Access voicemail and email
from one user interface
Companies that want to stay on top of the latest communications technologies might be interested in Octel Unified Messenger from Lucent Technologies. Octel Unified Messenger lets you retrieve and reply to both email and voicemail through one interface. The software works with existing PBX systems to route voicemail and email through Microsoft Exchange (including Exchange 5.5). You can access and reply to voicemail and email messages through a telephone handset, Exchange, or Microsoft Outlook.
Configuring the System
As of December 1997, Octel Unified Messenger worked with 14 different PBX configurations, including models from AT&T, Harris, Intecom, Lucent, Mitel, Northern Telecom (Nortel), ROLM, and Toshiba. The configurations this software supports cover more than 90 percent of the PBX market. You run the software on a Windows NT server. In small installations, you can use the same server for the Octel Unified Messenger server and the Exchange server.
I don't recommend installing this product yourself unless you are familiar with PBX phone system installations and configurations. If you decide to install and configure the product your-self, prepare to spend at least a day with your server and the Octel Unified Messenger manual; the installation is an arduous task.
After you set up the base system, you must configure Octel Unified Messenger for your environment. You use the Telephone User Interface Voice Mail Domain menu to configure your voicemail system and Octel Unified Messenger's text-to-speech conversion mechanism. This configuration module lets you customize aspects of your environment from the number of digits in mailbox extensions to the duration of calls. The Telephone User Interface also lets you set the initial password for first-time users to random, default, or none.
You must also configure the Auto Attendant, another key module of Octel Unified Messenger. The Auto Attendant is the audio interface that lets incoming callers find the telephone extension they need by pressing keys on their telephone keypad. Screen 1 shows the Attendant Main Menu Editor. Administrators can assign one of four Auto Attendant responses to each of the numbers 1 through 9. (The Auto Attendant reserves 0 for its Main Menu prompt.) When callers select a number from their telephone keypad, the Auto Attendant will transfer them to a user's mailbox or play one of three messages: a message that the administrator records, a message that tells callers their selection is invalid, or a directory of additional choices.
Next, add a mailbox for each subscriber. First, you add the mailboxes to Exchange by selecting New Mailbox from the File menu in the Exchange Administrator interface. Exchange will then request information about the new mailbox subscriber. After providing the necessary subscriber information, you assign an account status (e.g., administrator or guest) to the new mailbox and click OK or Apply. The new mailbox will appear in the right panel of the Exchange Administrator interface. Double-click the new mailbox, and when the configuration interface opens, select Voice Mail from the available attribute tabs.
Select the Enable Voice Mail check box on the Voice Mail tab. A password for the new mailbox will pop up--write it down. Then enter the mailbox number and extension you want to assign to the new subscriber. (You'll probably want to make the mailbox number and the extension number identical for most users.) Assign a unique identifying number to the mailbox and click OK to apply the changes to the new mailbox. Wait 10 minutes for Exchange and Octel Unified Messenger to synchronize or restart Octel Unified Messenger, and the new mailbox will be ready for configuration.