Using Exchange Server 2007 UM for Express Messaging

If you are familiar with Nortel Telephony systems you may have used something called Express Messaging.

This feature allows you to dial a pre-defined number (from any phone) and type in a persons extension number to acces and leave them a voicemail message.

This feature was widely used at the organisation I work for.

We now have a new telephony system installed based on a Nortel CS1k connecting to Exchange 2007 for Voicemail using Unified Messaging.

There did not seem to be any way to replicate the Express Messaging feature on the CS1K so I looked into doing something using Exchange.

The obvious candidate was using an Auto Attendant

Found a really helpful Blog from Geoff Clark here

http://blogs.technet.com/gclark/archive/2009/03/30/exchange-2007-um-transfer-to-voicemail.aspx

And it turned out that with 2 simple Exchange Powershell commands;

New-UMAutoAttendant -Name <> -SpeechEnabled $False -Status Enabled -UMDialPlan <> -PilotIdentifierList <>

Set-UMAutoAttendant -Identity <> -AllowExtensions $False -CallSomeoneEnabled $False -SendVoiceMsgEnabled $True -NameLookupEnabled $False

The required feature could be replicated.

Adding Language Packs to Exchange 2007 UM

Okay so I got UM working on Exchange 2007 for our new Nortel CS1K system.
Set up some Voicemail.
Set up an Auto Attendant.
Got really tired of hearing an American Accent saying "Press The Pound Key" (It's a Hash Key!)

So looked into how to add Language packs.

MS Technet was quite helpful on this and had a lot of info but was not too good on specifics.

Used a fellow bloggers post here to clear up some of the syntax
http://unifyandconquer.blogspot.com/2009/03/howto-install-new-language-pack-for.html

Googled umlang-en-GB.msi to find the MS download page for the relevant Language Pack.

Downloaded it - copied it to the Exchange Box in "D:\UM". (no pun intended!)

Went to my "Exchange Server\Bin" directory and ran......
"Setup.com /AddUmLanguagePack:en-GB /s:d:\UM"
Where en-GB is the language you want and /s is the path to the MSI file.

Waited for the usual amount of MS minutes!

And got a message back to say the Language Pack was sucessfully installed.

Went to;
Exchange Management Console...
Organizational Configuration....
Unified Messaging.....
UM Dial Plan....
Right Click the relevant Dial Plan and select Properties
Under Settings change Default Language to English (United Kingdom)

Dialled the Exchange box using the very helpful
exchangeumtestphone.exe

And was greeted by a nice English Lady's voice!

JOB DONE!

Also had to change the Default Languages for any of my Auto Attendants.