Cisco IPC Express Integrated Voice Mail

This chapter covers the following topics:

• Cisco Unity Express (UE) voice mail application
• Subscriber voice mail features
• Caller voice mail features
• Administrative voice mail features
• Call redirection into voice mail
• Working with users and names
• Dialplan considerations
• Voice mail networking
• Voice mail deployment considerations

In Part I, "Cisco IP Communications Express Overview," you learned about Cisco Unity Express and its contribution to the Cisco IP Communications (IPC) Express solution. Cisco UE offers an automated attendant (AA) and a voice mail application integrated with the Cisco CallManager Express (CME) call processing software.

Chapter 9, "Cisco IPC Express Automated Attendant Options," covered the Cisco IPC Express AA options in detail, including the AA offered by Cisco UE. This chapter explores Cisco UE's voice mail capabilities in greater depth. Alternative voice mail options that can be used with Cisco CME are covered in Chapter 11, "Cisco CME External Voice Mail Options."

Cisco UE is a typical voice mail system that includes all the common features you would expect from a low-end voice mail system, including personal mailboxes; subscriber login control; sending, listening to, saving, deleting, and forwarding voice messages; recording greetings and a spoken name for each mailbox; and directing calls to voice mail after the user's phone has rung for a configurable number of cycles.

Additionally, Cisco UE offers voice mail networking between different sites in your network, broadcast messaging, and distribution lists. Cisco UE also provides a number of general delivery mailboxes (GDMs) that you can use for functions in your organization (such as the factory or the sales desk) as opposed to being assigned to an individual employee.