Voice messaging is provided by the messaging software on the Communication Manager server. Subscribers can record a spoken message, address it, and then send it to other voice messaging subscribers. These users can receive the message on their local machine or on networked messaging systems.
Subscribers instruct the voice messaging system by pressing the keys on their touchtone telephones in response to detailed voice prompts from the system.
Voice Messaging is similar to an electronic mail system in that messages can be sent to others without the sender's needing to call the recipient directly. The message is then stored in the recipient's voice mailbox. Recipients can access stored messages at their convenience.
Voice Messaging enables the subscriber to:
Send messages to other messaging subscribers.
Listen to messages received from other messaging subscribers.
Forward messages received with comments attached.
Reply to messages received from other messaging subscribers.
Create mailing lists that can contain up to 250 recipients.
In addition to these basic capabilities, the outcalling feature of Voice Messaging also enables the subscriber to:
Call Answer enables subscribers to:
Have the messaging system answer incoming telephone calls.
Create personal greetings that voice messaging uses to answer incoming calls.
In addition to these basic capabilities, Call Answer also enables the subscriber to:
Customize a set of standard greetings.
Record up to nine different personal greetings through the Multiple Personal Greeting feature.
Play a single greeting for all calls or assign various personal greetings to be played in response to different types of calls, for example, internal and external, busy and no answer, and/or out-of-hours.
An automated attendant is an interactive telephone answering system. It answers incoming calls with a prerecorded announcement and routes the calls based on the caller's response to menus and prompts.
The system administrator sets up an automated attendant so that callers hear a menu of options. Callers then press the button on their telephone keypad that corresponds to the menu option that they want, and the automated attendant executes the selected option. Those calling from rotary telephones are typically told that they can hold or call another number to speak with a live attendant.
An automated attendant menu system, or menu tree, can be designed to contain subordinate layers of menus or bulletin boards. These submenus, or nested menus, play additional options that can include a choice that leads to another nested menu.
The voiced menu options that callers hear are actually personal greetings that the subscriber records for the automated attendant's extension. The text of the message can be changed just as easily as any personal greeting can. The Multiple Personal Greetings feature can be used to provide different menus and options for different types of callers.
If the messaging software has multiple language sets available, the menu options can include a choice that routes callers to a submenu that is voiced entirely in another language. The Multiple Personal Greetings feature can also be used to record menus in various languages. For more information, see Automated Attendants and Bulletin Boards.
A bulletin board is an electronic message system that callers can access to hear messages. Callers dial the bulletin board telephone number, and the system answers and presents a recorded message. The major difference between a bulletin board and an automated attendant is that a bulletin board does not have an option to route to a live attendant. For more information, see Automated Attendants and Bulletin Boards.