| Oracle® Voicemail & Fax Administrator's Guide 10g Release 1 (10.1.1) Part Number B14496-03 |
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View PDF |
| Oracle® Voicemail & Fax Administrator's Guide 10g Release 1 (10.1.1) Part Number B14496-03 |
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|
View PDF |
This chapter covers the following topics:
This section describes the major features of Oracle Voicemail & Fax.
Oracle Voicemail & Fax is a voicemail system that answers phone calls and saves voice messages in users' Inboxes. It provides greater flexibility than other phone answering systems and increased productivity by allowing users to access their voicemail messages through the interface of their choice: telephone, e-mail client, or Web browser. voicemail messages can be accessed through e-mail clients as a WAVE file attachment. Oracle Voicemail & Fax provides a basic Dual-Tone Multifrequency (DTMF) interface, providing the capability to change users' preferences using the telephone interface. Because Oracle Voicemail & Fax is a single-repository solution, actions taken on a voicemail message or on a users' account preferences through the telephone interface are visible through other channels.
Oracle Voicemail & Fax provides inbound facsimile capabilities. Faxes sent to a user's phone number are delivered to the user's Inbox as a message attachment. Faxes are stored as TIFF attachments in MIME-compliant messages that can be printed or forwarded to any e-mail address using standards-based clients or Web clients.
Oracle Voicemail & Fax provides access to voicemail messages through multiple channels, including the telephone, standards-based clients (IMAP4 or POP3), and through the Web. Because messages are stored in the industry-standard WAVE and TIFF formats, many readily available media players and graphics readers can be used. This allows for great flexibility in accessing messages from the computer and for forwarding the messages. Because the user's e-mail, voicemail, and fax messages are in a single Inbox, this increases users' productivity and provides great ease in using the product.
Oracle Voicemail & Fax, along with other Oracle Collaboration Suite components, provides a comprehensive set of notification features. Making use of the server-side rules in the Oracle Collaboration Suite Database, users can define their own rules for when and how they are notified. Oracle Voicemail & Fax supports e-mail notification through SMTP-enabled pagers and cell phones. Oracle Voicemail & Fax leverages the Oracle Mobile Collaboration component of Oracle Collaboration Suite which provides gateways for direct one-way and two-way communication with a number of devices, including many popular SMS systems and pager networks.
Oracle Voicemail & Fax administration is integrated into Oracle Enterprise Manager, allowing for centralized management and systemwide monitoring of the Oracle environment. Oracle Voicemail & Fax supports multiple domains within the same system and allows for central or distributed system administration in a hosted environment.
Oracle Voicemail & Fax provides Web-based preferences management through the Oracle Collaboration Suite 10g WebMail client, Oracle Collaboration Suite 10g Web Access Client, and Oracle Connector for Outlook. End users can make distribution lists accessible to the telephone user interface (TUI) menu, set their voicemail password, set the language in which they hear their voicemail prompts, select the active greeting, and select the dial-out extension. End users also have the option of setting their preferences through the telephone user interface (TUI).
The following topics are covered:
A call comes into the PBX (private branch exchange) which hands off the call to the Voicemail & Fax server. The Voicemail & Fax Application retrieves information about the user and the user's preferences and system information from Oracle directory server. Voicemail messages are stored and retrieved from the Oracle Collaboration Suite Database. The Oracle Mail IMAP server retrieves voicemail messages from the database and displays these messages in the user's Inbox (Figure 1-1).
Oracle Voicemail & Fax uses the Oracle Collaboration Suite Database as the store for all voicemail and fax messages, the same message store used by Oracle Mail. The database provides common access methods for e-mail, voicemail, and fax messages in the format that is appropriate. For example, voicemail and fax messages are stored in VPiM format. All messages are available through standard IMAP4 or POP3 e-mail clients. A single repository makes the voicemail messages simultaneously accessible through e-mail or through the telephone interface.
Oracle Voicemail & Fax uses the Oracle Mail PL/SQL API to access the database to store and retrieve voicemail messages in the user's Inbox.The database is accessed whenever a message is left for a voicemail user or if a voicemail user accesses the voicemail system to listen to his or her messages.
Although the Oracle Collaboration Suite Databases may be on the same physical server as the Voicemail & Fax Applications, in most situations, the databases are installed on a different server. A minimum of one Oracle Collaboration Suite Database is required for a Voicemail & Fax system.
Information about the user and the user's preferences, and system information is stored in the Oracle directory server. Oracle Voicemail & Fax leverages the user information and preferences of Oracle Mail and extends this to include attributes specific to voicemail. The voicemail attributes include site information, the user's recorded greetings, access to the voicemail and fax features, and the user's phone number. System configuration information stored in Oracle directory server include attributes such as system parameters, menus, and prompts.
The Voicemail & Fax Application is installed over the Telephony Server. Along with the Oracle Container, they comprise the Voicemail & Fax Server. These components are described in more detail later in this chapter.
IMAP services are part of the Oracle Mail component of the Oracle Collaboration Suite. These services provide access to voicemail messages and faxes to a user using a standard IMAP client. The voicemail messages can be played using any media player that supports WAVE files. The fax messages can be viewed using a graphics viewer that supports TIFF format.
The components of the Voicemail & Fax Server are the Voicemail & Fax Application, the Telephony Server, and the Oracle Container Subsystem. These components are described in the following sections.
Figure 1-2 Voicemail & Fax Server Architecture
The Telephony Server is mainly comprised of the Intel NetMerge Converged Communications Software (CCS). NMCCS is Intel's implementation of the CT Server standard proposed by Enterprise Computer Telephony Standards (ECTF). This standard defines the infrastructure required to build platform-independent computer telephony applications. The NetMerge software manages the telephone calls and the resources. The Telephony Server runs on an Intel-based server (with the Windows 2000 or 2003 operating system) and consists of the Intel NetMerge software, and either the Intel Host Media Processing (HMP) software or the Intel dialogic telephony cards. The HMP software provides SIP-based Voice over IP (VoIP) interface using the server's existing Ethernet NIC (Network Interface Card). The telephony cards are used to connect the Telephony Server with a PBX using traditional telephony connections.
Although there are many APIs supported by NetMerge CCS, Oracle uses the s.410 (also known as JTAPI Media) specification which defines the application-level programming interface and the s.300 specification which allows the NetMerge CCS to use and manage resources including telephony boards, storage, and speech processing software.
NetMerge CCS provides encapsulated APIs to all processes. One of these encapsulations is the file system API that allows processes to retrieve and store recordings and manipulate files. Oracle provides a plug-in to this encapsulated framework allowing Oracle Voicemail & Fax processes to store and retrieve data in the Oracle Collaboration Suite Database.
The Oracle Container provides direct access to the Oracle Collaboration Suite Database through OCI and PL/SQL. Written in C, it is the Oracle extension to the Intel NetMerge container subsystem. The Oracle Voicemail & Fax Application makes API calls into NetMerge to the Oracle Container.
The Oracle Voicemail & Fax application uses the APIs provided by Intel's NetMerge CCS software to answer the calls and to provide voicemail features. The Oracle Voicemail & Fax Application consists of the following services:
Routing Service receives and hands off calls to other services.
Retrieval Service authenticates callers and allows voicemail users to retrieve and respond to voicemail messages and manage their voicemail accounts.
Recording Service plays the greeting, records messages, and delivers messages.
Interactive Voice Response (IVR) Service runs simple call answering programs that administrators can define and customize.
Call Transfer Service transfers calls to the phone number configured as the operator or attendant number.
Message Delivery Monitor Service tracks and reports the time it takes to deliver messages.
Message Recovery Service recovers and redelivers messages that are not successfully delivered the first time.
Telephony Monitor Service tracks and reports on the status of the Telephony Server.
Fax Receiving Service receives and delivers fax calls.
SMDI (Simplified Message Desk Interface) Monitor Service provides an interface between SMDI-enabled PBXes and Oracle Voicemail & Fax.
MWI (Message Waiting Indicator) Service activates and deactivates users' message waiting indicators.
Some services are optional such as the IVR Service, Fax Receiving Service, Message Delivery Monitor Service, and SMDI Monitor Service. The services, collectively, are referred to as the Voicemail & Fax Application. There is one Voicemail & Fax Application for each Telephony Server, and multiple Telephony Servers can be included in a single Oracle Voicemail & Fax system.
The PBX hands calls off to the Telephony Server. The server, which is comprised of NetMerge CCS software, acts as a resource manager for the services that make up the Voicemail & Fax Application. Calls to the Oracle Collaboration Suite Database are made from the application through NetMerge CCS and Oracle extensions to the Intel NetMerge container subsystem.
NetMerge CCS encapsulates access to cards through Intel Dialogic R4/Global Call APIs and provides implementations for different cards such as D82, T1, and Analog. NetMerge abstracts out access to file systems including reading, writing, and deleting files on local file systems.
Figure 1-3 Oracle Voicemail & Fax Architecture Stack
There are two basic types of boarded Voicemail & Fax deployments. In a boarded deployment, there is a direct connection between the PBX and the Voicemail & Fax server. In a single-site deployment (Figure 1-4), there are one or more Voicemail & Fax servers at one site connecting to an Oracle Collaboration Suite Database and Oracle Internet Directory. The Infrastructure Tier may be in the same location as the PBX and server or, as in this example, may be in a different location.
Figure 1-4 Single-site Boarded Deployment
In a multi-site boarded deployment, there are one or more Voicemail & Fax servers for each PBX, each serving a different location (Figure 1-5). For example, there may be one Voicemail & Fax server for each of the following cities: San Francisco, New York, and London. All Voicemail & Fax servers connect to a single, centralized Infrastructure Tier located in Denver.
Note:
See Chapter 12, "Deploying Oracle Voicemail & Fax," in Oracle Collaboration Suite Deployment Guide for more information about deployment options. See Chapter 14, "VoIP Gateway Deployments" for more information about Voice over IP deployments.There are two basic types of calls received by a voicemail system: forwarded calls and direct calls. A forwarded call is a phone call that is not answered by the intended recipient (also known as the called party), and therefore, the call is transferred to the voicemail system. A direct call is a call made by a voicemail user to the voicemail system, typically to retrieve messages or to manage their voicemail preferences.
The sections that follow describe how calls are handled by the Voicemail & Fax Application. NetMerge CCS performs as a resource manager and interacts with each of the application's services to hand off calls between the services.
A call comes in and the called party does not pick up the call. The PBX passes the call to the Telephony Server, and the call is picked up by the Routing Service. The Routing Service retrieves call detail information from the PBX including the caller's phone number, the destination phone number, and how the call arrived at the voicemail system (direct or forwarded). For a forwarded call, the Routing Service queries the PBX-Application Cluster which handles the phone number and checks the PBX-Application Cluster's call routing map. If the call's destination number is listed in the call routing map, the call is handed off to the IVR (Interactive Voice Response) Service. All other forwarded calls are handed off to the Recording Service which retrieves the called party's information from the Oracle directory server and verifies that the called party is enabled for voicemail. Then the Recording Service looks for a greeting, in the following order, until it finds one and it plays the greeting:
Called party's recorded greeting
Generic greeting with the called party's recorded name
Generic greeting with the called party's phone number
After the message is recorded, the Recording Service delivers the message to the voicemail user's Inbox on the Oracle Collaboration Suite Database.
If a fax tone is detected at any time during the interaction, the call is handed off to the Fax Receiving Service which receives the fax message and delivers the message to the voicemail user's Inbox. If the user chooses to transfer out of the call to an attendant, the call is handed off to the Call Transfer Service which performs this task.
A voicemail user calls into the voicemail system and the PBX passes the call to the Telephony Server where the Routing Service picks up the call. The Routing Service retrieves call detail information from the PBX including the caller's phone number, the destination phone number, and how the call arrived at the voicemail system (direct or forwarded). If it is a direct call, the Routing Service hands the call to the Retrieval Service which formulates the mail box number by using the caller ID or by prompting the voicemail user to enter a mail box number. The Retrieval Service verifies that the user is a valid voicemail user against the data stored in Oracle directory server. Once the user has been verified, the user is prompted for a password, and the voicemail system authenticates the password against Oracle directory server. After the user has been successfully authenticated, the Retrieval Service interacts with Oracle Collaboration Suite Database to retrieve voicemail messages and other account information.
After being authenticated by the voicemail system, the voicemail user is given the following options:
Listen to new or saved messages
Send a message to another voicemail user
Reply to the sender of a voicemail message
Forward the voicemail message to one or more recipients, with the option of including a message
Perform administrative tasks such as changing passwords and recording or changing greetings
When the voicemail user listens to a message, the Retrieval Service plays the message. If the user chooses an option that involves creating a message, the Retrieval Service hands off the call to the Recording Service. After the message is recorded and delivered to the user's Inbox by the Recording Service, the call is handed back to the Retrieval Service, and the user is given the choice to select another menu option.
During a call, if the caller chooses the menu option to transfer the call to an attendant, the call is handed off to the Call Transfer Service which looks up the attendant's number in Oracle directory server. It starts with the user profile, and if none is configured at the user level, it searches through the user's parent hierarchy. The call is transferred to the attendant through the PBX. (The Call Transfer Service hands the call back to the PBX which dials the attendant's phone number.)
Who the user is varies depending on which service hands off the call to the Call Transfer Service. If the Retrieval Service hands off the call, (that is, for a direct call), then the user is the authenticated voicemail user who is logged into their mail box. If the Recording Service hands off the call, (that is, for a forwarded call), then the user is the voicemail user for whom the caller recorded a message or for whom the caller intended to record a message.
There are times when the Recording Service and Fax Receiving Service attempts to deliver a recorded message to the Oracle Collaboration Suite Database and encounters errors. These messages end up in the file system queue of the Message Recovery Service which makes periodic attempts to redeliver the message. Once it successfully delivers a message to the database, the message is deleted from its queue.
The Message Recovery Service maintains connections to all Oracle Collaboration Suite Databases configured for the host on which the Voicemail & Fax Application is installed. Each time the service picks up a message from the file system queue, it attempts to send the message in its queue through its connections to each Oracle Collaboration Suite Database until it is successful. If it encounters an error sending the message through every Oracle Collaboration Suite Database, it requeues the message on the file system and picks it up the next time it tries to deliver queued messages.
When a forwarded call is passed to the Recording Service and the service detects a fax tone, it passes the call to the Fax Receiving Service which looks up the called party's information in the Oracle Internet Directory. If the Fax Receiving Service determines that the called party is a valid user with the fax access feature enabled, it receives the fax and sends it to the called party's Inbox in the Oracle Collaboration Suite Database.
Oracle Voicemail & Fax provides administrators with the ability to create and customize simple call answering programs. These call answering programs are sometimes referred to as auto attendants or interactive voice response (IVR) systems. Oracle Voicemail & Fax IVRs play messages, transfer calls, search the user directory, offer simple DTMF (Dual-Tone Multifrequency) menus, and integrate with the Recording Service and Retrieval Service. The IVR Service supports multiple administrator-defined IVR deployments, each of which may specify a behavior for business hours, non-business hours, holidays, and special times that fit none of these categories. When the Routing Service is handed a forwarded call, it consults the PBX-Application Cluster's call routing map, which contains a mapping of telephone numbers to IVR deployments. If the call routing map contains a mapping for the originally dialed telephone number, the Routing Service sends the call to the IVR Service. The IVR Service then executes the applicable behavior for the appropriate IVR deployment.
There are two monitoring services, the Telephony Monitor Service and the Message Delivery Monitor Service. The Telephony Monitor Service monitors the Telephony Server and reports the status and some key metrics of the Telephony Server to Enterprise Manager. It periodically checks the status of the server and the number of active calls being handled by the server.
The Message Delivery Monitor Service measures the time it takes for a message to be delivered to the Oracle Collaboration Suite Database. The service sends test messages to a test account on each Oracle Collaboration Suite Database, and reports the time it takes for the test message to arrive in the Inbox of the target Oracle Collaboration Suite Database.
The SMDI (Simplified Message Desk Interface) Monitor Service provides an interface between SMDI-enabled PBXes and Oracle Voicemail & Fax. This service does not interact with NetMerge CCS and does not directly handle calls. SMDI Monitor Service processes call detail messages from the PBX, including whether it is a direct call or a forwarded call, and passes these messages to the Routing Service. It also receives MWI (Message Waiting Indicator) requests from the MWI Service and dispatches these to the PBX. Calls are passed from the PBX to the Telephony Server. When the Routing Service receives the call, it finds the correct PBX-Application Cluster and looks up the location of the SMDI Monitor Service. It then connects to the SMDI Monitor Service and asks for call detail information for the call that it's handling.
Any service within the Oracle Voicemail & Fax installation may use any SMDI Monitor Service within the installation as long as it connects to the desired PBX. This means that in an installation with multiple Oracle Voicemail & Fax Applications tier machines servicing the same PBX, you can deploy one SMDI Monitor Service which can be used by all Oracle Voicemail & Fax Applications installed on a different machine.
The Voicemail & Fax Application needs to have certain information about the PBX in order to work with the PBX. For example, Oracle Voicemail & Fax converts all phone numbers into international format. So it needs to know in what form the PBX passes phone numbers to the application, so it can convert the phone numbers to international format. When the application sends a phone number to the PBX, it needs to convert this number from international format into a form that the PBX can dial, so it needs to know how to do this conversion. The way the PBX dials an internal phone number differs from dialing an external number, and the application needs to know which phone numbers belong to the PBX and which are external phone numbers, and what rules to apply. These and other specifications that are required for a PBX and Voicemail & Fax Application to work together are contained in the concept of a PBX-Application Cluster. A PBX-Application Cluster defines the relationship between a Voicemail & Fax Application and a PBX.
This configuration applies to any Voicemail & Fax Application that is associated with the PBX-Application Cluster. By creating this definition for a PBX, you can associate it with any Voicemail & Fax Application. You can add another Voicemail & Fax Application without having to configure the PBX to work with it. You simply use the existing PBX-Application Cluster configuration. (Figure 1-7).
Figure 1-7 Adding Another Voicemail & Fax Application to a PBX-Application Cluster
Or you can exchange one Voicemail & Fax Application for another, again without any additional configuration (Figure 1-8).
Figure 1-8 Exchanging One Voicemail & Fax Application for Another
