Migration of Custom Prompts

One of the areas to review in migration from Exchange 2007 to Exchange 2010 is around Auto-attendants and the use of custom prompts. In Exchange 2007 these prompts are stored in separate directories under “Program files\Microsoft\Exchange Server\UnifiedMessaging\Prompts\Custom”. From here the Exchange Replication Service replicates these prompts to every UM Server that hosts this dial plan.

Things have changes in Exchange 2010. We have introduced a new method to enable eDiscovery and Moderated distribution List called the Arbitration mailbox. The Exchange UM Server used the arbitration mailbox to store custom prompts. With this method we don’t need to introduce the replication service to ensure all UM server have the same information.

So, in short, there isn’t a migration method for custom prompts. The custom prompts will need to be located in the shares  and use either the EMC or shell to import the new greetings/prompts.

To import these prompts you can do via cmdline:

import-UMPrompt -PromptFileData <Byte[]> -PromptFileName <String> -UMAutoAttendant <UMAutoAttendantIdParameter> [-Confirm [<SwitchParameter>]] [-DomainController <Fqdn>] [-WhatIf [<SwitchParameter>]]

The process would be this in a full upgrade from Exchange 2007 UM to Exchange 2010:

1. Install Exchange 2007 SP2 on all servers.

2. Install Exchange 2010 UM Server and add the Server to the Exchange 2007 Dial Plan

3. Create custom prompts if new prompt. If existing use Copy-UMCustomprompt to move to Exchange 2010 UM Server.

Use IMport-UMprompt cmdlet to import into a UM Dial Plan or AA on the UM Server.

4. From the UM Server in the same org with Exchange 2007 UM Server run this:

Set-UMDialPlan -identity MyUMDialPlan -LegacyPromptPublishingPoint $null

5. Finally, decommission your Exchange 2007 UM servers if there are no Exchange 2007 UM-enabled mailboxes in your org.

More info on Exchange migration can be found here.