Unified Messaging Key Terms

UM Dial Plans: A UM Dial Plan reperesents a group of PBX's or IP PBX's that share a common set of user extension numbers. In a UM Dial Plan all users numbers are of the same legnth and do not need any special prefixes, areas codes etc. For example:

John = 100
Peter = 101
James = 102

John can ring James directly on 102, in the same way James can ring John on 100.

There are a number of different types of dial plans - they are dependent on what your current IP PBX or VoIP gateway supports:

- Telephone Extension (TeleExn): Supported by the majority of PBX's and IP PBX's (and also VoIP gateways.) The TeleExn URI can be formatted as "Tel:123456" or "[email protected]"

- SIP URI: Commonly used with VoIP gateways SIP provides a way of communicating via voice, video, chat and more. A SIP URI is formatted as follows: sip:[email protected]:5060

- E.164 URI: Used for PSTN (i.e. for global use) - formatted as follows: Tel:+441644858696

UM IP Gateway: A Unified Messaging (UM) IP gateway represents a physical Voice over IP (VoIP) gateway, IP Private Branch eXchange (PBX), or session border controller (SBC) hardware device.

UM Hunt Group:  Hunt group is a term used to describe a group of Private Branch eXchange (PBX) or IP PBX extension numbers that are shared by users. Hunt groups are used to efficiently distribute calls into or out of a specific business unit. Creating and defining a hunt group minimizes the chance that a caller who places an incoming call will receive a busy signal when the call is received.

Hunt groups are used to locate an open line, extension, or channel when an incoming call is received. Calls are "rolled over" to the next available line when a primary phone line is busy or isn’t answered. The calling party gets a busy signal or is sent to voice mail only if no extensions in the group are open. For example, a PBX or IP PBX might be configured to have 10 extension numbers for the sales department. The 10 sales extension numbers would be configured as one hunt group.

UM Mailbox Policies: Unified Messaging (UM) mailbox policies are required when you enable users for Unified Messaging. You create UM mailbox policies to apply a common set of policies or security settings to a collection of voice mail users’ mailboxes. UM mailbox policies are used to specify UM settings like the following: