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CHAPTER
9-1
Design Guide for Cisco Unity Release 5.x
OL-14619-01
9
Migrating to Cisco Unity from Another
Voice-Messaging System
When the customer is replacing another voice messaging system with Cisco Unity, consider the
following:
• How do users interact with each system? For example, the options offered by the Cisco Unity
standard conversation (the telephone user interface, or TUI), and the key presses used to accomplish
tasks, may be different from what users are accustomed to using. As an alternative to the Cisco
Unity
standard conversation, some customers may want to activate Optional Conversation
1 (the
ARIA-like conversation available in Cisco
Unity) so that Cisco Unity subscribers hear
message-retrieval menus that more closely resemble the choices they are familiar with. However,
other menus—those that outside callers and Cisco
Unity subscribers use to send and manage
messages, as well as the menus that subscribers use to change their Cisco
Unity settings—are the
same as those in the Cisco
Unity standard conversation.
• Ensure that the customer understands Cisco Unity behaviors that are different from those of the
voice messaging system it is replacing. For example, if the customer does not currently use an
automated attendant feature and wants Cisco
Unity to be configured the same way, this should be
noted so that the installer configures Cisco
Unity correctly. If it is necessary to change any
Cisco
Unity behavior, such as the opening greeting, or zeroing out to an operator option during a
personal greeting, these changes should be made and tested prior to the day of the cutover.
• Plan a method for creating Cisco Unity subscribers. Will they be imported from the message store
(Domino or Exchange), imported from a text file (Exchange only), or added by using the
Cisco
Unity Administrator (Exchange only)? If they will be imported from a text file or added by
using the Cisco
Unity Administrator, where will the information come from? Creating subscriber
accounts requires planning and testing prior to the cutover.
• The larger the installation or number of servers, the greater the need to perform subscriber
enrollment tasks prior to the day of the cutover. If too many subscribers try to enroll simultaneously,
some subscribers (up to the number of voice ports available) will succeed in accessing the
Cisco
Unity server and enrolling, but the rest will get a busy signal.
To prevent this negative user experience, smaller groups of subscribers should be told, perhaps a few
days in advance, how to call the pilot number and enroll in Cisco
Unity before the system goes live.
• If the customer has special audio-text applications set up in the existing voice messaging system,
Cisco
Unity equivalents should be planned and set up before cutover. Cisco Unity supports
audio-text applications and provides tools for designing and configuring them.
• Cisco Unity does not support group mailboxes, but the same functionality can be made available by
setting up a call handler whose greeting prompts the caller to “press
1 for Pat, press 2 for Chris,”
and so on.