Cisco Unity System Administration Guide (With IBM Lotus Domino), Release 4.0(4) - Preparing Subscribers, Operators, and Support Desk Personnel to Work with Cisco Unity [Cisco Unity]

Table Of Contents

Preparing Subscribers, Operators, and Support Desk Personnel to Work with Cisco Unity

Overview: Subscriber, Operator, and Support Desk Orientation

Subscriber Orientation

Operator Orientation

Support Desk Orientation

Preparing Subscribers, Operators, and Support Desk Personnel to Work with Cisco Unity

Overview: Subscriber, Operator, and Support Desk Orientation

Subscribers and operators in your organization need information about Cisco Unity that is specific to your installation. In addition, if your organization has a support desk, the staff will need to be prepared to answer the questions that subscribers may ask, and need to be aware of the resources that are available to assist them in answering subscriber questions. This chapter reviews the preparations for orienting and training subscribers, operators, and support desk employees to Cisco Unity.

See the following sections:

•Subscriber Orientation

•Operator Orientation

•Support Desk Orientation

Subscriber Orientation

After you create subscriber accounts and set up the client applications that subscribers will use to access Cisco Unity from their phones and computers, use the following task list to acquaint subscribers with Cisco Unity. If you are planning supplemental Cisco Unity training, also consider reviewing the potential subscriber concerns and misconceptions listed in the "Support Desk Orientation" section.

1. Give each subscriber a Cisco Unity User Guide, a Cisco Unity at a Glance, a Cisco Unity Phone Menus and Shortcuts card, and/or the URLs to the document(s). Subscriber documentation is available at http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/sw/voicesw/ps2237/products_user_guide_list.html.

Depending on the conversation style that subscribers in your organization are familiar with, you may want to provide them with a list of phone menu differences between Cisco Unity and a former voice messaging system—especially if you chose not to offer them Optional Conversation 1.

2. Give subscribers the phone numbers that they dial to access Cisco Unity from within your organization and from outside the organization. As applicable, show subscribers which button or key to use on their desk phones to access Cisco Unity.

Also give them the name and extension of the Cisco Unity system administrator and any support desk contact information. There are spaces to record phone numbers and contacts in the Cisco Unity User Guide, the Cisco Unity at a Glance, and the Cisco Unity Phone Menus and Shortcuts card.

3. Provide subscribers with their initial phone passwords. For security reasons, you may not wish to distribute phone passwords to subscribers in your organization. If this is the case, tell subscribers to log on to the Cisco Personal Communications Assistant (PCA) website to set their phone passwords before they call Cisco Unity to complete first-time enrollment. (Subscribers are not required to enter an existing phone password in order to change it in the Cisco PCA.)

If they have not done so already, subscribers are prompted to change their phone password during first-time enrollment. Whether subscribers use the first-time enrollment conversation or the Cisco PCA to change their phone passwords, encourage them to specify a long—eight or more digits—and non-trivial password.

4. Give subscribers the URL to the Cisco PCA website: http://<Cisco Unity server name>/ciscopca. There are spaces to record this URL in the Cisco Unity User Guide, the Cisco Unity at a Glance, and the Cisco Unity Phone Menus and Shortcuts card.

Subscribers can use the Cisco PCA website to access the Cisco Unity Assistant. Subscribers use their IBM Lotus Notes user names and the Internet passwords for their Domino user accounts to log on to the Cisco PCA.

Note that in version 3.1 and earlier, the Cisco Unity Assistant was known as the ActiveAssistant, or AA. Subscribers who use a bookmarked ActiveAssistant URL will be redirected automatically to the Cisco PCA website.

5. Explain to subscribers how to secure their phone and Cisco PCA passwords so that they adequately protect their Cisco Unity mailboxes from unauthorized access. Detail the security guidelines for your organization.

Finally, make sure that subscribers understand that their Cisco PCA passwords are not related to their Cisco Unity phone passwords, nor are the passwords synchronized. Subscribers must use Lotus Notes to change their Cisco PCA passwords.

6. If you have Internet subscribers in your organization, review the Networking in Cisco Unity Guide for information on how Cisco Unity behaves differently for these subscribers, and acquaint them with the applicable details.

Also, explain to regular subscribers how to address voice messages to other locations when they use the phone and IBM Lotus Domino Unified Communications (DUC) for Cisco. As necessary for all subscribers, identify how addressing messages to other locations is different with Cisco Unity than it was with a former voice messaging system.

For detailed information, refer to the Networking in Cisco Unity Guide, which is available at http://www.cisco.com/univercd/cc/td/doc/product/voice/c_unity/unity40/net/net404/dom/index.htm.

7. If your organization has subscribers who will use TTY and the TTY prompt set, provide training on using TTY with Cisco Unity. For more information on TTY, see the "TTY Overview" section.

8. Make sure that subscribers who own call handlers or public distribution lists understand their responsibilities (if applicable). See the "How Cisco Unity Handles Messages Without a Specific Recipient" section.

9. Tell subscribers how to use the Cisco Unity Greetings Administrator, as applicable. See the "Using the Cisco Unity Greetings Administrator to Change Call Handler Greetings" section on page 21-5.

10. Provide training on using the phone or the Cisco Unity Assistant to personalize subscriber settings in Cisco Unity, as summarized in Table 9-1. In particular, subscribers may benefit from a hands-on demonstration of the Cisco Unity Assistant, as they may not be accustomed to using a web interface to set voice messaging options.

Subscribers can refer to the Cisco Unity User Guide or to the Cisco Unity Assistant Help for further guidance after orientation.

Table 9-1 Settings That Subscribers Can Change ¹

Settings That Can Be Changed by Using the Cisco Unity Assistant

Settings That Can Be Changed by Using the Phone Menus

Greetings:

•Record a personal greeting

•Enable or disable greeting

•Specify an expiration date for an enabled greeting

•Switch between system prompt and personal greeting

Greetings:

•Record a personal greeting

•Enable or disable greeting

•Specify an expiration date for an enabled greeting

Call Transfers²:

•Transfer indirect calls to an extension or send to the greeting

•Change extension

Call Transfers²:

•Transfer indirect calls to an extension or send to the greeting

•Change extension

Call Holding and Screening³:

•Select how Cisco Unity handles indirect calls when the subscriber phone is busy, including placing the caller on hold, prompting the caller to hold or leave a message, and sending the caller directly to the greeting

•Select how Cisco Unity handles indirect calls, including telling the subscriber who the call is for, announcing that Cisco Unity is transferring the call, prompting the subscriber to accept or refuse a call, and prompting callers to say their names

Call Holding and Screening³:

None

Message Notification:

•Enable or disable a notification device, and change its number

•Specify dialing options

•Select the types of messages and message urgency for which Cisco Unity will call a device

•Set up a notification schedule, and specify what happens when a device does not answer, is busy, or fails

Message Notification:

Enable or disable a notification device, and change its number

Message Playback:

•Select full or brief Cisco Unity conversation menus

•Select the action that Cisco Unity performs when the subscriber calls Cisco Unity, including greeting the subscriber by name and announcing the number of new messages by type

•Select the action that Cisco Unity performs when messages are played, including announcing the name and number of the sender who left a message, whether the timestamp is played before or after the message, and the volume level at which messages are played

•Specify whether Cisco Unity plays the Message Type menu

•Specify message playback order

Message Playback:

Select full or brief Cisco Unity conversation menus

Message Addressing:

•Switch between addressing messages to other subscribers by name, or by extension

•Specify order for addressing messages by name (last name followed by first name, or vice versa)

Message Addressing:

Switch between addressing to other subscribers by name or by extension (by pressing ##)^⁴

Caller Options:

•Allow callers to edit messages

•Allow callers to mark messages urgent

Caller Options:

None

Personal Settings:

•Record a name

•Specify a fax delivery number

•Change directory listing status

•Change password

•Select the language used for the subscriber phone conversation

Personal Settings:

•Record a name

•Specify fax delivery number

•Change directory listing status

•Change password

Private Lists:

•Enter a display name

•Record a name

•Add and delete members

Private Lists:

•Add and delete members

¹The Conversation settings that subscribers can change are detailed in the "How Subscribers Can Customize the Cisco Unity Conversation" section on page 7-23.

²Call transfer options apply only to incoming calls that were routed to the subscriber from the automated attendant or a directory handler, and not on direct calls. Transfer options do not apply when an outsider caller or another subscriber dials a subscriber extension directly.

³Call holding and screening options apply only to incoming calls that were routed to the subscriber from the automated attendant or a directory handler, and not on direct calls. Holding and screening options do not apply when an outsider caller or another subscriber dials a subscriber extension directly. In addition, holding and screening options are only available when supervised transfers are enabled.

⁴Note that this depends on whether you have enabled spelled name addressing. See the "Configuration Settings" section on page 28-2 for details.

Operator Orientation

Operator orientation should address the same points as subscriber orientation, but in greater detail. Operators must be familiar with how subscribers use Cisco Unity. Depending on the size of your organization, the operator may be the person subscribers are likely to ask when they have questions about Cisco Unity.

In addition to the items discussed in the "Subscriber Orientation" section and the "Support Desk Orientation" section (as applicable), operators also need to understand the following concepts and tasks:

Roles of the Operator and the Automated Attendant

The way your organization uses the automated attendant determines what the operator responsibilities are. The automated attendant is a call handler that is used in place of a human operator to answer and direct calls by playing greetings and responding to touchtones. The automated attendant can provide a menu of options (for example, "For Sales, press 1; for Service, press 2."), and it can also provide information (for example, "Our normal business hours are Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.").

Directing Calls

Regardless of how your organization uses the automated attendant, many calls will go to the operator. The operator must know how to direct calls to voice mail and to subscriber phones. To direct calls to voice mail, the operator can dial Cisco Unity and at the Opening Greeting, dial the subscriber extension and then press #2. The subscriber phone does not ring, and the transferred caller hears the subscriber greeting.

You can also create a call handler for each subscriber to send calls directly to their greetings. For details on setting this up, refer to the techtip, "How to Transfer a Caller Directly into a Mailbox," available at http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/sw/voicesw/ps2237/prod_tech_notes_list.html.

Forwarding Unaddressed Messages to Intended Recipients

If an operator also owns a call handler or public distribution list, make sure that the operator knows to review unaddressed messages frequently, and to forward them to the intended recipient(s). See the "How Cisco Unity Handles Messages Without a Specific Recipient" section.

Using the Cisco Unity Greetings Administrator

An operator who is responsible for changing call handler greetings for the organization can use the Cisco Unity Greetings Administrator when is not practical to change a greeting in the Cisco Unity Administrator. For example, if the office is unexpectedly closed because of bad weather, the operator can call from home to use the Cisco Unity Greetings Administrator to enable the alternate Opening Greeting, or to rerecord a call handler greeting stating that the office is closed. For more information, see the "Using the Cisco Unity Greetings Administrator to Change Call Handler Greetings" section on page 21-5.

Support Desk Orientation

Support desk orientation should address the same points as subscriber and operator orientation, but in greater detail. Support desk staff must be familiar with how subscribers and operators use Cisco Unity, and the common problems that subscribers may encounter when using Cisco Unity. Instead of using the Cisco Unity server, it may be helpful to set up a test server that support desk staff can use to browse to the Cisco Unity Administrator, and troubleshoot and test client applications.

Caution Do not run Lotus Notes on the Cisco Unity server while Cisco Unity is running, or Cisco Unity may stop functioning. To troubleshoot or test Lotus Notes with DUC for Cisco on the Cisco Unity server, you must stop Cisco Unity before you start Notes. When you are finished troubleshooting, exit the Notes software, and shut down and restart the Cisco Unity server.

To prepare for possible calls to the support desk at your organization, familiarize the support desk staff with the resources listed below, and with the potential subscriber concerns and misconceptions listed in the section that follows.

Support Desk Resources

•Subscriber documentation is available at http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/sw/voicesw/ps2237/products_user_guide_list.html. In particular, support desk staff may find the Cisco Unity at a Glance documents helpful in gaining a high-level visual understanding of the flow of the Cisco Unity conversation.

•The Compatibility Matrix: Cisco Unity and the Software on Subscriber Workstations is available at http://www.cisco.com/univercd/cc/td/doc/product/voice/c_unity/cmptblty/clientmx.htm.

•The "Setting Up Client Applications" chapter provides information on how subscriber workstations should be set up, and describes how subscribers use Cisco Unity client applications.

•The "Cisco Unity Conversation" chapter summarizes the ways in which Cisco Unity administrators and subscribers can customize the conversation.

•The Cisco Unity Troubleshooting Guide is available at http://www.cisco.com/univercd/cc/td/doc/product/voice/c_unity/tsg/tsg404/dom/index.htm.

In particular, the following chapters may be helpful when addressing support requests from Cisco Unity subscribers:

–For information on specific error messages, refer to the "Error Messages" chapter.

–To learn about MWIs, refer to the "Message Waiting Indicators (MWIs)" chapter.

–When subscribers have problems accessing or using the Cisco PCA or the Media Master, refer to the "Subscriber and Administrator Access" chapter.

–For problems with SMS message notifications, refer to the "Message Notification" chapter.

–Additional procedures for troubleshooting the Cisco PCA and its components (including the Media Master control bar) are presented in the "Cisco Personal Communications Assistant" chapter.

•For descriptions and the URLs of all Cisco Unity documentation on Cisco.com, refer to About Cisco Unity Documentation. The document is shipped with Cisco Unity and is available at http://www.cisco.com/univercd/cc/td/doc/product/voice/c_unity/about/aboutdoc.htm.

Potential Subscriber Concerns and Misconceptions

Table 9-2 describes potential subscriber issues, which are typically based on misconceptions about how Cisco Unity works. Subscribers who encounter such issues are often those who are accustomed to another voice messaging system, were recently migrated from a previous version or a different configuration of Cisco Unity, have not yet completed Cisco Unity training, or are unaware of a new feature or functionality change to their existing system.

Table 9-2 Potential Subscriber Concerns and Misconceptions

Potential Issue

Description

Attached files are not delivered to fax machines

(fax integrations only)

Subscribers may be unaware that when they add attachments to an e-mail message and then send the message to a fax machine, Cisco Unity renders only those attachments with the file extensions specified during Cisco Unity setup. All other attachments are removed.

To determine which file name extensions are currently specified or to specify new ones, refer to the "A Subscriber Did Not Receive an Attached File Delivered to a Fax Machine" section in the "Third-Party Fax Integration" chapter in the Cisco Unity Troubleshooting Guide. The guide is available at http://www.cisco.com/univercd/cc/td/doc/product/voice/c_unity/unity40/tsg/tsg404/dom/index.htm.

Cisco PCA security alerts when using SSL

If your organization set up Cisco Unity to use SSL, but did not add it to the Group Policy in order to distribute the certificate to the trusted root store for all users in the domain (or did not tell subscribers how to add the certificate to the trusted root store on their own computers), subscribers may be concerned about the security alert that will be displayed each time that they access the Cisco PCA. Tell subscribers that they can ignore the warning and proceed to use the Cisco PCA without doing any harm to their computers or the network.

(To prevent the browser from displaying the security alert, see the "Configuring Subscriber Browsers to Use the Cisco PCA" section.)

Delayed messages

Subscribers may believe that their messages are delayed for the following reasons:

•While listening to new messages, subscribers may skip a message and inadvertently mark it new. Later, when they check messages again, they hear the skipped message and believe that the message arrived after a delay.

•Subscribers may skip more messages than they intend while listening to their messages, and later check messages again only to hear one or more of the skipped messages, and believe that the message(s) arrived after a delay. See "Skipping messages in the standard conversation" in this table.

Deleted messages

Subscribers may not understand that Cisco Unity and IBM Lotus Notes both handle deleted messages in the same way; thus, when subscribers delete messages over the phone, they cannot use Cisco Unity to retrieve them.

You can enable Cisco Unity to request confirmation from subscribers before proceeding with the deletion of a new or saved message. For details on setting up this functionality, refer to the Advanced Settings Tool Help. The setting is called Conversation—Confirm Delete When Deleting a New or Saved Message.

For information on deleted messages, refer subscribers to the "Deleting Messages" chapter in the Cisco Unity User Guide which is available at http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/sw/voicesw/ps2237/products_user_guide_list.html.

Fax message not delivered to a fax machine

(fax integrations only)

Subscribers may be unaware that when they record an introduction or add any attachments to the body of a forwarded fax message, the Lotus Domino server resets the message type to e-mail. Cisco Unity is unable to recognize the message as a fax, and consequently, treats the message as an e-mail.

For additional information, refer to the "A Fax Did Not Arrive at the Destination" section in the "Third-Party Fax Integration" chapter in the Cisco Unity Troubleshooting Guide. The guide is available at http://www.cisco.com/univercd/cc/td/doc/product/voice/c_unity/unity40/tsg/tsg404/dom/index.htm.

Mailbox fills up quickly

Subscribers may complain that their mailboxes are filling up too quickly, for any the following reasons:

•Cisco Unity does not automatically delete messages when they reach a certain age. This means that subscriber messages are saved until the subscriber deletes them permanently. (For information on how to permanently delete messages, refer subscribers to the "Deleting Messages" chapter in the Cisco Unity User Guide which is available at http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/sw/voicesw/ps2237/products_user_guide_list.html.)

•When Cisco Unity is set up to provide Unified Messaging, the messages in the Sent and Trash folders in Lotus Notes are included in the total mailbox size.

•When Unified Messaging subscribers receive nondelivery receipts (NDRs) to messages that they send, their mailbox can quickly increase in size—especially if the original message included large attachments. If their e-mail clients are configured to save their sent messages, the original message and attachments are stored in their Sent Items folders and another copy is sent to their Inboxes along with the NDR, increasing their mailbox size accordingly.

•Subscribers may receive messages that have been forwarded many times over, which increases message size. The original message plus all recorded or written introductions that were added during forwarding equal the total message size. As a result, subscribers who have relatively few messages stored in their mailboxes may still find that their mailboxes exceed the storage limits.

•Subscriber mailboxes can fill up while subscribers are on vacation or on an extended leave of absence. To prevent this, specify that Cisco Unity will prevent callers from leaving messages when subscribers have their alternate greetings enabled. For details, see the "Subscriber Template Greetings Settings" section on page 13-13 or the "Subscriber Greetings Settings" section on page 17-14, as applicable.

For information on how Cisco Unity handles full mailboxes, see the "How Cisco Unity Handles Full Mailboxes" section.

For ways in which you and subscribers can manage subscriber mailbox size, refer to the "Best Practices for Managing Subscriber Mailbox Size" section in the "Configuring Cisco Unity for Maintenance Tasks" chapter of the Cisco Unity Maintenance Guide. ((The Cisco Unity Maintenance Guide is available at http://www.cisco.com/univercd/cc/td/doc/product/voice/c_unity/unity40/maint/maint404/dom/index.htm.)

Managing multiple message types

(Unified Messaging configurations only)

Subscriber who are new to Unified Messaging sometimes have a difficult time understanding how to manage multiple message types from a single Inbox. For example, when subscribers check messages by phone, they may try to "clean up" their "voice mailbox" by deleting all of their e-mail messages. They are surprised and frustrated when they later discover that the messages have also been deleted from their Lotus Notes Inboxes. Other subscribers may request that Cisco Unity stop delivering e-mail messages to their "voice mailbox" altogether.

To help subscribers make the most of Unified Messaging, make sure that they understand how it works. For subscribers who like to manage voice mail and e-mail messages separately, remind them that they can turn on the Message Type menu so that they can pick which messages to hear by type ("Press 1 for voice messages, 2 for e-mails..."). Alternatively, subscribers can use the Cisco Unity Assistant to specify that Cisco Unity will play e-mail messages last when they check messages by phone. Finally, subscribers may want to create a folder in their e-mail client to store voice messages separately from other messages.

MWIs

To gain an understanding of when MWIs turn on and off, what causes them to turn on and off, and what causes MWIs to behave differently than expected, refer to the "Message Waiting Indicators (MWIs)" chapter in the Cisco Unity Troubleshooting Guide. The guide is available at http://www.cisco.com/univercd/cc/td/doc/product/voice/c_unity/unity40/tsg/tsg404/dom/index.htm.

Note that subscribers who work with Lotus Notes offline may not know that Cisco Unity relies on the Domino server to determine whether the subscriber has listened to new messages. Therefore, when a subscriber listens to new messages by using Lotus Notes with IBM Lotus Domino Unified Communications (DUC) for Cisco, MWIs on subscriber phones are not turned off until the Lotus Notes client replicates with the Domino server.

Passwords are not secure, or subscribers use the wrong password

Subscribers may assume that their phone and Cisco PCA passwords are the same or are synchronized. As a result, they may think that they are changing both passwords when Cisco Unity prompts them to change their phone password during first-time enrollment. Additionally, and they may try to use their phone password to log on to the Cisco PCA.

Repeat notification options

When a subscriber chooses not to have Cisco Unity restart notification each time a new message arrives, setting a long interval between repeat notification calls may lead the subscriber to believe that Cisco Unity is delaying notification.

For recommended interval settings, refer to the "Repeat Notification Option Is Misunderstood" section in the "Message Notification" chapter of the Cisco Unity Troubleshooting Guide. The guide is available at http://www.cisco.com/univercd/cc/td/doc/product/voice/c_unity/unity40/tsg/tsg404/dom/index.htm.

Skipping messages in the standard conversation

If you upgraded from Cisco Unity version 4.0(3) or earlier, and/or you customized the Cisco Unity standard conversation so that subscribers can press a single # key during message playback instead of pressing ## to skip a message, you may find that some subscribers do not easily adopt the new key mapping. As a result, you may find that:

•Subscribers continue to press ## during message playback, intending to skip a single message as they did before. Instead, they unwittingly skip two messages—the message being played and the subsequent message. As a result, subscribers may report that they are missing messages, that their messages are delayed, or that their MWIs remain lit even after they have listened to "all" of their new messages.

•Subscribers continue to use the old shortcuts during message playback, and report that they do not work as expected. For example, subscribers may press #4 during message playback, and find that instead of Cisco Unity skipping the rest of the message and allowing them to reply to the message as before, now Cisco Unity skips the message and begins playing the next message more slowly than the skipped one.

To change the standard conversation back to the default key mapping, see the "Changing How Subscribers Skip Messages During Message Playback (Standard Conversation)" section on page 7-9.

Unsent messages

Depending on how Cisco Unity is set up at your organization, subscribers may be surprised at how Cisco Unity handles messages when calls are intentionally or unintentionally disconnected (for example, when a subscriber hangs up or when a cell phone loses its charge or signal) while subscribers are in the process of sending, replying to, or forwarding a message. Some subscribers may incorrectly assume that Cisco Unity offers a "draft" folder for unsent messages, which is not the case.

See the "How Cisco Unity Handles Messages That Are Interrupted by Disconnected Calls" section for details.