Unity Connection, Outlook and IMAP

James Hawkins · ‎09-04-2009

Hi,

I have a customer who is looking at replacing Unity for Exchange 4.x with Unity Connection 7.1.

With their current version of Unity voicemail messages are stored on their Exchange server and appear in their Outlook Exchange inbox. When they listen to a message in Outlook the MWI on their phone goes out.

Unity Connection supports integrated messaging where voicemails on the voicemail server may be accessed by an IMAP client.

I want to do this using Outlook 2007 and also have the MWI sysnchronisation.

This works ok but the voicemails appear in a separate inbox in Outlook which the users will not be happy with.

Does anyone know if Outlook can be configured so that the IMAP messages can be seen in the Exchange inbox but still retain the MWI synchronisation?

I know that with Connection 7.1 I can configure voicemails to be forwarded to an external email account but this breaks MWI (as does configuring Outlook rules to move messages from the IMAP inbox to the Exchange inbox).

nsn-amagruder · ‎09-04-2009

I'm not a Unity Connection expert but when we mad the decision to purchase it, it was 100% a seperate mail store from the Exchange store. This was the main advantage for us. Seperate retention policies, etc...

if they want to maintain that functionality of a single store, stick with Unity rather than UC.

I suspect that Cisco may phase out Unity as UC has been more popular...

Aaron

Ginger Dillon · ‎09-04-2009

Hi -

In Unity Connection, on the user settings, there is a Message Action link. From there, you have two options for voice messages:

- Accept and Relay - this sends message to UC mailbox and a copy to user's email address. Sets MWI but user has to work with two copies of the message. This is good for users with mobile devices, Blackberrys etc.

- Relay the message - no copy goes to UC mailbox so you don't get MWI. Only message sent to email address.

From the perspective of a customer that is moving from Unity to UC, only the users that had unified messaging before may take some adjustment using IMAP. Going forward, users that come from a voicemail only environment will only see integrated messaging as a benefit, in my opinion. From my own experience working in a government institution, more users than not do not want to intermix voice and email in same mailbox. Plus with UC you have active-active clustering for failover; digital networking and crossbox login which is sweet; onbox voice user interface; LDAP integration etc. UC offers the same great Unity features, but has no dependencies on AD schema, AD/GC domain integration, Windows/Exchange security updates and service pack compatibilities, a lot easier to administer and manage.

Ginger

James Hawkins · ‎09-04-2009

Thanks guys,

I was looking to give users the same "experience" as they get with Unity - i.e. voice messages in the same inbox as their emails and MWI sync but I guess it is not possible.

Hopefully they will adjust to the two inbox setup!

supportipsilan · ‎09-16-2009

hi everyone,

I want to use Outlook 2007 to store voicemail messages. So this is my configuration :

Unity Connection 7.1.2 with Exchange 2007SP2.

I have created an external service for exchange 2007 in Unity Connection administration.

I have tested the service, i have this error :

The server type pased in is different from the server type reported back from a service call. The reported server type is IMAP and the passed-in server type is Exchange 2007. Please configure the service with the right server type.

The service IMAP works

blocksupport · ‎02-01-2010

HI

I was wondering if you ever managed to get rid of this error message "The server type pased in is different from the server type reported back from a service call. The reported server type is IMAP and the passed-in server type is Exchange 2007. Please configure the service with the right server type"

As I have the same issue.

Rob Huffman · ‎09-04-2009

Hi Ginger,

Most excellent response here!! +5 points for this great overview and comparison.

Cheers!

Rob

PS: I noticed this "Retiree" in your title. Tell us this can't be true :)

Ginger Dillon · ‎09-04-2009

Hi Rob -

Just retired from Sacramento County after 26+ years this past Friday, but not ready to stop working :-) Taking almost a month vacation in September and then we'll see what UC opportunities present themselves after that. Will continue studying and catching up on the forum in the meantime. Thanks for your nice post!

Ginger

Rob Huffman · ‎09-05-2009

Hi Ginger,

You must have started with the County when you were 13 years old ;-)

I'm sure your phone will be ringing off the hook with job offers! The current Octel O250 line is coming "EoL" soon and many, many companies will be looking for your skillset to help them migrate to CUC.

Enjoy some well deserved time off my friend!

Cheers!

Rob

jeff.singh_2 · ‎10-09-2009

hello folks, just a quick question re smtp store and forward, the message come s through on the customers corporate email as "message from an unknown sender" - can something be done to make that a bit more user friendly or is that a something that must be done from the customer's smart host? thanks...Jeff