single server. Rather than requiring a separate voice mail setup in each office, Exchange Unified Messaging allows centralization of the voice and fax messaging on a single system. Resources can therefore be more efficiently aggregated and optimized, reducing total costs.
Flexible Integration with Many Private Branch Exchanges (PBXes)
Exchange Unified Messaging has support for standard VoIP protocols such as Session Initiation Protocol (SIP), Real-Time Protocol (RTP), and T.38. It works natively using these protocols with IP-PBX systems. Exchange Unified Messaging also can interoperate with a wide array of circuit-switched PBXes through inexpensive media gateways. A single UM server can support multiple PBXes from multiple vendors, allowing you to centralize your messaging infrastructure and significantly reduce costs.
See a full list of currently supported PBXes.
Rich Desktop and Web Client Integration
Rich support for Exchange Unified Messaging exists in clients such as Outlook 2007 and Outlook Web Access. Users can play messages with an embedded player, take notes associated with voice mail messages, redirect messages to play on a phone, and perform routine management tasks directly from the clients they use more often.
Outlook Voice Access
Users can access their Exchange mailbox using a standard telephone, available anywhere. Through touchtone or speech-enabled menus, they can hear and act on their calendar, listen to e-mail messages (translated from text to speech), listen to voice mail messages, call their personal contacts, or call any user listed in the company directory.
See a list of options available for OVA in the Quick Reference for Outlook Voice Access.
Calendar Access from a Standard Phone
Using Outlook Voice Access, users can call in and manage their calendars. They can accept or decline meetings, send notifications to meeting participants that they will be late to a meeting, or even, in the case of an emergency, clear their calendars for a given period of time.
Contact Management
Outlook Voice Access gives users instant access to a variety of contacts over the phone. They can access not only their own personal contacts by phone, but also their entire corporate directory, allowing them to reach colleagues faster. They can call colleagues directly or send them an e-mail message with a voice attachment from the phone.
Mobile Phone Support
Using Exchange ActiveSync, Microsoft’s mobile push e-mail support, voice mail and fax messages appear instantly on mobile devices. Users receive a notification and immediately can play the message on the phone, without the need for an additional call. Mobile information workers thus can achieve faster response times than possible with traditional voice mail.
Active Directory Integration
Exchange Unified Messaging uses Active Directory as the center of user provisioning. Because it is part of Exchange Server 2007, there is no need to apply additional disruptive schema extensions because all the data needed is already present. Any user listed in Active Directory can be quickly enabled for Unified Messaging, either through the Exchange Management Console or through a Microsoft Windows PowerShell script. When new employees are added to an organization, there is no need to provision them in multiple systems.
Unified Management of the Messaging Environment
Exchange Unified Messaging is manageable from the Exchange Management Console and is fully integrated with Exchange Management. It installs easily with the rest of Exchange. There is only one set of tools and training a messaging administrator needs to manage the entire messaging environment. Administrators can reuse their Exchange experience to manage the whole of the messaging environment. In addition, with Windows PowerShell, it is possible to script common management tasks across the messaging environment. For example, in a single short script an administrator can create a number of mailboxes and enable these messages for Exchange Unified Messaging.
Integrated Speech Recognition
English-language speech recognition is a built-in component of Exchange Unified Messaging. No additional servers or licenses are required for the use of speech recognition. This provides an easy, intuitive way of accessing messages over the phone without the normal learning curve associated with new voice mail systems.
Multiple Language Support on a Single Server with Automatic Language Detection
Menus and speech to text are available in the following languages: English (U.S.), English (U.K.), English (Australia), French (France), French (Canada), German, Japanese, Italian, Spanish (Spain), Spanish (Mexico), Brazilian Portuguese, Korean, Mandarin (PRC), Mandarin (ROC), and Dutch. When a message is read, the language of the message will automatically be detected and the message read in that language. Users who receive messages in multiple languages will therefore always hear their messages read in the appropriate language. A single server can also be configured to answer the phone in different languages depending on the dial plan through which the call was received. Therefore, all global offices can be consolidated in a single messaging environment.
Play on Phone
Exchange Unified Messaging allows users to play back voice messages received in their Exchange inbox on a designated phone. This feature is useful when a user is in a public place and does not want to play the voice mail over their computer speakers. Play on Phone routes the voice mail to a cell phone, desk phone, or other number specified by the user.
Self-Service Support Options
Common sources of helpdesk calls can be managed directly from clients such as Outlook and Outlook Web Access. Users can request a reset of their voice mail PIN, set their voice mail greeting, record their out-of-office voice message, and specify mailbox folders to access when calling in by phone to hear e-mail messages through text-to-speech translation. This eliminates the need to call a helpdesk for common tasks such as PIN reset, greatly reducing support costs.
Speech-Enabled Auto Attendant
The Attendant answers calls using an automated operator with customizable menus (for example, "press 1 for sales") and global address list directory lookups (for example, "who would you like to contact?"). Callers can interact with the Automated Attendant through touchtone menus or their voice using speech recognition.
For more information on Exchange Unified Messaging, see Exchange Server 2007 Unified Messaging.
