Exchange Server 2010 : Managing Unified Messaging (part 1)

1. Enabling Mailboxes for Unified Messaging

For most people, enabling a mailbox for UM might seem straightforward, but it is not done in the properties of the mailbox on the Mailbox Features tab, but using Enable Unified Messaging in the Actions pane in the EMC as seen in Figure 1 or by using the Set-Mailbox cmdlet.

When you enable a user account for UM, you must specify a UM mailbox policy and an extension, and you must assign a PIN or configure the system to generate the user's initial PIN. After enabling a user for UM, Exchange Server sends the user an e-mail message indicating that the account is enabled. The message also contains the PIN. The user must use touch tones to input a PIN when accessing the UM-enabled mailbox. Speech recognition is not enabled for PIN input.

Since Exchange 2010 SP1 you can also add a mailbox to a secondary UM dial plan. This is especially helpful if your user has multiple phones that are not part of the same UM dial plan. For example, one of your users might be part of an OCS dial plan as well as an UM dial plan that has a direct connection to an IP gateway using the URI type Telephony Extension. You configure a secondary UM dial plan using the Set-Mailbox <Mailbox> -SecondaryAddress <extension> -SecondaryDialPlan <UMDialPlan> cmdlet.

9.7.2. UM Reporting

For UM reports you required System Center Operations Manager 2007 and the Exchange 2010 Management Pack to be installed in Exchange 2010 RTM.

Exchange 2010 SP1 includes reports that allow you to verify UM quality metrics and see details about the UM IP gateway's specific voice mail calls performed. The call data records for UM reporting are automatically stored after the call to the discovery metadata mailbox found with the fixed name SystemMailbox{e0dc1c29-89c3-4034-b678-e6c29d823ed9} for 90 days. This is enabled by default and cannot be changed. If you want to keep the records for a longer period, you need to export them.

Note:

If you're using OCS QmS (Quality of Experience Monitoring Server), the data is automatically also available to OCS.

The UM reports are available in the EMC Toolbox, ECP, or EMS. The following UM tools are available:

• Call Statistics Shows the calls made, the quality of the call, and so on. You also can export a report and use another program such as Microsoft Excel to analyze it. Alternatively, you also can use the Get-UMCallSummaryReport cmdlet in the EMS to receive an aggregated view on calls received and made through your UM environment.

• User Call Logs When users complain about the quality of voice mails, the administrator can verify the UM logs to identify the reason for the issue. For example, you will see a summary of the voice mails the user received and the respective IP gateway of the voice mail, as shown in Figure 2.