Cisco Unified Messaging. User doesn't want emails.

[STMorin]

Hi,
We are fairly new to Cisco's Unified messaging. I have a user that would rather not have voice messages appearing in his email inbox. We use Lotus Notes. It makes sense to have Unified messaging for laptop users, but not for someone who uses a desktop computer. I looked around a bit in the subscriber config and did not see a way to prevent this from happening.
Is there such an option or should I use email rules in Lotus Notes?

Thanks.
Steve

 

[MG2005]

dont believe you have any control on the Unity side...

Not sure about doing it through Lotus

We use exchange for Unity integration, and since the message has to come into the users inbox to light their MWI, and their voicemails live on the exchange server not the Unity server I dont know how you could do this, except to create the user as a standalone voicemailbox and not a unified messaging user. (dont think you can have a mixed environment tho)

I dont agree that its for laptops users tho... personally I think it still makes sense since you have much more control over your voice messages and the efficiency of not having to log into a phone everytime you want to playback (at least using viewmail for outlook you dont)

once you use it regularly you really never log into teh phoen ever...unless you need to change a greeting and dont have web access

its one of the main reasons for unified messaging/convergence !!

 

[jneiberger]

I disagree, but then I've never used unified messaging. What's the point in spending gazillions of dollars to get unified messaging for desktop users just to save them from having to pick up the phone to listen to their voice mails?

That's pretty silly, if you ask me. And it would be an impossible justification to make in our environment.

 

[STMorin]

Hello again.
Thanks for the replies. I was hoping for a checkbox that would enable/disable the email function. It's bad enough we have two voicmail systems right now. We're going to replace one of them in third quarter. If you're like me, its just one more thing to support.
There are two flavors of Cisco voicemail... voicemail only and unified messaging. Unified messaging is definately much more work on the front end, but I guess you could call it job security.
With Unified messaging, the user has to have an email account even if they don't use email or even have a computer.
Steve

 

[MG2005]

how is it gazillions of dollars? you likely already have email server(s), all you are doing is adding a need for more storage capacity..so yes prob some investment, but licensing is almost identical for UM as it is for standalone if I remember correctly

another reason - redundancy. You can configure Unity to run across multiple exchange servers...since redundant email servers already exist...

another reason - importing users from AD is qucik and easy and sweet

automatic Unity failover is another reason...you need 3 Unity servers to do it in a standalone configuration, only 2 servers in a unified environment

and yes many companies would pay for enhanced productivity!...and enhanced efficiency!..i save probably 10-15 minutes minimum or more per day clicking an email to listen and delete as opposed to logging into a phone to do teh same thing. Our Operations people probably alot more time saved...

luckily no one said who needs to invest in email when i can just as easily put a letter in an evelope and mail it for less money!! or we'd still be using snal mail!!

 

[jneiberger]

You listen to your voice mails on your PC speakers? Wouldn't work here. I don't want to hear my manager's voice mails and he doesn't want to hear mine. Besides, nobody at our company has speakers on their PC so we'd have to use headphones, but if you're going to pick up a headphone, you might as well pick up a handset.

Do you really save that much time? How long does it take you to log into your voice mail? It takes me about five seconds, literally, and my handset is right next to my mouse so it doesn't take much more movement. heh heh...

I guess I just don't see the benefit for desktop users, but my opinion would probably change if I had a chance to play around with it, but it would cost many many thousands of dollars to give our users that capability.

 

[MG2005]

no you dont need speakers-

theres an outlook plug in called viewmail for outlook...

it adds a small toolbar to the email body, you click play with your mouse, it calls you on your phone you pick up, listen, hang up, done (delete like an email!)

we didnt spend much more for unified but got much more redundancy and efficiency. It also forced us to do what we needed to do anyway...beef up our email servers a bit more

you'd love it

 

[jneiberger]

We don't use Outlook. That's part of the problem. We're actually a GroupWise shop so we'd have to buy a third-part integration application that's pretty expensive. It's probably much more expensive for us to get UM than it would be for an Outlook shop.

Besides, that's still a lot of money and complexity to save yourself from logging into your email to check messages.

I probably would love it, but there's no way I'd be able to convince upper management that it was a worthwhile expenditure.

 

[skroll]

I am still new to Unity, but I believe that you would have to rebuild the entire Unity server in order to no longer have Unified Messaging.

 

[MG2005]

yeah you'd have to research it more but in our case...we were already a cisco, exchange, and outlook shop...

so getting callmanager, unity, and going unified and converged only made sense. all the backbones and core pieces were in place so the whole voice and VM integration into our existing network and email environments was smooth and not too pricey

but i know that if you lok at unity unified vs standalone an dnothing else, theres little difference in cost, but a world of difference in functionality, redundancy/resiliency, and efficiency

the idea of one message store for everything (fax, email, voicemail) is a beautiful thing

 

[MG2005]

unity doesn't allow for mixed licensing either (standalone and unified on the same server) that i know-

but to get a user his voicemails when he has no email account, or gets his voicemails without sending it to his email as well, not too sure, especially not sure on Lotus

 

[ys211]

For that particular user, create a rule in Lotus Notes client to delete email from unity.

 

[AdmanOK]

Do *not* create a rul to delete the emails. In a unified messaging environment the email *IS* the voicemail, if you delete one you delete the other. This was the one thing that had a kind of long learning curve for us when we deployed. People kept deleting the emails and wondering what happened to their voicemails. On the users where we activated TTS as well they were deleting their emails via the phone and wondering why the couldn't find them in Outlook later.

 

[pndscm]

Looks like mixed mode Unity is now available in Unity 4.2 but only for Exchange not Lotus Notes environments. Sorry STMorin.

http://www.cisco.com/univercd/cc/td/doc/product/voice/c_unity/whitpapr/vmumwp.htm