Operating UM in a Multi-language Environment

Providing UM to your users in a multi-language environment requires additional considerations so that your users receive voice prompts for their local language. Consider the following when planning a multi-language implementation:

• Create one UM dial plan for every language you support. For example, if you set up a UM server for Germany, you should configure a UM dial plan with its own subscriber number that has German configured as default language in Language Settings.
• You can only define a single text message in a UM mailbox policy. If you are in a multi-language environment, you should consider either adding a text message for all languages or using a common language only.
• Minimize the number of languages to only the needed ones. Every language installed requires time for grammar generation and language specific work. If you do install all 26 languages, this might never be finished.

Note

You should consider a Subscriber Access number for every primary language that you want to support so that your local users can access their mailboxes in their local language.

Notes from the Field—Changing Language for Voice Mail

Korneel Bullens
Team Coordinator Unified Communications, Wortell, Netherlands

One of the questions I hear from my customers is "Why do I get my OVA greeting in English while my colleague has a Dutch or English intro?" This is a simple challenge. When your mailbox is created and you log on to Outlook or OWA, you encounter a language selection process. The language you pick is the language used on your voice mail. You can change this by opening Outlook Web App and changing your regional settings back to your desired language.

Foreign Language Support | International Considerations of Unified Messaging

Unified Messaging provides language packs to satisfy international UM requirements. In multiple-language environments, you should install the applicable UM language packs because some UM users prefer their voice prompts in a different language or because they receive e-mail messages in multiple languages that they need to access using OVA. If you do not install the UM language pack for a particular language, e-mail messages in that language will be illogical and incoherent when relayed to the user. OVA uses the following language selection behavior in the release version of Exchange 2010:

1. Try to find an exact match from the OWA language setting.
2. If no match is found, look for a language with the same parent language name. If multiple languages with the same parent language name are installed, the language that is last installed on the UM server wins.
3. If still no match, pick the latest language installed on the UM server.

Exchange 2010 SP1 changes the language selection behavior as follows:

1. Try to find an exact match from the OWA language setting.
2. If no exact match is found, fall back to a matching fallback language (en = en-US, fr = fr-FR, es = es-ES, pt = pt-BR, and so on).
3. If no fallback language is installed, use the default language of the UM dial plan.

Several key components rely on UM language packs to enable users and callers to interact effectively with Exchange Server 2010 UM in multiple languages. Each language pack includes:

• A Text-to-Speech (TTS) engine to read and convert messages when OVA users access their inboxes.
• The prerecorded prompts used to configure UM dial plans and auto attendants.
• ASR support for speech-enabled UM dial plans and auto attendants.

To install a language pack, use Setup.com /AddUMLanguagePack found in the Exchsrvr\Bin directory of the Exchange Server installation. Once you install your language packs, you can change the default language configured for each dial plan.

Note

Users automatically use the default language if their configured language setting in Outlook Web App is not available as a language pack. For example, if you install only the English and German language packs, and the English language pack is the default on the dial plan, a user with the French language configuration in Outlook Web App will hear English prompts.

In Exchange Server 2007, each language pack included the TTS engine but only supported ASR for U.S. English. In Exchange Server 2010, all available language packs contain ASR support. However, not all language packs support Voicemail Preview.

Note

You can access and download all available UM language packs at http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd638119.aspx.

Configuring Incoming Faxes

Exchange 2010 UM no longer supports inbound fax transcripts as it was available in the core product with Exchange 2007, but the UM server role retains fax configuration properties and forwards fax calls to a partner fax solution. This happens in the following way:

• If a fax tone is detected, UM looks at the FaxServerURI configuration property on the UM mailbox policy objects to determine if a partner fax solution is installed (and if so, where).
• If a value is found for the property, UM will attempt to hand off the call in progress to the partner fax solution. The partner fax solution will establish a fax media session with the sender, create a fax message, and send it to the UM-enabled user's mailbox.

Messages created by partner fax solutions will look essentially the same as those created by Exchange 2007 UM, and will appear as a fax when the user is UM-enabled.

To have faxes forwarded to your partner fax solution correctly, you need to make sure that the partner fax server is configured and you need to configure UM to make your fax partner solution available to UM. When you configure the Exchange UM, make sure the following areas are configured correctly:

• Verify that UM dial plan is configured to allow users to receive faxes. You can do this using the Set-UMDialPlan -FaxEnabled $true cmdlet.
• Configure the UM mailbox policy to forward faxes to the fax partner's server. You can do this using the Set-UMMailboxPolicy -AllowFax $true -Fax-ServerURI "sip::5060;transport=tcp" cmdlet.
• Make sure your UM-enabled mailbox can receive faxes.
• To enable fax messages to be sent to a UM server from the partner fax server, you also need to create a Send connector that is configured with the respective authentication that the partner fax solution supports.

To find a suitable fax partner solution that meets your requirements, you can get an overview of available fax solutions by reading the Fax Advisor for Exchange 2010 available athttp://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee364747.aspx.

Configuring UM IP Gateways & UM Hunt Groups

Configuring UM IP Gateways

You are required to create an IP gateway when you don't use OCS 2007 R2 in your environment and want to connect directly Exchange 2010 UM to your IP PBX or IP gateway. If you use OCS 2007 R2, the task of creating an IP gateway per OCS Pool will be done by the ExchUCUtil.ps1 script.

To create an UM IP gateway, you need the following information:

§  The name of the UM IP gateway

§  The IP address or FQDN of the IP gateway or IP PBX that you want to connect to

§  The UM dial plan the UM IP gateway will serve

To create a UM IP gateway, you can use the New-IPGateway cmdlet in the EMS or use the EMC as shown in Figure 1.

 

Figure 1: Creating a new UM IP gateway

Configuring UM Hunt Groups

For every UM IP gateway you also need at least one UM hunt group. To create a UM hunt group you need the following information:

§  Name of the UM hunt group

§  The pilot identifier for this UM hunt group

§  The UM dial plan the UM hunt group is part of

You can create the UM hunt group in the EMC, as shown in Figure 2, or you can use the New-UMHuntGroup cmdlet.

 

Figure 2: Creating a new UM hunt group

Call Answering Rules | Planning for Unified Messaging

Call Answering Rules or Personal Auto Attendants allow your users to create and customize rules to enhance the experience that callers have when their calls are answered. For example, the call answering rules can include features such as special greetings by contact or time of the day. Using call answering rules, the caller can for example decide to:

• Leave a voice message for the UM-enabled user.
  
  
• Transfer to an alternate contact of the UM-enabled user.
  
  
• Transfer to an alternate contact's voice mail.
  
  
• Transfer to other phone numbers that the UM-enabled user configures.
  
  
• Use the Find-Me feature or locate the UM-enabled user via a supervised transfer.

Your UM-enabled users can configure up to eight call answering rules in OWA Options or ECP, as shown in Figure 1.

 

Figure 1: Configuring Call Answering rules

Call answering rules consist of conditions, a greeting and menu, and actions. You can configure call answering rules in Outlook Web App Options.

Condition

The following conditions for call answering rules are available:

• If the caller is: calling from a phone number, this specific contact, or in my contacts folder.
• If it is during this period: working hours or nonworking hours to a specific time defined.
• If the user's schedule shows a status of: free, tentative, busy, or away.
• If you turn on automatic replies, such as when you turn on an automatic Out of Office message.

Greeting and Menu

Greeting and Menu is the area where the caller can take specific actions that users predefine. For example, after hearing a greeting that you previously recorded, you can provide a prompt so that the caller can dial you at home.

Note

When the users create their greetings, they have to take care of the entire caller menu—the auto attendant will no longer prompt the caller.

Actions

Actions define the tasks that occur when callers choose specific menu selections. You can select the following actions:

• Find Me At The Following Numbers Defines a recording text, the number key to press to transfer, and enables you to call two phone numbers for a specific time.
  
  
• Transfer The Call To Defines a recording text, the number key to press to transfer, and either a phone number or a contact—or indicates that the call should transfer directly to voice mail.
  
  
• Leave A Voice Message Directly transfers the caller to voice mail.