Exchange 2007 UM integration

[vdn]

Hi,

Does anybody have IP Office talking directly to Exchnage UM or through a SIP gateway or proxy? I have a few customers that would like to integrated directly to their Exchange 2007 server using IP Office. I have our enterprise Avaya switch talking to our Exchnage server in-house through a SIP gateway and was wondering if we can do this with IP Office?

Thanks

 

[coolbrad]

It has great email and calendaring features.

 

[mdekruif]

Hello,

on this very moment we are trying UM2007 on a 2008 server. So far is seems to work. I can make a call to the UM system and use the mailboxes.

I cannot call from the UM system to the IPO. Is this the problem or should it work

things that do work : UM voicemail, calender.

mathijs

 

[RavenAndy]

Mathijs

What gateway are you using?

 

[mdekruif]

No gateway, direct to the exchange server

it works for more than 2 weeks now (only in test environment)

 

[coolbrad]

How did you setup the short codes to send callers to UM Voicemail?

 

[mdekruif]

Before i give you wrong ideas, it is not possible yet to use the UM as voicemail system for the IPO. i don't have that working, it might be possible by using divert on no answer.

I can call to the UM system and use UM to leave mesages for users. Also its possible to listen to calender.

the setup I use:

SIP-trunk
ITSP-IP : server adres
Nerwork config
layer 4 : TCP
IN USE tapped on
USE Tel-UI tapped on

Short code
510
dail
700"domainname.local"

On the um server i did a defaul install and added a dialplan for 7**.

 

[RavenAndy]

You will need a third party gateway to get Ip Office to leave a message in exchange UM. The main problem is IP Office SIP does not support the "divert" verb so therefore Exchange UM will never be able to direct the incoming call into an exchange mailbox to leave a message. Trust me I spent weeks playing with this a year ago, the only current solutions are gateways.

I was told by a member of the Avaya development team that in a GAP analysis it wouldnt take much work to get a fully working exchnage gateway into IP office, for both voicemail messages into Exchange plus call back out of exchange using the IP Office, unfortunatly whilst the developers seem to think they can do it they have no direction from senior management to provide the link. May have something to do with a threat to VM Pro, however I was told it was because Exchnage UM was an enterprise product not SMB so they didnt see it fitting in with IP Office customers. Perhaps with the launch of SBS 2008 and EBS launch this year both targeted at the SMB market place with exchange 2007 bundled Avaya may change their mind.

Perhaps its time we started lobbying Avaya for the link.

I am attending Tech ED North America next month and will be at the Avaya stand pushing for this, if anybody else is attending the event please speak to avaya re this, we wont the solution.

 

[mdekruif]

OK, Ravenandy thanks for your explanation.

I wil try to push Avaya for intergrating UM in the IPO

 

[kevinmmccormick]

We have an AudioCodes MP-118 analog gateway and were very close to going live with it with Exchange UM. We had just about everything working, but at the last minute went with VM Pro instead. Here's why:

- Call quality - Analog just flat out wasn't as good as digital.
- Delays - Getting it to work required a lot of DTMF trickery that just wasn't very good and didn't work 100% of the time.
- More delays - Exchange UM requires a pretty beefy server to be responsive, and even with our relatively modern server it would still occasionally take 5 or so seconds to answer a call
- No transfer to VM directly. The VM transfer feature just doesn't exist.
- No Caller ID. IPO doesn't have the ability via DTMF or otherwise to send both the calling number AND the called number when redirecting to Group Voicemail, so none of the UM messages had any incoming numbers.
- Completely unsupported. We were going to be 100% on our own to keep the system up and running. Neither Avaya nor our partner wanted any part in trying to get the configuration running.

In general, it was a lot of work just for the WOW factor of getting the calendar and email read to us over the phone, which basically no one was going to do anyway. The integration with Outlook was very nice, and is significantly better than Avaya IMS, as long as you have an all Outlook 2007 shop, but the benefit just isn't there yet. We decided to go with a trial of VMPro in the hopes that a more direct or supported link would come to be, but I am not sure that is going to happen.

 

[coolbrad]

RavenAndy can you share your config with SipMerge

 

[kholladay]

I am currently working with product development on direct integration betwen IPO and Exchange UM via SIP however Avaya hasn't exactly committed to the idea. We really need three things to get this to work.

First we need the ability to add a Diversion to the INVITE. Second we need the ability to allow UM to request a port change after the INVITE (why the hell we need a 302 to change from 5060 to 5065 is beyond me but whatever). Finally we need the ability to wildcard inbound URI from a trusted source to allow UM to call out through the IPO to an external number.

It wouldn't be a bad idea for others to bring this up to Avaya. Also if you will be attending Tech Master this year I would mention it there.

Kyle Holladay
ACA-I, ACA Call Center, ACS-I, ACS-M, TIA-CTP, MCP/MCTS Exchange 2007
ACE Implement: IP Office

"If it worked the way it should you wouldn't need me

 

[RavenAndy]

Kyle

The 302 port change is down to Microsoft changing port's. 99% of sip applications use port 5060, however being Microsoft they first take the invite on port 5060 then ask the port to be changed to 5065. When your Microsoft I quess you can change the rules.

 

[RavenAndy]

Kevin

I agree completly with "is the wow factor worth the current hassle". We run both VM Pro plus Exchange UM, with SIpmerge as the gateway. This allows me to keep standard users and Auto attendant features on VM pro and our sales guys can go to site and Demo exchange 2007 giving them a great wow factor.

One major benifit is the sixe of the wav file, in voicemail pro 1 mb a minute in um its a 10th of the size.

Hopefully it will all get easier in the future.

For now my config is as follows. I have a SIp trunk that talks to sipmerge. basic setting with IP address no user name password, udp port 5060 and a trunk ID of 9.

I then created a short code for each user,
something like
code 8417 (users extension 417)
f Dail
N "417@xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx"
Line 9

Note the quotes are important, I then created a forward on busy.no answer to that shortcode and sipmerge deals with the divert and leaves a voicemail in the mailbox. If the user dials that number from their extension they access UM menu.