Ask the Expert: Cisco Unity Connection, Installing, Integrating, and Troubleshooting

[Lisa Latour]

Welcome to this Cisco Support Community Ask the Expert conversation. This is an opportunity to learn and ask questions about integrating Cisco Unity Connection into your environment and troubleshooting the many features that are available with the Cisco Unity Connection voicemail solution with expert Brad Magnani.

Cisco Unity Connection is a voicemail and unified messaging platform with a comprehensive feature set and is based on the Linux unified communications operating system. With Cisco Unity Connection, you can access and manage voice messages in variety of ways, using your email inbox, web browser, the Cisco Jabber messaging integration platform, Cisco Unified IP Phone, smartphone, tablet, and more. Cisco expert Brad Magnani will cover and answer all of your questions about Cisco Unity Connection.

Brad Magnani is currently a member of the Applications TAC team in Richardson, TX. He has attended Cisco Live and has provided mentorship and technical training in the Bangalore and Krakow TAC centers. Since 2007, His areas of expertise have been Cisco Unity and Cisco Unity Connection.Brad also has experience troubleshooting and working with various voice products, including Cisco Unity, Cisco Unity Connection, Presence, Communications Manager, and Jabber. He graduated with a bachelor of science degree in applied networking and system administration from Rochester Institute of Technology. He has achieved certifications for Unity Support Specialist and CCNP-Voice.

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Because of the volume expected during this event, Brad might not be able to answer every question. Remember that you can continue the conversation in the Collaboration, Voice and Video community, under subcommunity Unified Communications Applications, shortly after the event. This event lasts through May 8, 2015. Visit this forum often to view responses to your questions and the questions of other Cisco Support Community members.

[Jessica Deaken]

Hello Brad

I have a CUC 8.6.2, i want to configure single inbox but i am confused in section of "Determining which Exchange servers you want" we have Exchange 2013, but in unity connection i dont see any option for exchange 2013 only previous versions.

Thanks

[Bradford Magnani · Accepted solution]

Hi Jessica,

Here you go, in the System Requirements it lists the compatibility: http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/voice_ip_comm/connection/8x/requirements/8xcucsysreqs.html#pgfId-534185

– Exchange Server 2013 with Service Pack 1 Cumulative Update 7 (Unity Connection 8.6(2) Engineering Special

To get a little more clarity on what engineering special you'll need to be on, it's further described here:http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/voice_ip_comm/connection/8x/unified_messaging/guide/85xcucumgx/85xcucumg020.html#pgfId-1198171

• If you choose a specific Exchange 2013 client access server (Unity Connection 8.6(2) SU3 and later), Unity Connection can access all Exchange 2013, Exchange 2010 and Exchange 2007 mailboxes in the Exchange organization, but cannot access Exchange 2003 mailboxes.

• Exchange 2007 and/or 2010: Unity Connection can access every mailbox in the Exchange organization consisting of Exchange 2007, Exchange 2010, and Exchange 2013 (Unity Connection 8.6(2) SU3 and later).

It's a little confusing but you use the 2007/2010 drop down even for 2013.

Hope that helps,

Brad

[A.HASEKE1]

Hi Brad ,

we have this :-

1- C2911-CME-SRST/K9       2911 Voice Bundle w/PVDM3-16,FL-CME-SRST-25, UC License PAK

2- VIC2-4FXO

3- CP-7945G=      QTY1

4- CP-7942G=      QTY3

5- CP-7931G        QTY1

we did all the basic configuration , we can call each other extensions and we can call out lines

and also we can receive incoming calls direct to operator on extension 400 .

now we want to add Auto Attendance , can you help us ?

kindly see the attached configuration and also the flash files 

[Bradford Magnani]

Hi,

Which version of Unity Connection do you have installed?  Unity Connection supports SIP or SCCP integrations with versions of CME.  

Brad 

[A.HASEKE1]

Hi Brad,

Thanks for your reply .

i installed SCCP integration with version of CME .

[A.HASEKE1]

the Auto Atende message will be :-

welcome to my-company dial extension 100 for sales or extension 200 for marketing or 0 for assistance 

[Aman Soi]

Hi Brad,

We have got a requirement :

a. when the IP phone user pickus up the handset , an IVR should play like this Press"1" to dial for international Calls, Press "2 " for Domestic Calls and Press"3" to reach the extension. and after this user should be able to dial the number.

Is this possible through Unity Connection ?

If yes, can u please share the steps?

regds,

aman

[Bradford Magnani · Accepted solution]

Hi Aman,

Unity Connection doesn't have the granularity you're expecting.  There may be a way to configure and forward PLAR to Unity Connection, but it's not going to know the difference between international/domestic.  You'd have to record that in your call handler greeting, and then open up your restriction tables on UC to allow users to dial international and domestic numbers, which opens your system up for toll fraud.  I wouldn't recommend it.

Hope that helps,

Brad

[Bradford Magnani]

Once the call arrives at Unity Connection, depending on how you routed the call to Unity, it will validate the Direct and Forwarded Routing Rules to see if you have anything configured that it needs to trigger on.  Most of the time, a basic auto-attendant is configured by forwarding the same # to Unity Connection and creating a System Call Handler with that same extension, so it matches and will play the greeting you have recorded for that Call Handler.  Routing rules wouldn't be configured in this scenario.  From the Call Handler, you would record your greeting with the options you'd like to present to the users and configure corresponding Caller Input menu options and configure them to perform the appropriate tasks.  This is all covered under the Call Management documentation for Unity Connection: http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/voice_ip_comm/connection/10x/administration/guide/10xcucsagx/10xcucsag080.html#pgfId-1137530

ex: CME somehow is configured to forward extension 1000 to Unity.  Unity has a call handler configured with extension 1000, the call handler's standard greeting is played and based on the caller input configuration you set on this call handler, it will allow users to perform menu selections.

Hope this helps,

Brad

[A.HASEKE1]

Hi Brad,

Thanks for your help .that what we need .

also i do have another router model 2921 with licens C2911-CME-SRST/K9 

and want to enable Basic Automatic Call Distribution (B-ACD) and Auto-Attendant (AA) Services on Cisco Unified Communications Manager Express CME .

how to do it ? and what we need ?

Thanks a lot

[Bradford Magnani]

That is outside the scope of this event - you'll want to ask that question in the appropriate forum to those who support that technology here: https://supportforums.cisco.com/community/5791/other-collaboration-voice-and-video-subjects

[Wilson Gabriel Veliz Plua]

Hello Brad

I'm really new in this subject about IP Telephony and I want to learn. Can you help me with some links (Videos and Presentations ) about CUC.

Regards

Wilson V.

[Bradford Magnani]

Hi Wilson,

The best place to start would be at the main landing page for Unity Connection documentation as there are many topics within the product to cover: http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/support/unified-communications/unity-connection/tsd-products-support-series-home.html

ciscounitytools.com is a good source for training videos as new features are released.  Here is a history of those trainings videos for you to view:

Connection 10.5 Training

Connection 10.0 Training

Connection 9.1.2 Training

Connection 9.1 Training

Connection 9.0.1 Training

Connection 8.6.2 Training

Connection 8.6 Training

Hope that helps,

Brad

[Suresh Hudda]

Dear Experts,

I have 2 queries over here regarding CUC and hoping best answers !!! Thanks in Advance.

Query 1: We have CUCM 7.1 & CUC 7.1 and these are integrated using SCCP, what is the best practice for this integration. Should we configure 2 line groups in CUCM and two separate port groups in CUC cluster (CUC Primary & secondary), or one line group in CUCM and one port group in CUC ? I mean which is recommended ?

Query 2: One of our customer facing one weird issue in CUC 7.1, actually random voice mail users/extensions are getting a lot of (more than 100) false/junk voice messages and when we listen these messages it says 'message has received from 001043' (001043 is configured as voice mail port in CUCM) and nothing is there in these messages due to this user's mailbox filled up with these messages and users need to delete and listen all these message to search any genuine voice message, these false messages are coming from random voice mail ports.

Currently we have a TAC opened for it but didn’t get the solution yet even after 4.5 months so need yours expert suggestion which may can trick to solve this issue.

Suresh