VPIM connectivity with Avaya

[amylinit]

I haven't had good luck getting responses to previous VPIM questions, but I'll give it another shot. I'm getting suspicious that VPIM isn't used all that much out there.

We're considering using VPIM to link a partner's Avaya voicemail system with our Unity 4.0.4 UM deployment.

I have some questions/concerns about how to automate the VPIM subscriber creation process, and how in turn to provide our partner with user/extension/spoken name from Unity in a format they can use for Avaya Interchange.

Does anyone have experience with VPIM networking between Unity and Avaya Intuity Interchange 5.4? Are there tools to automate importing VPIM subscibers (including their spoken name)? I haven't found anything indicating that .wav files can be imported in bulk for VPIM subscribers. At a minimum is there a way to do it directly in SQL?

If the answer is that VPIM subscribers must be created/modified individually via the SA to map recorded names, then VPIM probably isn't a viable solution for us.

How do most companies handle adds/moves/changes for their VPIM subscribers?

Thanks in advance,

Cameron

[baldwinj]

Subscriber Information Dump can be used to export Unity subscriber information and this includes recorded voice names which could be provided to your partner.

In Unity 4.0(5), Cisco Unity Bulk Import (CUBI) will have the ability to import recorded voice names when creating subscribers. If user information is available for the subscriber's on your partner's system, then you can import them in bulk as VPIM subscribers in Unity.

This is static data however and would require sharing move/add/change data between the two companies on some periodic basis to keep the information up to date.

Also new in Unity 4.0(5) will be the VPIM Directory Update feature, which provides the ability to automatically create/modify/delete VPIM subscribers based on information received as part of incoming VPIM messages. This provides a usage based replication of data, not a full synchronization of subscriber information.

And any combination of blind addressing, CUBI, manual updates for MACs and the directory update feature can be used.

[amylinit]

Thank you Jennifer. This answers many of my questions.

I don't think our partner's Avaya system has the capacity to export individual recorded voice names. That may limit our ability to import recorded voice names via CUBI. Are you aware of any tools that allow conversion of recorded voice names from Avaya format to something Unity can use?

Am I understanding correctly that VPIM subscribers could be made initially without a recorded voice name, and as Unity received messages from those VPIM subscribers their account would be updated with their attached recorded voice name (which would then be available to listen to via directory lookups)?

Many thanks,

Cameron

[baldwinj]

If the system is capable of exporting voice names as wav files, then there is a Unity tool (Set WAV Format) that could be used to change the codec if necessary.

With the new feature to be release in Unity 4.0(5), your understanding is correct. CUBI can be used to create VPIM subscribers without voice names, if they aren't available. Then as VPIM messages are received from those subscribers (that included their voice names of course), Unity can be configured to update the VPIM subscribers with the voice names.

Just to clarify a little, Unity can send the vCard and voice name data with outgoing VPIM messages in current releases and some 3rd party systems are capable of using this data to create 'remote subscriber' records that correspond to the Unity subscribers. And Unity currently makes the vCard and voice name data available to the Unity recipient if it is included in the incoming VPIM message. What is new in the next release is the ablility for Unity to use the data in the message to automatically add/modify/delete VPIM subscribers based on that data.