Breaking the Unity<->Exchange link

[admin_2]

Did a mass-import of users from Exchange. Now, some users are saying that they're getting _too_ many email from Unity with voice mail attachments. What can I change so that those users don't get voice mails into the Inbox?<br><br>Do I have to delete those users and re-add them?<br><br><br>

[#2]

Additional information: using the rules wizard to delete / move the messages apparently isn't an option.

[#3]

I'm not clear on exactly what you're trying to do... are you wanting to store voice mail messages in a seperate mailbox for each user so they don't see them in outlook but can get at them on the phone?

No, you can't just move voice mail messages after they arrive. This screws up the notificaton engine and when they call in over the phone we wont get at thier voice mail.

yes, you can do this if you want by seperate creating mailboxes for each user as a "voice mail box only" and hiding it in the address book so it doesn't show up as an addressable mailbox in Outlook.

This is gross and a very bad idea. I've had numerous sites do this because they thought they wanted to. Some folks get highly agitated when they see voice mails showing up in Outlook and immediately want to segregate things (i.e. it's different and change is bad). Logically this makes no sense... you have messages in two different places if you do a seperate mailbox... it doesn't solve the problem it just spreads it around and makes it harder to get at your voice mail.

More often than not, sites that do this eventually see the error in their logic can come back. Which forces the poor folks like you to have to undo all that extra work with even more work. I have a tool on my site I designed just for this scenario since it came up so often in the early days of Unity. It lets you move subscriber information from one account to another (i.e. from the voice mail only box onto the standing email user's box such that they can go back to a true unified messaging model without having to recreate all that subscriber information).

If I were you I'd drill down on exactly why folks are stressed out at voice mail being in their inbox and make good and sure this is what you want to do. I can almost gurantee you within 6 months you'll be back asking how to undo it without losing all the user configuration information.


Jeff Lindborg
Unity Product Architect/Answer Monkey
Cisco Systems
lindborg@cisco.com
http://www.AnswerMonkey.net (new page for Unity support tools and scripts)

[#4]

"I'm not clear on exactly what you're trying to do... are you wanting to store voice mail messages in a seperate mailbox for each user so they don't see them in outlook but can get at them on the phone?"

Yes, that's what the "problem" is. The main issue with determining the why's and wherefor's is that I'm a consultant, I installed Unity on 2001-09-24, I've got 1 day left on-project and I'm trying to make the customer happy.

So, if I understand correctly what I need to do is:

1. Get with the Exchange administrator and create additional mailboxes. Ex: jdoe would be jdoe-vmo
2. Have the administrator hide the account from the GAL.
3. Add a subscriber to Unity using the import user button and import the jdoe-vmo account.
4. Use the tool (link, please?) to move the user from the existing "unified" way to the VMO account. (Moves existing messages?)
5. Deleted the existing "unified" subscriber to free up the license.

Repeat for all users that don't like the "new way".

[#5]

you have it about right... the tool does not move messages, however... you're on your own for that. The tool takes care of removing the subscriber properties off the old account you're moving information from automatically so you can skip step 5. Also, you don't need to import the Joe-VMO account as a subscriber first... the tool takes care of moving the subscriber data over for you so you can skip that step as well.

Here's the link to the tool on my page:

http://www.answermonkey.net/App_move_subscriber_data.htm

Be sure to read the help and try a test user or two before going wild. Be aware, that isn't one of the tools officially supported by Cisco, so TAC wont help you if something goes awry. That said, some big folks have used it and have not reported any problems with the current version posted. If you have trouble, email me directly at my AnswerMonkey address (I'm on sabbatical and I'm not checking my Cisco email regularly).


Jeff Lindborg
Unity Product Architect/Answer Monkey
Cisco Systems
lindborg@cisco.com
http://www.AnswerMonkey.net (new page for Unity support tools and scripts)