The Avaya IP Office Voicemail Pro is the most sophisticated voice mail and call flow application available on the Avaya IP500 phone system.  It is enabled by upgrading to the Avaya IP Office Preferred Edition software.  Depending on licence and user settings it can deal with 40 simultaneous calls plus a whole lot more.  For most SME applications Voicemail Pro is not required and the feature rich Essential Edition Voicemail Lite is embedded and included at no charge.

Please read the following and if you’re after sophisticated, integrated, call handling and messaging solutions then let us arrange for a free Avaya Preferred Edition Voicemail Pro demonstration for you.  You’ll discover first hand why the Avaya IP Office is such a brilliant solution.

Voicemail is simply the ability for customers to leave individual, or company messages when a user is on the phone or unavailable.  The Avaya phone system plays a personal greeting and this can be programmed to play different greetings at times of the day or for specific occasions (for example, I’m in a meeting, I’m on holidays, Out for lunch etc)  It’s important to note that each staff member has the option of turning their voicemail on or off and the system can be programmed to only give allocated staff voicemail if you prefer.

When on, the system automatically answers their telephone when they are not available to take a call, plays a personal greeting, and records a message.

The Avaya Voicemail Pro can also ring the user to deliver any new messages. Voicemail messages are all time and date stamped as well as recording the caller’s phone number (if CLI is provided by your carrier and their number is not blocked).  Voicemail Pro can be configured to delete read messages automatically, unless the user chooses to save the message permanently.

Voicemails can be collected remotely by dialing into the Avaya Voicemail Pro server. If the users phone number they are calling from is recognised as a directory number (home number or mobile phone for example), the user will listen to their own voicemail straight away. If the caller number is not recognised, the user will be prompted for a mailbox number and a PIN code for that mailbox, before they can listen to their voicemail. Users have the ability to set and change their own PIN codes.

When a voicemail needs to be forwarded to other users, Avaya IP Office Voicemail Pro provides plenty of user options:

  • Voicemail messages can be forwarded to another mailbox, or group of mailboxes.
  • Recipients can add their comments to the voicemail before forwarding to another mailbox or mailboxes.
  • Voicemails can be forwarded as email .WAV attachments.
  • All options are available in a choice of languages; both spoken voice prompts and graphical programming interfaces have the choice of IP Office TUI and INTUITY emulation TUI.

Avaya Voicemail Pro is so much more than your average Voicemail

Voicemail Pro offers much more than just a pure voicemail system. Other fantastic productivity enhancing, time saving and cost saving options include:

Whisper Announce that prompts callers for information (usually their name) which is recorded and passed on to the user’s extension on answer, allowing them to choose to accept the call or not. This is particularly useful on “CLI/ANI withheld” numbers – usually calls from telesales companies where somebody is trying to sell you something.  Avaya Voicemail Pro will not intrude onto busy extensions.
Assisted Transfer allows transfer of a call to a destination, but allows the call to return to Voicemail Pro automatically for other options should the called party be engaged, or not answer within a pre-determined time.
Conditional routing of calls. Conditions are constructed from a set of basic elements. These can be combined within a single user condition to create complex rules. For example, the Week Planner can be used to define the company’s standard working hours, and then combined with the calendar to define exception days such as public holidays or vacation days.
Call modules. Modules allow you to create sequences of actions that you want to share between a number of different call routing scenarios – like a “macro” in PC applications. These modules can be used to create a library of vertical voicemail applications or just easy dissemination to other IP Office voicemail sites, thanks to its import and export functionality.
Activation of the external relays on the Avaya IP Office 500 pbx. For example, remotely checking the status of the office meeting and then turning it on from your mobile/cell phone on your drive in to work.

Key features of Avaya Voicemail Pro include:

Personal voice mailbox for users and hunt groups.
Personal Numbering (follow me).
Extended personal greetings to customise the information presented to a caller based upon the availability of a user.
Unified Messaging (UMS) offers voice mail – email synchronization between the Voicemail Pro server and the email client.
UMS Web Access allows access to voice mails via a web interface from an internet browser.
UMS integration of Voicemail Pro with Microsoft Exchange Server for full message synchronisation.
Enables mobile messaging integration (e.g., Blackberry) when used with Exchange server integration.
Forwarding of voicemail messages to email systems via SMTP.
Avaya IP Office Voicemail Pro client, a graphical user interface for programming and configuring applications both locally and remotely.
Data base access via Interactive Voice Response (IVR) for individual business requirements.
Audiotex and Auto Attendant services (including dial by name).
Sophisticated queue announcement facilities.
Access and control of voicemail via the digital or IP phone display (Visual Voice).
22 supported prompt languages: Chinese (Mandarin), Danish, Dutch, English (UK), English (US), Finnish, French (France), French (Canadian), German, Greek, Hungarian, Italian, Korean, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese (European), Portuguese (Brazilian), Russian, Spanish (Castilian), Spanish (Latin American), Swedish.
Conditions (e.g. test if ‘out of hours’).
Broadcast group messages.
Automatic and on demand call recording with an option for Contact Recorder search and replay of saved messages.
Tampering Detection / Verified Call Recording
Voice forms/questionnaire mailboxes (Campaign Manager).
Personal distribution lists.
Tag information retrieved from a database to a call and delivers it with the call to an agent.
Visual Basic (VB) Script support to allow the configuration of the voicemail system through VB scripts rather than Voicemail Pro call flows.
Text-to-Speech facilities to allow emails to be read out over the telephone and/or for database information to be read to a caller in 14 languages.
Housekeeping facilities for the management of messages.
Automatic detection and routing of fax calls within Auto Attendants and within a subscriber’s voicemail box.
Support for a range of the INTUITY telephone user interface features in INTUITY emulation mode.
Recording of system prompts through the telephone handset or using multimedia facilities on a PC.
Speaking clock.
Support for TTY hearing impaired text phone.
Centralised VoiceMail within a multi-site Avaya IP Office environment.
Networked Messaging with other Avaya voicemail systems and voice messaging systems supporting VPIM (like CallPilot).
Capacity of up to 40 ports for a single-site system.
Voicemail channels between Voicemail Pro and the IP Office can be reserved for business critical functions or left unreserved for any function.
Improved voice recording, including recording of calls made over IP telephones (calls using direct media has to be routed through IP Office); automatic call recording triggered by incoming call routes; pausing recording when call is parked or placed on hold.
User start points in Voicemail Pro include queued options.

Call Flows with Avaya Voicemail Pro for Intelligent Call Handling

The brilliance of the Avaya IP Office Voicemail Pro is the ability to construct call flows from a series of different building blocks or modules. These building blocks allow automation over tasks like answer a call, listen for tone-dialed digits, make a call etc. Voicemail Pro call flows allow far more than just guiding a user to the group or extension they require. Call flows allow Voicemail Pro to dial back users as soon as a voicemail message is left for them, it provides remote access to phone forwarding settings should a user wish to change their Forwarding or Follow Me number from an external telephone.

Preferred Edition Voicemail Pro provides message handling for individuals or groups, audio information to callers so assisting the operator during periods of heavy call activity and links to business applications through services such as Text-to-Speech. Voicemail Pro provides a full telephony applications environment where call flows can be set up and interact in real time with business workflow – callers can interact via menus and data entry and Voicemail Pro applications can speak back results. For example, users can listen to their email messages through the telephone.

Avaya Voicemail Pro Email Integration

Integration with email systems is provided by the Avaya IP Office Voicemail Pro Unified Messaging Service (UMS) which is delivered to eligible users as part of the Teleworker, Power User or Office Worker User licences. It enables Voicemail Pro to interact with email systems to provide complete synchronisation of voicemails and their status (new/unread, read, deleted, saved) between all user devices like desk telephones, mobile phones, telephones, the UMS web interface, Avaya one-X™ Portal for IP Office, the email client and other devices that are synchronised with the user’s email account. This will work for email clients that use the IMAP4 protocol (like Microsoft Outlook, Lotus Notes, Mozilla Thunderbird, and many others).

Avaya Voicemail Pro and Exchange Server

The ddvanced collaboration between Preferred Edition Voicemail Pro and Microsoft Exchange Server offers voicemail storage into the Exchange message store. This is the single point of storage for all email and voicemail messages and therefore the single source for all message status information. When a voicemail message should be retrieved using an Avaya desk phone on the phone system, the Voicemail Pro retrieves it directly from the Exchange message store. With the Essential Edition Voicemail Lite this is retrieved from the IP Office Pbx and messaging is not centralised.  Voicemail Pro sends the voice mails not just as emails with a .WAV attachment but as a message formatted as ‘voicemail’ so that Exchange can handle them differently from emails.

If Microsoft Exchange Server working with a mobility solution server (e.g., a Blackberry Enterprise Server) are used to push emails to mobile devices (Blackberry or smart phone devices), Voicemail Pro also integrates and delivers voice mails via the Exchange Server to the mobility solution. The mobile device is then able to present voicemails on the visual voicemail interface (instead of presenting them as emails with an attachment like Essential Edition as other brands voicemail solutions).

Voicemail in an Avaya Ip Office Small Community Network (SCN)

A single PC based Voicemail Pro server can provide voicemail services to multiple Avaya IP Office phone systems in a Small Community Network over the LAN, WAN or a Frame Relay network. This is referred to as ‘Centralised Voicemail’ and can reduce costs, while facilitating communication between IP Office sites. For redundancy and resilience, should the primary site fail, the Centralised Voicemail will automatically reconnect to an alternative IP Office site.

For voicemail connections from remote IP Office users in a SCN no multi-site channels are needed.