Preventing callers from leaving a message when the mailbox is ALMOST full

[marinaibm]

Hello,

Unity 4.2 & Exchange 2003 unified messaging setup.

My customer is looking for an option to prevent callers from leaving a message when the subscriber mailbox is almost full. For example, if the subsriber's mailbox limit is 2MB, they want to be able at 1.9MB to treat the external callers the same way as if the mailbox was already full ( playing "mailbox is full" message)

Is it possible?

Thanks in advance

Marina

[Ginger Dillon]

Hi Marina -

There is a Unity feature called Full Mailbox Check. You can initiate it from Unity Tools Depot - Advanced Settings. When configured, Unity checks the subscriber's inbox limits before allowing an external caller to leave a message. Check out this section, "A subsciber has a full mailbox" - http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/sw/voicesw/ps2237/prod_troubleshooting_guide_chapter09186a0080449d92.html#wp1207904

Hope this helps!

Ginger

[marinaibm]

Ginger,

Thanks but I'm looking for providing the same functionality before the mailbox reaches the limit, i.e. if there is only 5k left the recorded voicemail will be lost.

[Ginger Dillon]

Hi Marina -

Sounds like you want to modify the Exchange inbox limits then, since these are what Unity checks before allowing a call to be sent to a subscriber. Unity is checking the limit set for the "Prohibit Send and Receive". Or am I not understanding what you need?

Ginger

[marinaibm]

Ginger,

They still want to receive regular emails before reaching the limit.

The problem is that Unity is still OK to take the message even though there is very little space left before the actual limit and the voicemail will be lost.

Ideally I would like to have possibility of preventing Unity from taking the message from external caller if there is not enough room for 15 seconds recording.

Hope it's clear enough now.

Thanks again

Marina

[lindborg]

Couple things here.

First, Unity wont ever just toss the message - it'll end up getting routed to the unaddressed messages distribution list for an admin type to handle.

Second, the last time I tested this I believe Exchange will take the message even if the message it will take will put it over the limit. So you have 1Kb of space left and we insert a 5 meg voice mail file, the message is accepted by Exchange I believe. They do not see if the message they will take will put them over and reject it on that basis I don't believe.

[marinaibm]

Thanks Jeff,

There would be over 10,000 subscribers so unadressed messages distribution list will be a very hard to handle one.

Good point regarding Exchange, I did not check it myself but will definatly do next week.

[lindborg]

We have much larger sites than 10,000 - keep in mind this is only going to affect users who have reached their 2nd limit - they've already been denied sending rights and have been barked at by both the voice mail and their email clients that they are getting full - only if they do nothing and blow past limit #2 will inbound messages not be accepted - this really should not be hitting that many folks that it would overwhelm admin folks monitoring the unaddressed messages DL - if it does, then there's a space allocation crisis that needs addressing pretty badly.

[Tommer Catlin]

But what causes unaddressed messages to wind up in the eadmin account? I just notice on one server that it has quite a few messages sitting in there.

Is there a recommended procedure for admins to be checking on these?

Thanks!

[lindborg]

Any time a message from an unknown caller (someone who has not logged in as a subscriber) and it can't be delivered, it's dropped into the Unaddressed Messages public distribution list - by default the Example Admin is a member of that list.

Yes, you should most definitely have a "real" admin in that list - the installation and admin guides mention this I believe. We can't just dump messages if we can help it and without a known sender to NDR back to, this is the only recourse.

So if the mailbox is full or Exchange refuses the message (i.e. the mailbox has been deleted or there's a catastrophic error etc...) we use the Unaddressed Messages DL as the last line of defense.