| Oracle® Voicemail & Fax Administrator's Guide 10g Release 1 (10.1.1) Part Number B14496-03 |
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| 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:
There are default values for most of the parameters and, generally, you can start with the defaults and make adjustments to the settings after your system has been running for awhile. There is one important exception to this. After you install Oracle Voicemail & Fax, you must configure the PBX-Application Cluster. There are no defaults for some of the required parameters, and these must be set in order for your Oracle Voicemail & Fax system to function properly.
Oracle Voicemail & Fax supports multiple locations in one voicemail deployment. Because there may be different types of PBXes in the same deployment, Oracle provides a way to define integrations through the concept of a PBX-Application Cluster. A PBX-Application Cluster defines a relationship between one or more PBXes and one or more Voicemail & Fax Applications (called an application cluster) that support the PBX.
You set parameters in the PBX-Application Cluster for a specific PBX. The parameters define how a Voicemail & Fax Application integrates with the PBX. These parameters include the PBX integration type, PBX dialing rules, telephony number translation rules, Message Waiting Indicator (MWI) phone number conversion rules, Interactive Voice Response (IVR) mapping, and phone numbers belonging to the PBX. This configuration applies to any Voicemail & Fax Application that is associated with the PBX-Application Cluster.
During the installation and configuration of Oracle Voicemail & Fax, you are prompted to associate Oracle Voicemail & Fax with a PBX-Application Cluster. If this is a first-time installation or if you created a new PBX-Application Cluster during the installation, then you must configure it in order to have a functioning Oracle Voicemail & Fax system.
Some of the parameters have defaults or are optional while others are required. At a minimum, you must configure the following parameters:
Phone Numbers
Telephone Number Translation Rules
Internal Dialing Rules
External Dialing Rules
MWI Phone Number Conversion Rules
PBX Integration specifies the method for exchanging call detail records and Message Waiting Indicator data with the PBX. The three methods of integration that Oracle Voicemail & Fax supports are Telephony Server, Simplified Message Desk Interface (SMDI), and Dual-Tone Multifrequency (DTMF).
The default is Telephony Server. Select this option if you are using digital emulation, that is, the call detail records are parsed from the digital display that the card is emulating, and message waiting indicator data is passed between the PBX and Voicemail & Fax Server using digital emulation. In this scenario, one port on the card is reserved to handle the message waiting indicator function.
You must determine what integration type is supported by your PBX, and configure the PBX and telephony server hardware to work with Oracle Voicemail & Fax.
If you choose SMDI, you must specify the following:
Host – Specify the fully qualified name of the host on which the Oracle Voicemail & Fax SMDI Monitor Service is running.
Port – Specify a valid TCP port on the host where SMDI Monitor Service is running.
Timeout – Specify the number of milliseconds that Voicemail & Fax Applications will wait for the SMDI Monitor to respond to a query or connection request.
Security Disabled – If the checkbox is selected, it indicates that access to the SMDI Monitor does not require authentication. It is recommended that SMDI Monitor security be enabled; however, it may be necessary to disable authentication in an environment where multiple versions of Oracle Voicemail & Fax interoperate.
If security is disabled and you change this setting to enable security, manually refresh all Routing Service, MWI Service, and SMDI Monitor Service processes on all Applications tiers that use this PBX. This ensures that all processes that interact with SMDI Monitor are now secure processes.
If you choose DTMF, you must specify the following
On hook – Select on hook if the PBX sends call information while the voicemail system is on hook—that is, before the voicemail system answers the call.
Off hook – Select off hook if the PBX sends call information while the voicemail system is off hook—that is, after the voicemail system answers the call.
Direct Phone Number – Specify the remote voicemail access hunt group pilot number.
The Voicemail & Fax Application needs to know the call type (direct or forwarded) in order to know how to handle the phone call and which of its services the call should be passed to. DTMF-based PBXes do not send call type information to the Voicemail & Fax Application. Therefore, the application uses the phone numbers specified in the Direct Phone Number table to determine the call type. The phone numbers specified in the Direct Phone Number table are used to access the voicemail system to retrieve messages or administer voicemail preferences. Calls to these phone numbers are direct calls. Therefore, if the PBX passes a number to the Voicemail & Fax Application that matches one of the phone numbers in the Direct Phone Number table, the application assumes it is a direct call. For all other numbers that the PBX passes to the Voicemail & Fax Application, the application assumes the call is a forwarded call.
On some PBXes, a dial tone triggers a call disconnection. The consequence of this is that when a user hangs up after leaving a voicemail message, a dial tone is appended to the end of the message. The system administrator can configure the application so that this dial tone is removed by specifying the length of time the dial tone plays before the call is disconnected. Message Truncation Time is the time, in milliseconds, that is deleted from the end of the message. The default is 0 milliseconds.
The Master Phone Numbers table includes PBX, site, and phone number data for the Oracle Voicemail & Fax system. Table 3-1 is an example of this table.
Table 3-1 Master Phone Numbers Table
| PBX | Site | International Phone Number Pattern |
|---|---|---|
|
SanFrancisco_Avaya |
sf.us.acme.com |
1415775???? |
|
SanFrancisco_Avaya |
sf.us.acme.com |
1415837???? |
|
London |
London.uk.acme.com |
44171816???? |
|
London |
London.uk.acme.com |
44171777???? |
|
HQNortel |
hq.us.acme.com |
1650506???? |
|
HQNortel |
hq.us.acme.com |
1650607???? |
|
HQNortel |
hq.us.acme.com |
1650633???? |
Oracle Voicemail & Fax uses the Master Phone Numbers table in two situations:
If the caller is unknown to the Voicemail & Fax Application, Oracle Voicemail & Fax uses this table to identify the site of the phone number being called and uses the site's settings to determine various settings, including the language in which the voicemail prompts are played.
The Message Waiting Indicator service uses the Phone Numbers table to identify the PBX associated with a phone number and to deliver the MWI message to the correct PBX.
You will need to populate the Master Phone Numbers table:
When you first install your Oracle Voicemail & Fax system
When you add a new PBX to an existing system
When you add a site
Two views of this Master Phone Numbers table are used in Enterprise Manager. On the PBX-Application Cluster administration page, the Phone Numbers table identifies all phone numbers for a particular PBX and the sites to which they belong. See Figure 3-2 for an example of the Phone Numbers table for the HQNortel PBX-Application Cluster.
On the administration page for Groups or Sites, the Phone Numbers table identifies the phone numbers and PBXes for a site. Figure 3-3 shows the phone numbers for the one of the sites in Figure 3-2, the hq.us.acme.com site.
You can use either view of the Master Phone Numbers table to manage your Oracle Voicemail & Fax system. Generally, when you are configuring the Voicemail & Fax Application to work with the PBX, you will use the Phone Numbers table on the PBX-Application Cluster administration page. When you are adding a new site, you will generally use the Phone Numbers table on the Create Group or Site page.
Note:
The Master Phone Numbers table does not appear in Enterprise Manager. Only the two views of this table appear in the PBX-Application Cluster administration page and the Groups and Sites page.The Phone Numbers table contains entries for all phone numbers owned by the PBX and the site associated with these phone numbers. There are no default settings for this table. Therefore, you must configure the Phone Numbers table for each PBX.
The Phone Numbers table is a view of the Master Phone Numbers table which includes phone number entries for all PBXes in the Oracle Voicemail & Fax system. When the Voicemail & Fax Application tries to identify the site associated with a phone number, it searches the Master Phone Numbers table for a pattern in the International Phone Number Pattern field that matches the phone number.
Valid characters include digits; two types of wildcards, question marks (?) and asterisks (*); and hyphens (-). A question mark indicates a single digit and can be used anywhere in the phone number. An asterisk indicates zero or more digits and can only be used at the end of the phone number. Hyphens are used to prefix a phone number pattern to differentiate multiple PBXes connecting to the same server using a VoIP gateway.
Since the table includes phone number patterns for all the PBXes, the patterns must be unique. If a phone number matches more than one pattern, the resulting behavior will be unreliable. For example, if two PBXes own phone numbers that begin with 1650, you would have to specify a unique pattern for each PBX-Application Cluster. For example, one PBX might have the phone numbers matching the pattern 1650506????, and another might have phone number matching the pattern 1650632????. Specifying the pattern 1650??????? for both PBXes would result in unreliable behavior.
Figure 3-4 is an example of Phone Numbers table entries for a boarded deployment with one PBX and one site. There are three phone number patterns that describe all the phone numbers belonging to the Redwood Shores PBX. All phone numbers for this site belong to the area code 650 and begin with a 506, 607, or 633 prefix. In a boarded deployment, there are separate PBXes for each physical site, and you would set up similar entries for each PBX in your Oracle Voicemail & Fax deployment.
Oracle Voicemail & Fax uses phone numbers in international format for all of its transactions, for example, 16505071234. Different PBXes handle phone numbers using different formats, for example, a PBX may use five-digit extensions such as 71234. As phone numbers are handed off between Oracle Voicemail & Fax and the PBX, the phone numbers must get translated into a format that each can understand. There are several parameters that describe the rules used in this translation. Each parameter handles a different situation in which phone numbers are being handed off between the PBX and Oracle Voicemail & Fax:
Telephone Number Translation Rules which defines the rules for translating PBX phone numbers into international format
Internal Dialing Rules which define the rules for converting Oracle Voicemail & Fax phone numbers into PBX phone numbers for phone numbers belonging to the PBX
External Dialing Rules which define the rules for converting Oracle Voicemail & Fax phone numbers into PBX phone numbers for phone numbers that do not belong to the PBX.
MWI Dialing Rules which define the rules for converting Oracle Voicemail & Fax phone numbers into phone numbers that the PBX uses to turn the message waiting indicator on or off
When a call is made, the PBX passes the phone number of the caller and the called party to the application. Different PBX systems convert phone numbers into different formats and not necessarily into the international format that is required by the Voicemail & Fax application. For example, some PBXes convert United States phone numbers to a 10-digit number (three-digit area code plus seven-digit phone number) that is not in international format. If the PBX does not pass the phone number to the application in international format, you must specify how to convert the PBX phone number into a valid account number.
The Telephone Number Translation Rules are rules for converting PBX phone numbers into valid Oracle Voicemail & Fax account numbers. These rules are specific to each PBX. You need to determine in what format your PBX transmits phone numbers, and then you need to specify as many rules as required to correctly convert the phone numbers that belong to this PBX.
A rule is constructed for a phone number pattern. Valid characters include digits; two types of wildcards, question marks (?) and asterisks (*); and hyphens (-). A question mark indicates a single digit and can be used anywhere in the phone number. An asterisk indicates zero or more digits and can only be used at the end of the phone number. Hyphens are used to prefix a phone number pattern to differentiate multiple PBXes connecting to the same server using VoIP.
When the PBX passes a phone number to the Voicemail & Fax Application, the application checks to see which pattern it matches. The application removes the number of characters specified in Number of Characters to Remove from the beginning of the phone number and appends any characters specified in Characters to Prepend to the beginning of the string.
When you install Oracle Voicemail & Fax, a default rule is created. Number of Characters to Remove is 0 and no characters are prepended. Therefore, by default, the PBX passes the unmodified phone number to the Voicemail & Fax Application.
Figure 3-5 is an example of telephone number translation rules for a boarded PBX. There are three phone number patterns that belong to this PBX: 1650506????, 1650607????, and 1650633????, and a rule must be created for each pattern. In this example, the PBX transmits five-digit extensions to the Voicemail & Fax Application. Therefore 1650506???? phone numbers are transmitted by the PBX in a 6???? phone number pattern. To convert a 6???? extension to a phone number in international format, no digits are removed and 165050 is appended to the beginning of the number. This is the first rule in Figure 3-5. The second and third rules cover the 1650607???? and 1650633???? phone numbers. These are the minimum rules you need for this PBX.
Optionally, you can create a rule that covers U.S. phone numbers that do not belong to this PBX with the pattern consisting of ten asterisks. These numbers are prefaced with a 1. Some of these numbers may be recognized by the application.
The DEFAULT rule covers any other phone numbers that are transmitted by the PBX. These phone numbers are passed, with no changes, to the Voicemail & Fax Application.
Internal Dialing Rules and External Dialing Rules are used to specify the rules to convert phone numbers into a form that the PBX can dial. Internal Dialing Rules are used to dial numbers that belong to this PBX, and External Dialing Rules are used to dial all other numbers.
Two examples of when these dialing rules are used are:
An unauthenticated user presses the option (usually 0) to reach the attendant.
A caller dials an auto attendant implemented using the Oracle Voicemail & Fax Interactive Voice Response feature. The caller selects a user from the user directory, and his or her call is transferred to this user's extension.
A rule is constructed for a phone number pattern. The phone number pattern must be in international format. Valid characters include digits; two types of wildcards, question marks (?) and asterisks (*); and hyphens (-). A question mark indicates a single digit and can be used anywhere in the phone number. An asterisk indicates zero or more digits and can only be used at the end of the phone number. Hyphens are used to prefix a phone number pattern to differentiate multiple PBXes connecting to the same server using a VoIP gateway.
When the PBX passes a phone number to the application, the application first checks to see if the phone number is handled by the current PBX. If it is, the internal dialing rules table is used. Otherwise, the external dialing rules table is used. It checks the rules and finds the pattern that matches the phone number. It removes the number of characters specified in Number of Characters to Remove from the beginning of the phone number and appends any characters specified in Characters to Prepend to the beginning of the string.
When you install Oracle Voicemail & Fax, a default internal rule and a default external rule, called DEFAULT, are created. Both defaults are identical. A phone number is passed to the PBX, without making any changes to the phone number. This default rule is defined with Number of Characters to Remove as 0 and no digits being prepended—that is, the Characters to Prepend cell is empty.
When creating internal dialing rules, you want to create rules that will cover all phone numbers owned by this PBX.
Figure 3-6 is an example of an internal dialing rule for a boarded PBX that uses five-digit extensions. To convert the international phone number into a five-digit extension, the first six digits are removed, and no digits are prepended. For example, if the phone number is 1 650 506 1234, removing the first six digits (165050) results in the five-digit extension 61234.
Figure 3-7 shows examples of three external dialing rules for a boarded PBX. The first pattern, 1650???????, would be used for local phone numbers. The second pattern consisting of a 1, followed by ten asterisks would be used for any other U.S. phone number. The DEFAULT rule would cover phone numbers outside of the U.S.
The following illustrates how the external rules are applied to three phone numbers:
1 650 123 4567 – This phone number matches the first pattern, 1650???????. The first four digits, 1650, are removed and 9 is appended to the beginning of the number. The result is 91234567.
1 212 123 4567 – This phone number matches the second pattern, 1??????????. No digits are removed and a 9 is appended to the beginning of the number. The result is 912121234567.
91 11 1234567 – This phone number does not match either of the two patterns and, therefore, the default rule is used. No digits are removed, and the digits 9011 are appended to the beginning resulting in 901191111234567.
If a phone number matches more than one pattern, the application uses the pattern that is more specific. For example, the phone number 1 650 123 4567 matches the 1650??????? and the 1?????????? patterns in Figure 3-7. The application uses the more specific pattern, that is, the pattern where the asterisks begin farther to the right. In this example, 1650??????? is the more specific pattern and its rule is applied to the phone number.
The Message Waiting Indicator (MWI) service tells the PBX that the MWI on the phone set for an account number needs to be turned on or off. The account number that is passed to the MWI service is the phone number in international format. This number must be converted to a phone number that the PBX can use. The conversion is done using the MWI Dialing Rules. Although many PBXes use the same phone number formats for MWI that they use for dialing internal numbers, this is not true for some PBXes. In order to support all possible formats for MWI phone numbers, this table is used to specify the MWI rules.
A rule is constructed for a phone number pattern. The phone number pattern must be in international format. Valid characters include digits; two types of wildcards, question marks (?) and asterisks (*); and hyphens (-). A question mark indicates a single digit and can be used anywhere in the phone number. An asterisk indicates zero or more digits and can only be used at the end of the phone number. Hyphens are used to prefix a phone number pattern to differentiate multiple PBXes connecting to the same server using a VoIP gateway.
When the phone number is passed to the Voicemail & Fax Application, the application checks to see which pattern it matches. It removes the number of characters specified in Number of Characters to Remove from the beginning of the phone number and appends any characters specified in Characters to Prepend to the beginning of the string.
When you install Oracle Voicemail & Fax, a default rule is created. Number of Characters to Remove is 0 and no characters are prepended. That is, by default, the phone number is passed to the PBX in international phone number format.
The Voicemail & Fax Application phone numbers are in international format. In this example, the PBX requires the phone number to be a five-digit extension. For example, the phone number, 16505067777, would need to be converted to the five-digit extension 67777. Six digits are removed from the international phone number and no digits are appended. Only one rule is required and, therefore, this is the DEFAULT rule as shown in Figure 3-8.
The Interactive Voice Response (IVR) table specifies the phone numbers for which calls are diverted to an IVR deployment and the name of the IVR deployment. There are no defaults for this table. You must specify all phone numbers on this PBX that are diverted to an IVR deployment.
Table 3-2 is an example of the IVR table:
Table 3-2 Example of Interactive Voice Response Table
| International Phone Number Pattern | IVR Deployment Name |
|---|---|
|
15108437000 |
LanguageChoiceAutoAttendant |
|
|
EnglishAutoAttendant |
|
|
FrenchAutoAttendant |
|
14155067000 |
LanguageChoiceAutoAttendant |
When a call is made to the phone number specified in the International Phone Number column, the call is diverted to the IVR deployment specified in the IVR Deployment Name column.
If an IVR deployment, for example, LanguageChoiceAutoAttendant, sends calls to other IVRs, these secondary IVRs must also be specified in the table. An example is an IVR that gives callers the option to hear the prompts in different languages. For example, LanguageChoiceAutoAttendant prompts users: "Press 1 to continue in English. Press 2 to continue in French." The secondary IVRs, in English and French, must also be included in the table. In this example, the secondary IVRs are EnglishAutoAttendant and FrenchAutoAttendant. The International Phone Number column for the secondary IVRs is left blank.
If more than one phone number uses the same deployment, each phone number is listed in the table with the deployment specified. In Table 3-2, both 15108437000 and 14155067000 are diverted to LanguageChoiceAutoAttendant. However, the secondary deployments EnglishAutoAttendant and FrenchAutoAttendant are listed once.
If the IVR is not specified in this table, calls to the phone number are directed to the recording application. Therefore, if LanguageChoiceAutoAttendant is not specified, phone calls to 15108437000 would be sent to the voicemail mailbox for 15108437000.
Valid characters for phone numbers include digits; two types of wildcards, question marks (?) and asterisks (*); and hyphens (-). A question mark indicates a single digit and can be used anywhere in the phone number. An asterisk indicates zero or more digits and can only be used at the end of the phone number. Hyphens are used to prefix a phone number pattern to differentiate multiple PBXes connecting to the same server using a VoIP gateway.
You can configure the default values of parameters for all Voicemail & Fax Applications using Enterprise Manager Grid Control. These settings can be overridden at the application level. See "Configuring the Voicemail & Fax Application" for more information on setting the application-level parameters.
To configure the global process settings:
Navigate to the administration page of the Voicemail & Fax group.
Click the Go to Task link for the Configure Global Process Settings task.
Edit the parameters and click OK.
A confirmation page appears asking you to confirm that you want to apply these changes.
You may choose to immediately reload the Voicemail & Fax Applications that are children of this Voicemail & Fax group with the new settings by selecting Apply and Reload All Children. If you do not select Apply and Reload All Children, then the Voicemail & Fax Applications are reloaded the next time each application is set to automatically reload itself.
Click OK.
See Also:
Appendix B, "Process Parameters" for more information on each of the parameters and how to set them.You configure the Voicemail & Fax Application using Enterprise Manager Grid Control. The settings are found on the administration page for the particular application. By default, the settings are inherited from global process settings for the Voicemail & Fax group.
Note:
See Appendix B, "Process Parameters" for information on each of the parameters.To configure the Voicemail & Fax Application parameters:
Navigate to the administration page for the Voicemail & Fax Application.
Edit the parameters and click Apply.
A confirmation page appears asking you to confirm that you want to apply the changes.
You may choose to immediately apply the settings to the Voicemail & Fax Application by selecting Apply and Reload All Children. If you do not select Apply and Reload All Children, then the new settings do not take effect until the next time the services are automatically reloaded. You can also force a reload by going to the home page for the service and clicking Reload.
Clicking Revert changes the settings back to the most recently saved settings. Clicking Refresh loads the most recent values for these parameters from the Oracle Internet Directory. Refreshing the values can be useful if multiple administrators are simultaneously editing the parameters.
The Voicemail & Fax services are configured on the administration page of each service. By default, the services inherit their values from the Voicemail & Fax Application to which they belong. The Inherit icon indicates that the value is inherited and the Override icon indicates that the value has been set at the local level.
Note:
See Appendix B, "Process Parameters" for information on each of the parameters.To configure the service parameters:
Navigate to the administration page for the service.
Edit the parameters and click Apply.
A confirmation page appears asking you to confirm that you want to apply the changes.
You may choose to immediately apply the settings to the service by selecting Apply and Reload All Children. If you do not select Apply and Reload All Children, then the service is reloaded the next time it is set to automatically reload itself.
Clicking Revert changes the settings back to the most recently saved settings. Clicking Refresh loads the most recent values for these parameters from the Oracle Internet Directory. Refreshing the values can be useful if multiple administrators are simultaneously editing the parameters.
