Sending calls to a voice mail box in UCMA without a missed call notification

A while back, I wrote a post on how to call an Exchange UM voice mail box directly. The trouble with the approach described in that post is that it generates a missed call notification in the Exchange inbox of the recipient. A colleague of mine discovered a way to nix this missed call notification, and I thought I would share it.

You can get a SIP URI that goes directly to a user’s voice mail box by appending ;opaque=app:voicemail to the end of that user’s address of record. For instance, if the user has the SIP URI sip:user@example.com, you can get their voice mail box by calling sip:user@example.com;opaque=app:voicemail. However, this will lead to a missed call notification.

If you instead call sip:user@example.com;opaque=app:voicemail;local-resource-path=voicememo, you will get the user’s voice mail box but there will be no missed call notification.

Prevent Lync calls from going to voice mail

There are some instances where a call that is sent to a Lync user really shouldn’t be going to voice mail, or to the user’s cell phone, or anywhere like that. There’s nothing that screams “good customer service” to an agitated customer like being dropped into John Smith’s cell phone voice mail (“Hi, this is John. Leave a message”) after calling the tech support line. Response Group calls seem to magically ward off UM voice mail and call forwarding, and this has led to some questions: if Response Groups can do it, why can’t we do it in UCMA applications? Actually, you can. Continue reading “Prevent Lync calls from going to voice mail” »

Calling an Exchange UM voicemail box directly

A few posts ago I explained how you can determine whether a call placed by your UCMA application has been answered by an Exchange voicemail box. In this post I want to share another quick tip on UCMA and voicemail: how to place a call directly to a voicemail box. Continue reading “Calling an Exchange UM voicemail box directly” »

How to know when voicemail answers a Lync call

If you have a UCMA application that does call routing, particularly one that is designed to get callers to an available person, you may need a way to figure out whether your call has been answered by the person you were trying to dial, using Lync; whether it has been picked up by Exchange UM voicemail; or whether it has been redirected to another Lync user or a PSTN phone number. This way, you can avoid situations like sending an irritable customer who wants immediate assistance to the voicemail box of someone whose name they have never heard before. Continue reading “How to know when voicemail answers a Lync call” »