I recently had the opportunity to attend an Exchange 2010 Ignite session and wanted to talk about what was new with the UM role in Exchange 2010.
Exchange 2010 UM Architecture
The architecture is the same as in Exchange 2007 so nothing new to report here. You can still do direct SIP integration with approved IP/PBX’s or you can use a certified VoIP gateway when your PBX can’t natively communicate with Exchange UM.
Exchange 2010 UM Administration
Since Exchange 2010 introduces the concept of Roles Based Access Control (RBAC) this feature extends into new UM roles with respect to Administration. There are 3 roles:
- UM Administrator Can administer all Exchange UM functionality
- UM Recipient Administrator - Can Provision UM mailboxs, facilitate PIN resets and clear lockouts
- UM Prompt Administrator – can update Dial Plan and Auto Attendant prompts
You can create your own custom roles that allow for even more granular UM administration if required. This is a great enhancement as in almost all accounts I have worked with the Messaging Teams and Voice Teams are always separate and Exchange UM has always introduced political issues when it came to doing administration. This solves that issue and allows the Voice team to retain control over the voicemail functionality .
MP3 Codec Support
MP3 codec support has been added to Exchange UM. Although its not as good of a codec as WMA in terms of compression and quality, it is still a very popular format and allows for better support on Blackberries and iPhones.
Message Waiting Indicator (MWI)
This was a sore point for many Exchange UM customers that still used traditional IP/PBXs and required the light to flash on their phones. You needed to use a 3rd party to do this. Well now this functionality is built in. As well, you can do SMS notifications.
Voice to Text Transcription
Exchange 2010 can transcribe an audio voicemail into text as part of the body of the voicemail. This is great for visually previewing what a voicemail is regarding and even better since that text is then indexed by Outlook! Fantastic for finding old voicemails. This is also nice while in meetings or somewhere you can’t just play your messages out loud. I’m told the transcription feature 75% accurate and will likely improve in future releases or updates. This feature is very Exchange Server CPU intensive so Exchange only do transcription when not very busy.
Personal Auto Attendant
Another nice addition is the ability to create conditions when a user can’t reach you. Rather than just leave a message you can setup alternative options for the user.
There are 4 kinds of conditions that you can configure with using Call Answering Rules:
- Caller ID
- Time-of-the-day
- Free/busy status
- Automatic email reply is enabled/disabled
There are 3 kinds of actions supported by Call Answering Rules:
- Find-Me (Exchange UM will attempt to locate you on up to two different phone numbers)
- Call Transfer (Have UM transfer the call to someone else)
- Leave a voice mail
You can record different messages for each call answering rule if you like as well.
Better CallerID Lookup
Exchange 2010 UM has a more enhanced process for adding CallerID information to Voice Mail messages so the experience should be improved over EUM 2007. You can see the entire process here.
Protected Voicemail
Exchange UM now supports Microsoft’s IRM meaning you can mark voicemail messages as private if required just as you would with email messages. For example you can leave a voice mail message and specify that it cannot be forwarded.
Fax Support
Native Fax support in Exchange UM has been deprecated in E2010. Instead you must use a 3rd party fax product to support faxing to inbox. This has cause some controversy but Microsoft claims it will allow for both fax send and receive rather than receive only in E2007 UM.
You can download Exchange 2010 for evaluation here: http://technet.microsoft.com/evalcenter/dd185495.aspx
Nice post,
Some great information about UM,
Anyway, thanks for the post
Posted by: geeks | January 14, 2010 at 11:22 AM