What is new with Exchange 2010 UM?

We have a green light to talk about some of the upcoming Exchange 2010 features in more depth now.  Greg did an OWA post and this one is about UM.

 

Has the UM architecture changed?

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No, it is the same. As you see above, the architecture for Exchange 2010 UM is the same as Exchange 2007 UM. You have your UM role connecting to either directly via SIP to the PBX or via a SIP gateway.

 

What’s new in UM administration?

With the new Role Based Access Control (RBAC) there are new UM roles:

-UM Administrator

-Administer any and all UM functionality

-UM Recipient Administrator

-Provision UM mailbox, PIN reset, clear lockout

-UM Prompt Administrator

-Update Dial Plan and/or Auto Attendant prompts

You can also create any type of custom UM admin role that might be needed.

 

Any new voicemail codec support?

Yes, we now have MP3 support. This is good news for schools with lots of iPhones and Blackberries.

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Do you have Personal auto attendant capabilities?

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Yes, you can have find me and custom attendants. You can also setup conditional rules such as if I am set to Out of Office play this set of menus, if I am at Work play this set, etc.

 

What about my red lamp or Message Waiting Indicator (MWI)?

Yes, we now have MWI native within Exchange 2010.

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You can also do SMS notification when a voicemail arrives.

In Exchange 2007, many education customers who deployed UM at first thought the red lamp was critical to deployment but after initial pilots it was noted that the majority of folks check their inbox well before they check their phone.  That being said, it is nice for your die hard phone end users you can provide them MWI out of the box now.

 

Do you have Voice to text transcription?

Yes, Exchange 2010 now has the ability to transcribe an audio voicemail into text as part of the body of the voicemail now. It is slated to be around 75% accurate for English.

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You may say that doesn’t sound very valuable but I really like this feature for two reasons:

1) You can preview voicemails while in a meeting

2) You can preview the voicemail on your phone when in a noisy location

 

What are some other UM enhancements I should know about?

  • CallerID lookup improvements (CLid)
  • Personal call answering rules (If then logic, time of day, etc)
  • Information Rights Management support (requires RMS) – encrypted VMs, confidential, callers can mark VM as private)

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  • Voice cards

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The ability to play the VM right from your Windows Mobile client without having to download the voicemail attachment, double click it, etc.

 

 

What about hosted Voicemail in the cloud?

Yes, Exchange 2010 will support hosted UM in the cloud. If the decision is to move your faculty and staff to BPOS/Exchange Online you can also get voicemail in the cloud.

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Stay tuned. We will have several more blog posts on other Exchange 2010 features this month.