Outlook Voice Access: Frequently Asked Questions
Q: What are some of the key benefits of Outlook Voice Access (OVA)?
A: OVA provides access to the complete Microsoft Outlook experience from any phone. It gives users a single central place to access their voicemail messages, and also provides new ways to save time. For example if someone is stuck in traffic on the way to a meeting, they can quickly inform all other attendees that they will be late, thus allowing the meeting to proceed without them.
Q: What sort of information can be accessed through the phone?
A: Voicemail, but also email, calendars, and contacts—each read to the user through text-to-speech.
Q: What calendar actions can be executed over the phone?
A: Outlook Voice Access (OVA) provides rich phone-based access to Exchange via both speech recognition and touchtone. With OVA, you can access a calendar and take a number of actions, for example: cancelling meetings, informing participants that you will be late, or clearing a calendar entirely.
Q: Are Voice User Interface languages other than English available at this time?
A: No. English is the only language the Apptix Voice access product can support. Additional languages may be supported in the future.
Q: Who can leave voicemails for me using Outlook Voice Access?
A: Any internal user with Outlook Voice Access can leave you a message.
Q: For whom can I leave voicemails using Outlook Voice Access?
A: You can leave voicemails for any internal user with an Apptix Exchange mailbox. Users without OVA will receive messages as an audio file attachment in their email box.
Q: What if I forgot my PIN?
A: Outlook Voice Access by Apptix will automatically send you a new, randomly-generated PIN whenever you enter your PIN incorrectly five times or more.
Client Software (Outlook)
Q: Which clients have support for Exchange Unified Messaging?
A: The richest support for Exchange UM is offered by Outlook 2007 and OWA in Exchange 2007. In these clients, voicemail and faxes will appear as special message types, and have additional features including the ability to play messages from the preview pane, take text notes which persist on the server in the message (and which are subsequently searchable), allow PIN resets, and configure greetings and voicemail out of office. Older clients such as Outlook 2003 are compatible with Exchange UM, but the message will appear as an email with an audio attachment (i.e. the Outlook 2003 and prior UI will not present UM-specific user interface elements). Furthermore, UM user options are not configurable from these clients.
Q: Can I send outgoing messages from the phone interface (OVA)?
A: Yes. A user can send or reply to an email from OVA. The message will record their message as a voice attachment to the email.
Q: If I send a message from the phone interface, can it be reviewed or changed before it is sent?
A: From the phone interface (OVA), the system will ask you if you would like to review the message and if the message is correct before sending. This can be accomplished using either touchtones or commands to the speech recognition system.
Q: Can a user utilize existing distribution lists through OVA?
A: Yes, OVA can leverage their existing custom email distribution lists. The user need not build these specially.
Q: Are the From and Subject fields tagged uniquely for voicemail?
A: Yes, unique From and Subject fields are used, and Outlook 2007 and OWA 2007 display a special icon for voicemail message types.
Traditional Voicemail Experience
Q: Can the caller skip the personal greeting by hitting a key?
A: Yes, pressing any key during greeting play does this.
Q: Can a broadcast message be left through Exchange UM to all users of the system?
A: This can be accomplished using distribution list privileges. A distribution list including all system users can be set up, and restrictions to whom can send to it configured. We also support an informational announcement which has the option of being uninterruptable.
Q: Can a user quickly scan their messages without listening to them?
A: The touchtone UI allows for quick navigation. Exchange UM doesn't have an explicit scan mode, but header info is read to the user followed by the body of the email, so using quick commands such as “next” a scanning experience is enabled.
Q: Can user increase/decrease volume, speed up, slow down, advance, backup, replay, pause, restart the voicemail message?
A: Yes, Exchange UM supports all of these, both from the phone and desktop interfaces.
Q: Can messages be forwarded to other users or notes added to messages? Can they be forwarded to both phone numbers and email addresses?
A: Yes. Audio or text notes can be added to a message, and the message can then be forwarded to both phone numbers and email addresses.
General Technical Questions
Q: Will the storage of voicemail in users’ inboxes quickly fill up their mailboxes and make them exceed quotas?
A: No. Messages are relatively small. Voicemail size tends to be just over 1 kilobyte per second, plus 4-6 KB of overhead. A typical 20 second voicemail will be around 32 kilobytes in size. This is considerably smaller than documents users receive every day, including Word documents which can be several hundred kilobytes, or PowerPoint presentations which are often several megabytes in size. So, while the impact on mailbox quota is dependent on the length and number of messages received in a given amount of time, the effect on quota for most users will be negligible.
Q: What is the maximum length of a recorded voicemail message?
A: The administrator can configure the time or size limit of a message in the Dial Plan Properties for the UM Server, and can be as long or short as they see fit.
Q: What is the maximum size of a recorded message?
A: The administrator can configure this limit in the Dial Plan Properties for the UM Server, and can be as long or short as they see fit.
Q: Can messages be automatically either retained or deleted for/after a period of time?
A: Yes, this is possible through the new Exchange 2007 message retention capabilities.
Q: Can a deleted voicemail be retrieved?
A: Messages will end up in deleted items, and then the dumpster where they can be recovered (by the user and the admin respectively). The default dumpster interval for Exchange 2007 is expected to increase to 14 days (from three days in Exchange 2003), increasing the likelihood of the end-user being able to self-restore.
Q: What storage limit or quota is set for each voicemail user?
A: 50MB per message, although a voice message will never be this big.
Security
Q: Can voicemail be marked as urgent by the person or entity leaving the message?
A: Yes, a message can be marked as urgent. The message will then be marked with an
exclamation point icon in Outlook. If the user accesses the message via OVA, the system will tell the user that the message is urgent before playing it out.
Q: Will any of my voicemail messages be deleted after a specified time?
A: No, Apptix does not delete voicemails after a specified period of time.
Q: Can a deleted voicemail message be restored?
A: Yes, if it is within 14 days of deletion. The message will either be in the Deleted Items folder in Outlook, or it may be restored through the “Recover Deleted Items” option in the Tools menu in Outlook.