ViewMail for Outlook 8.6(4) and Unity 7.X

[scorella1]

Running Unity 7.x in a unified messaging environment.  I currently running VMO 8.0 and just upgraded to VMO 8.6(4).  After the upgrade, I was running through the VMO initialization process and discovered the only option for "Voicemail Server Type" is Connection 8.5 (Single Inbox)--actually expected to see both Unity and Unity Connect server types.

I've read through the VMO 8.6(4) release notes and confirmed Unity 7.x is supported:

- Cisco Unity Connection versions 8.x and 7.x, and Cisco Unity versions 8.x and 7.x support ViewMail for Outlook version 8.5(6) and later.

Anybody else having this problem?

Steve

[Bradford Magnani]

Hi Steve,

Have you confirmed you're in a compatible setup from a client perspective?  What version of Outlook and what OS?

Anything 8.5(x)+ requires Outlook 2010, which may be your problem:

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/docs/voice_ip_comm/unity/compatibility/matrix/cuclientmtx.html#wp364674

Brad

Message was edited by: Bradford Magnani

[scorella1]

Hey Brad,

Running: WIN XP and Outlook 2003 (SP3). 

The release notes (under Compatibility Matrix: Cisco Unity and the Software on Subscriber Workstations) have a couple links that seem to point to the same document:

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/docs/voice_ip_comm/connection/compatibility/matrix/cucclientmtx.html.

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/docs/voice_ip_comm/unity/compatibility/matrix/cucclientmtx.html.

BTW....we're upgrading our VMO clients to 8.6(4) in preparation of a migration from Unity 7.x to Unity Connect 8.6 planned later this year.  We thought upgrading all VMO clients would be a first step.

Thanks for the post.

Steve

[Bradford Magnani]

Yeah, the documentation hasn't been updated for 8.6(4) compatbility, but it's identical to what 8.5(x) requires.  Second, as you noticed, the Release Notes only contain the link to the Unity Connection compatbility, it's missing another bullet for Unity compatibility, which is why I provided that to you above:

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/docs/voice_ip_comm/unity/compatibility/matrix/cuclientmtx.html#wp364674

Basically, VMO 8.5+ requires Oulook 2010 if you expect to have the option to integrate with Unity.  Obviously, the UC dropdown is available but you're not quite ready to integrate with it yet. 

So the bottom line is, as long as your clients are on Outlook 2003, integrated with Unity, the latest VMO will not work for users.  Either upgrade all clients to Outlook 2010, or keep the previous VMO 8.0 version installed until you migrate to UC.

Does that help clarify?

Brad

[Yorick Petey]

Hello Brad,

Thanks to your post I avoid a big problem with my migration plan and the confidence the customer has to me.

Indeed, the documents are still not updated:

- the release notes of VMO 8.6(6) points to the same documents (unity connection/unity compatibility matrix):

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/docs/voice_ip_comm/connection/vmo/release/notes/866cucvmorn.html#wp39564

- the compatibility matrix of VMO for unity connection lists VMO 8.6(x) as supported for Outlook 2003 to 2010:

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/docs/voice_ip_comm/connection/compatibility/matrix/cucclientmtx.html#wp102047

This  is confusing because at first I understand that the plugin was globally  compatible with Outlook versions. It should be mentioned as note that  this is not the same when used with Unity.

I  am in a different situation than Steve. They run Outlook 2003, Unity  8.0 and VMO 8.0. We cannot upgrade to VMO8.5+ because they want to keep  outlook 2003 for a while and it's not compatible. And if we upgrade to  unity connection 8.6, we will have to use VMO8.6(6) to keep the SSO  possibility. So basically, we have to upgrade the servers and deploy VMO  8.6 in a single step.

This is a big big constraint when we have to deploy more than 800 workstations!

Do you see another solution?

Thank you for your help.

Yorick

[crescentwire]

Hi Yorick,

We are in a similar situation at my organization. We are running Outlook 2007 across 99% of our workstations, but have Unity v5.x as only voice mail server. We are in the pilot phase of testing Unity Connection 8.6. We've just realized that we cannot upgrade VMO to version 8.6.6 without first upgrading every workstation with Outlook 2010. Either that, or migrate EVERYONE to the new Unity Connection enviornment, and simultaneously deploy VMO 8.6.6. This would allow us to stay on Outlook 2007.

Either way, very undesirable. But I don't see any other way around it.

[Liz Bentler]

VMO8.6(6) has issues with SSO if you have capitalized letters in your user IDs. 8.7 supposedly fixes this but Cisco says will release sometime between now and Dec :( We have about 1200 users waiting for this.