Customizing Outlook Inbox "From" and "Subject" Fields

[oreil]

Unity 3.1.5 - Unified Messaging Environment - How do you customize the Outlook Inbox from and subject fields? On one server the from field displays "Unity Messaging System" and on other it is "user's display name". One server displays the subject field as "message from user's display name" and another server displays "message from user's extension". I would like the from field to display Unity Messaging System" and the subject field to display "user's name and extension or external caller's phone number". Thanks, Maggie.

[lindborg]

Those fields aren't customizable - the differences in the display name are the result of the different sources/information about the sender.

If the message is left from an external (unknown) caller then it's left from the Unity messaging system account. If we have the ANI we'll add it to the subject line, if we don't have that it'll say the "message from an unknown caller" instead. If the message is from a known subscriber, it'll be left from that user - the subject line will have the user name in there which you note.

You can change the display name on the Unity Messaging System account (just do this in AD) and that will be shown for outside caller messages, but the subject line information is not customizable at this time.

[oreil]

Thanks for your quick reply. What was confusing me was that internal users on different unity servers displayed in outlook inbox as external callers - message was from Unity Messaging System and only listed extension - while internal users on same unity server displayed as from "user's name" and the subject was "message from user's name". I also noted that when users on the same unity server send a message from their unity inbox the subject field is blank. This seems inconsistent. It would be nice if we could eventually customize the outlook inbox from and subject fields - it would be easier for users to sort out the voice messages from the rest of the messages in the outlook inbox - especially since we are not using VMO. Thanks again for your help!

[lindborg]

Well, we can't customize the "from" line, of course, since that's who the message is left from. But I do have on my "to do" list to look into how to do a customized subject line.

It gets a _little_ tricky with localization concerns (i.e. Unity supports something like 22 languages right now) and we have to keep that in mind. But letting a site define a string with replacement variables in it wouldn't be too bad a solution. Something like %ANI%, %SUBNAME% and the like could be inserted into static strings. for instance

Voice mail from %SUBNAME% calling from %ANI%

would expand to

Voice mail Jeff Lindborg calling from 2065551234

or

Voice mail from Unknown calling from 2065551234

or the like - you get the idea.

but all that said, you _can_ currently sort on message class (IPM.Note.Voice.Unity) to get voice mail messages grouped if you want to do that. Of course installing VMO is the best since it also adds the snappy custom icon and such.

[dbelleisle]

Hi Jeff, I have the same problem on a Unity 4.0.4 system which has two servers - primary & secondary. My boss who has full unity admin privileges has a problem where his messages come through as "Message from an unidentified caller (3056)". Instead of the subject line stating "Message from Doe, John". He is not the only user with this same problem and the other users do not have full admin privs.

Can you help diagnose this problem? We are running on the primary server. I don't believe this is an issue of running on one server vs the other server. Somehow Unity is not sending the data. Is there a trace that I could run to see what is going on?

Any help you could lend would be greatly appreciated. Thank you! Darlene

[Ginger Dillon]

Hi -

I have seen this happen when the sender's inbox is full. When this happens, Unity will post an event in its application log. Check there and see if you are getting any errors for these users.

Regards,

Ginger

[dbelleisle]

Ginger, Thank you! That was the answer - the sender's inbox was full. He deleted some messages and tested it again and his name appeared. Magic! Thank you for your response. =)