Cisco Unity 5.0 for Lotus Domino [Cisco Unity]

Cisco® Unified Communications is a comprehensive IP communications system of voice, video, data, and mobility products and applications. It enables more effective, more secure, more personal communications that directly affect both sales and profitability. It brings people together by enabling a new way of communicating -- where your business moves with you, security is everywhere, and information is always available anytime and anywhere. Cisco Unified Communications is part of an integrated solution that includes network infrastructure, security, mobility, network management products, lifecycle services, flexible deployment and outsourced management options, end-user and partner financing packages, and third-party communications applications.

Cisco Unified Communications messaging options include:

• Cisco Unity®: This application scales to meet the needs of large enterprise organizations and delivers powerful voice, integrated, and unified messaging options that transparently integrate with Microsoft Exchange and Lotus Domino.

• Cisco Unity Connection: This application combines Integrated Messaging, Voice Recognition, and Call Transfer rules into an easy-to-manage system for organizations with up to 3000 users. For organizations with up to 500 users, Cisco Unity Connection is available as a single-server solution with Cisco Unified Communications Manager.

• Cisco Unity Express: Available in select integrated services routers, Cisco Unity Express provides cost-effective voice and Integrated Messaging, Automated-Attendant, and interactive voice response (IVR) capabilities for small and medium-sized business and enterprise branch offices with up to 250 users.

The Cisco Unity solution is a foundational element in bringing unified communications solutions to enterprise-scale organizations. This application is a secure, proven, and reliable solution that delivers powerful voice, integrated, and unified messaging options that transparently integrate with Microsoft Exchange and Lotus Domino. The Cisco Unity solution provides anytime, anywhere collaboration through a broad range of productivity-enhancing features, a flexible platform including powerful migration tools for investment protection, and industry-leading capabilities for security and reliability.

Anytime, Anywhere Collaboration

Powerful Unified Messaging

Cisco Unity Unified Messaging integrates transparently with your Lotus Notes e-mail client to make handling all your messages -- e-mail, voice, and fax -- easy and convenient, whether you are in the office or on the road. Icons provide simple visual descriptions of each message type and because every message is delivered to one inbox, you can see the number, type, and status of all your communications at a single glance. You can reply to, forward, and save your messages -- regardless of media type -- in public or personal Lotus Domino or Notes folders with just a click of the mouse, decreasing response times and increasing organizational agility and customer service.

With the Text-to-Speech (TTS) capability of Cisco Unity messaging, you can hear the text portion of e-mail messages over the telephone and then respond with a voice message. Depending on the capabilities of your fax server, you can print e-mail messages, attachments, and incoming faxes on a fax machine. Even when away from your computer, you are never away from your vital business communications.

Intelligent Voice Messaging

At its core, Cisco Unity is a powerful and intelligent voice messaging system. It provides full menu options to guide you through its many features and then, as you become more experienced, gives you the option to switch to brief menus for faster system navigation. For even more intuitive use, speech recognition is available, including the ability to use intuitive verbal commands such as "play" and "delete" while navigating through messages.

When new messages arrive, the Cisco Unity system can announce the number, type, and priority of the messages received and the date and time they were sent; or deliver messages to another extension, mobile telephone, or remote location. When listening to your messages, you can use telephone touch-tones to adjust volume control and playback speed; and forward, rewind, and pause messages. And to help colleagues and customers reach you more efficiently, you can record up to five different personal greetings. You may, for example, want a specific greeting when you are out of the office or on the phone.

Mobile Access to Voice Messages

Cisco Unity delivers all-in-one messaging for mobile users. Mobile workers using a Treo or BlackBerry device can simply double-click the message notification to play a voice message within their personal digital assistant (PDA) e-mail applications. Cisco Unity supports a variety of notification options, including Short Message Service (SMS), e-mail, paging, and out-dialing, which allow you to customize the way you are notified of new voice messages.

Even for users with basic mobile phones, Cisco Unity is optimized to enhance mobile productivity. You can set up alternate phone numbers for mobile phones or other devices in Cisco Unity to transfer calls to a mobile phone or speed login to the system. When calling in from a mobile phone, speech recognition allows for hands-free usage of the Cisco Unity system. If a call is dropped because of a less than fully reliable mobile phone network, the Interrupted Session Recovery offered by the Cisco Unity solution resumes, on the next call-in, the session where the call left off, reducing lost time.

Personal Web Administration

With Cisco Unity Unified Messaging, you can customize your personal settings using the Cisco Unity Assistant, a dynamic interface in the browser-based Cisco Personal Communications Assistant (PCA). Cisco Unity Assistant reduces the workload for system administrators and gives you additional flexibility to customize the system to suit changing demands in your work environment. You can quickly and easily establish or change personal settings such as your voicemail options, security code, personal distribution lists, and message delivery options. For ease of administration and security reasons, the system administrator decides which features and settings individual subscribers or classes of service can access.

Flexible Platform

Migration at Your Own Pace

Designed for an IP environment, Cisco Unity Unified Messaging plays a central role in the migration of your telephony infrastructure from time-division multiplexing (TDM) to IP. This application interoperates with your traditional voicemail systems and supports both Cisco Unified Communications Manager and traditional telephony systems to help you transition to IP telephony at your own pace and protect your existing infrastructure investments. The Cisco Unity solution even integrates with multiple-vendor private branch exchange (PBX) systems at the same time, facilitating branch-office consolidation that reduces costs by centralizing messaging into a single system. In addition, Cisco Unity Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) integration provides native support for SIP proxy servers, designated SIP phones and clients, and SIP-enabled access gateways, to give SIP users access to the full array of benefits that the Cisco Unity system delivers. Whether you desire a rapid migration to IP telephony or require a more gradual pace, the Cisco Unity system immediately improves productivity while allowing you to migrate at your own pace.

Networking Capability

Cisco Unity offers an optional digital networking module that helps enable the system to connect to other Cisco Unity servers at the same site through the LAN, or remote sites using a WAN or the Internet. Digital networking makes communicating with co-workers at remote locations fast and efficient by allowing you to send subscriber-to-subscriber messages anywhere in the world.

With digital networking you can use the Global Addressing feature -- listing all system subscribers in a central directory -- to quickly and conveniently send a message to a co-worker in another time zone. Subscriber-to-subscriber messages offer more reply options to the recipient, making it simpler to respond to an e-mail with a voice message, for example. Also, when retrieving messages over the telephone, voicemail from system subscribers is played with the sender's recorded name for greater recognition.

A powerful message networking option available with Cisco Unity is the Cisco Unity Bridge. With Cisco Unity Bridge, you can send subscriber-to-subscriber messages to anyone in your organization who resides on a TDM-based Avaya or Octel voicemail system supporting Octel Analog Networking. In addition, you can simply "reply to" a networked message with a single touch-tone key. With Cisco Unity Bridge, you can maintain advanced messaging capabilities on both systems as you migrate to the Cisco Unity system.

Cisco Unity also provides optional Voice Profile for Internet Mail (VPIM [digital]) and Audio Messaging Interchange Specification (AMIS [analog]) networking modules that allow message interchange between disparate messaging systems that also support these industry-standard messaging protocols. With VPIM or AMIS, customers who are migrating to Cisco Unity can continue to exchange messages with internal system subscribers who reside on a third-party messaging system, helping to ensure a smooth system migration.

Through these solutions, Cisco Unity allows you to easily integrate your system with other voice messaging systems in your environment.

Getting More Out of Your Existing Messaging Platform

Cisco Unity components and Domino Unified Communications (DUC) extend the power of your Lotus Domino server, eliminating the inefficiencies with having multiple messaging systems, and simplifying the way you access and manage your system. Cisco Unity uses the Lotus Notes message store and directory services to unify your system administration, collecting all messages in a single store and giving you a single-address directory service.

By sharing a single directory with the data network, Cisco Unity eliminates the redundancy of user account information maintained by various applications -- such as e-mail and voicemail systems. Cisco Unity also saves you hours of time in initial installation with a feature that imports the Lotus Domino accounts directory to create subscriber lists automatically. With the Cisco Unity approach, all messages are centrally stored, administered, and controlled, dramatically reducing the amount of time spent on support and maintenance, and minimizing the traffic on your LAN.

Localizations for International Deployments

Cisco Unity is localized to meet the needs of customers around the globe. Localized versions are available in multiple languages -- five dialects of English (Australian, Canadian, New Zealand, United Kingdom, and United States), Arabic (Formal), three dialects of Chinese (Cantonese, Mandarin Chinese (PRC), and Mandarin Chinese (ROC)), Czech, Danish, Dutch, Flemish, French (European and Canadian), German, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese (Brazilian and European), Russian, two dialects of Spanish (Latin American and European), and Swedish. In addition, depending on the language, these versions feature everything from system prompts and subscriber conversations to the browser-based administration consoles and product documentation in the language of your choice.

Secure and Reliable

Highly Reliable

Cisco Unity Unified Messaging uses the Cisco Unity Message Repository to increase message availability if Lotus Domino is not clustered and the message store goes offline. Cisco Unity Message Repository helps enable the Cisco Unity system to continue taking new voice messages when the e-mail system or network is offline. System subscribers also can retrieve these messages, minimizing service disruption. If Lotus Domino clustering is deployed, the full range of Cisco Unity Message Repository functions is not needed. Cisco Unity Unified Messaging takes full advantage of such powerful Lotus Domino features as digital networking, automatic message replication, message rules, foldering, and inbox assistant support. Through Lotus Domino e-mail gateway services, the Cisco Unity system also can work with e-mail clients that support Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP), Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions (MIME), Post Office Protocol 3 (POP3), and Internet Message Access Protocol 4 (IMAP4).

Failover and Standby Redundancy

Cisco Unity Unified Messaging supports configuration as a standby pair. In such a configuration even in the case of a server failure, the Cisco Unity environment transparently fails over to the secondary Cisco Unity server, helping ensure high availability.

The Cisco Unity system can also support a capability called Standby Redundancy, which gives the system resilience during site-level failures. In the case of a catastrophic site-level disaster, you can manually switch the system to a secondary site to allow recovery of service within a short time window.

Easy-to-Use System Administration Interface

Cisco Unity features an intuitive and easy-to-use graphical user interface, resulting in greater productivity for your organization. Moreover, this solution simplifies system administration with its embedded Microsoft Internet Information Server (IIS), single message store, and single directory service, providing excellent performance and reliability. In addition to housing data in a central store, administration tasks can be handled conveniently and securely from a Web-based system administration console that IT staff can access from any networked PC using Internet Explorer.

Cisco Unity Features

New in Cisco Unity 5.0

• Message Monitor: You can screen voicemail messages as they are being recorded.

• Interrupted Session Recovery: Automatically return to in-progress message composition or playback if you ended a session prematurely; for example, if someone dropped by your office and you hung up the phone while in the middle of hearing a message, you can return to the message.

• Speech Access: Both intuitive speech and "press or say" capabilities facilitate the use of voice commands to navigate menus and manage voicemail messages.

Voice Messaging Overview

• Intelligent voice messaging allows you to interact with the system in the way that is most comfortable and convenient for you.

• You can select telephone-user-interface (TUI) style and settings according to your individual preference.

• Customizable notifications with devices such as a pager or mobile phone help you more effectively manage voicemail communications.

Unified Messaging Overview

• E-mail, voice, and fax messages are organized in your e-mail inbox, giving you centralized communications control.

• You can access voice and fax messages from a desktop PC, laptop computer with Internet access, or any touch-tone telephone.

• A TTS module reads e-mail messages over the telephone in clear, spoken words.

• You can retrieve Cisco Unity voicemail messages using BlackBerry messaging devices.

• Cisco Unity Unified Messaging takes advantage of the existing infrastructure by using the Lotus Domino message store.

• The true unified architecture of Cisco Unity Unified Messaging allows IT staff to set one backup procedure, one message storage policy, and one security policy.

Interoperability and Availability

• VPIM support: Provides for digital interoperability

• AMIS support: Provides for analog interoperability

• Cisco Unity Bridge: Offers interoperability with traditional Avaya or Octel voicemail systems

• Networked messages with Cisco Unity Express with VPIM

• Cisco Unity Message Repository: Manages new voice messages when the e-mail system or network is offline

• Q Interface Signaling Protocol (QSIG) and Digital Private Network Signaling System (DPNSS) support: Enhances integration with traditional private branch exchange (PBX)

• Failover capability: Prevents service disruption if the unified messaging server is unavailable, delivering enhanced reliability and serviceability

Message Access from the TUI

• Play and process messages (repeat, reply, forward, delete, save, mark as new, hear day or time stamp, or skip to the next message)

• Deliver messages to users at designated telephone numbers -- for example, home, cellular or mobile telephone, and remote-office telephones

• Reverse, pause, or fast forward during message playback

• Control volume and speed during message playback

• Pause or resume during message recording

• Address messages to multiple recipients

• List all system subscribers in a central directory (Global Addressing)

• Locate message by number in saved messages (Go To Message)

• Record message and specify as regular, urgent, or future delivery

• Record message and request return receipt

• Switch between spelling name and extension when addressing message

• Immediately reply to messages from other subscribers by calling them back directly from the TUI (Live Reply)

• Forward faxes to any fax machine from a touch-tone telephone

• Post greeting recording

Message Access from the PC

• Play, rewind, pause, or fast forward voice messages with a few mouse clicks by using the digital video recorder (DVR)-style interface in e-mail client

• Send voice and fax messages: Send to anyone who can receive Internet e-mail

• Download all message types and respond to or create new messages offline

• Save voice and fax messages along with e-mail messages in public or personal Lotus Domino or Notes folders for a complete record of your communications

• Apply Lotus Notes inbox rules to voice and fax mail

End-User Features

• Customize your message-notification options, manage personal greetings, or change passwords with Cisco Unity Assistant (the Cisco PCA Web browser-based personal administrator)

• Select conversation type; full or brief prompts are available

• Address and then record a message, or record and then address a message

• Record up to five personal greetings (alternate, busy, internal, off-hours, and standard)

• Specify the order in which messages are presented over the phone by message type (voice, fax, and e-mail), urgency, or LIFO/FIFO

• Create private distribution lists and address messages to them with the TUI or by using Cisco Unity Assistant (Web browser client)

• Set an expiration date for any personal greeting

• Manage an alternate greeting, require callers to listen to the full greeting, or notify users when the greeting is on

• Provide message notification for new messages with devices such as Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) text, pagers, and phone destinations

• Provide message notification with Short Message Service (SMS) text messaging for mobile users; Cisco Unity supports the Short Message Peer to Peer (SMPP) 3.4 protocol for interoperability with all major Short Message Service Center providers

• With a cascade message-notification feature, send additional notification types if a message is not retrieved

• Select whether message counts are announced; type, totals, saved, and new counts are available

• Specify whether the Cisco Unity system announces a transferred call

• Specify Call Forward to a personal greeting or busy greeting

• Specify an after-greeting action; after a subscriber greeting, callers can be directed to leave a message, sign in, or hang up, or they can be sent to call handlers, a directory handler, an interview handler, or a subscriber

System Administration Overview

• Cisco Unity takes advantage of your communications infrastructure investment by integrating with Cisco Unified Communications Manager and leading traditional telephone systems, even simultaneously, thereby paving the way for a smooth transition to IP telephony.

• Cisco Unity natively supports SIP proxy servers, designated SIP phones and clients, and SIP-enabled access gateways.

• An intuitive browser-based system administration console and tools simplify installation, maintenance, and daily use and allow for maintenance from any PC on the network, saving time, expense, and effort.

• Cisco Unity Assistant (the Cisco Unity Personal Communications Assistant Web browser-based personal administrator) allows IT staff to enable end users to manage more of their own accounts, saving time and decentralizing routine administration.

• Superior component-based server architecture provides a solid and flexible foundation for future growth.

• Innovative use of streaming media provides efficient audio delivery.

• Fault-tolerant system tools include robust security, file replication, event logging, and optional software Redundant Array of Independent Disks (RAID) levels 0-5.

• Cisco Unity offers full localization in U.S. English, French, German, and Japanese -- including system prompts, subscriber conversations, browser-based administration consoles, and product documentation.

• Localized telephone system prompts are available in multiple languages, including five dialects of English (Australian, Canadian, New Zealand, United Kingdom, and United States), Arabic (Formal), three dialects of Chinese (Cantonese, Mandarin Chinese (PRC), and Mandarin Chinese (ROC)), Czech, Danish, Dutch, French Canadian, Hungarian, Italian, Korean, Norwegian, Portuguese (Brazilian and European), two dialects of Spanish (Latin American and European), and Swedish.

• Cisco Unity supports physical terminal line (tty) conversation for accessibility.

• Cisco Unity for Domino is scalable to 144 ports¹ and 7500 unified messaging users (depending on server type; refer to Cisco Unity Supported Platforms list: http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/sw/voicesw/ps2237/products_data_sheets_list.html).

System Administration Features

• Alternate extensions: Configurable by you or system administrator

• Alternate key mappings for message retrieval to aid you in transitioning from your existing voicemail system

• Automatic gain control that gives you consistent message volume playback levels

• Configurable billing ID

• Ability to browse to another Cisco Unity Administrator on a networked Cisco Unity server

• Call-holding queue

• Call handlers that accept calls, play recorded prompts, route calls, and accept messages

• Caller ID

• Configurable Call Routing and Automated Attendant

• Configurable Call Screening

• Class of service to control subscriber access to features

• Ability to create subscribers individually or in bulk

• Cross-Server Live Reply for Cisco Unified Communications Manager deployments

• Cross-Server Logon for Cisco Unified Communications Manager deployments

• Day and time stamps for messages

• Directory handlers to manage how callers search directory

• Directory search by spelling a subscriber name, allowing entry of up to 24 letters

• Easy mailbox access from personal greetings; log in to TUI without entering ID

• Encrypted Skinny Client Control Protocol (SCCP) and Secure Real-Time Transport Protocol (SRTP) for Cisco Unified Communications Manager integrations

• Event logging

• Failover: Automatic or manual

• Failback: Automatic or manual

• Full mailbox warning

• Guided installation

• Configurable list of observed holidays

• Hospitality

– Guest conversation customized for hotel and resort industry

– Property management systems (PMS) interface (requires purchase of PMS hotel communication software from Percipia Networks)

• Interview Handlers feature to collect recorded input from callers

• Identified subscriber messaging (ISM) between networked Cisco Unity servers in the same dialing domain

• Ability to configure how Cisco Unity handles messages that are interrupted by disconnected calls

• Message-waiting indicator (MWI)

• Ability to move subscriber mailboxes without shutting down Cisco Unity

• Multiple administrative levels to control access to pages in system administration GUI by class of service (read, modify, or delete rights)

• Multiple audio codec support

• Multiple time-zone support

• Music on Hold

• Nondelivery or delivery receipt reason details presented in GUI inbox

• OS, message store, and third-party software support

– Message store support: Lotus Domino Versions 6.0.X, 6.5.X, or 7.0.X

– Windows 2000 Advanced Server on the Cisco Unity server

– Support for data-protection software

– Support for remote-access software

– Support for monitoring software

• Public distribution lists; you can specify those to which new users will be added

• Configurable restriction tables

• Exclude Return Receipts Registry Controlled feature

• Configurable schedules

• Self-enrollment for you to set password, record voice name, and specify directory listing

• Shared subscriber licenses among networked Cisco Unity servers (license pooling)

• Status monitor to give the system administrators real-time status of fax and telephone ports, reports in progress, and system configuration

• System broadcast messages for single Cisco Unity server deployments and multiple server deployments

• Configurable system greetings

• 12- and 24-hour clock support for time stamps

• Automatic system time clock adjustment for daylight savings time

• TUI greetings administrator (Cisco Unity Greetings Administrator)

Fax

• Optional Cisco Fax Server, a full-featured fax solution based on the market-leading Captaris RightFax 9.0 product line

For more information about third-party fax server hardware and software, visit: http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/ps6178/index.html.

Security

• Host intrusion prevention system: Cisco Security Agent standalone agent to protect Cisco Unity servers from worm and virus attacks; optional Cisco Security Agent management console

• Password and PIN security policy options to enforce expiration, complexity, reuse, and lockout

• Optional RSA Secure-ID 2-factor one-time PIN authentication server interface

• Call restriction tables to prevent toll fraud

• Security event logging and reports of failed login and account lockouts to help detect "PIN cracker" attack attempts

• SRTP and signaling encryption to ensure secure communication between Cisco Unity and Cisco Unified Communications Manager

• Subscriber PIN Reset feature in Cisco Unity Assistant to reduce help desk calls and operating expenses

• Message archiving utilities to enforce corporate electronic records-retention policies

• Support for HTTPS for secure Web access to Cisco Unity

Reports

• Administrative Access Activity Report

• AMIS Out Traffic Report

• AMIS In Traffic Report

• Call Handler Traffic Report

• Distribution Lists Report

• Event Log Report

• Failed Login Report

• Outcall Billing Report

• Port Usage Report

• Subscribers Report

• Subscriber Message Activity Report

• System Configuration Report

• Transfer Billing Report

• Unresolved References Report

For a full list and description of Cisco Unity reports, refer to the Interface Reference Guide for the Cisco Unity Administrator Release 5.0 (With IBM Lotus Domino), "Report Settings" chapter: http://www.cisco.com/en/US/docs/voice_ip_comm/unity/5x/interface_reference/guide/dom/50curg120d.html.

Cisco Unified Communications Services and Support

Using the Cisco Lifecycle Services approach, Cisco and its partners offer a broad portfolio of end-to-end services to support the Cisco Unified Communications System. These services are based on proven methodologies for deploying, operating, and optimizing IP communications solutions. Initial planning and design services, for example, can help you meet aggressive deployment schedules and minimize network disruption during implementation. Operate services reduce the risk of communications downtime with expert technical support, and optimize services enhance solution performance for operational excellence. Cisco and its partners offer a system-level service and support approach that can help you create and maintain a resilient, converged network that meets your business needs.

¹New in Cisco Unity 5.0.

Hierarchical Navigation

Cisco Unity

Cisco Unity 5.0 for Lotus Domino

Downloads