Cisco Unity System Administration Guide (With IBM Lotus Domino), Release 4.0(3)
Subscriber, Operator, and Support Desk Orientation

Table Of Contents

Subscriber, Operator, and Support Desk Orientation

Overview: Subscriber, Operator, and Support Desk Orientation

Subscriber Orientation

Operator Orientation

Support Desk Orientation


Subscriber, Operator, and Support Desk Orientation


Overview: Subscriber, Operator, and Support Desk Orientation

Subscribers and operators in your organization need information about Cisco Unity that is specific to your installation. In addition, if your organization has a support desk, the staff will need to be prepared to answer the questions that subscribers may ask, and need to be aware of the resources that are available to assist them in answering subscriber questions. This chapter reviews the preparations for orienting subscribers, operators, and support desk employees to Cisco Unity.

See the following sections:

Subscriber Orientation

Operator Orientation

Support Desk Orientation

Subscriber Orientation

After you create subscriber accounts and set up the client applications that subscribers will use to access Cisco Unity from their computers, complete the tasks in this section to acquaint subscribers with Cisco Unity.

Give each subscriber a Cisco Unity User Guide, a Cisco Unity at a Glance card, a Cisco Unity Phone Menus and Shortcuts card, and/or the URLs to the document(s).

Subscriber documentation is available at http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/sw/voicesw/ps2237/products_user_guide_list.html.

Give subscribers the phone numbers that they dial from inside and from outside the organization to access Cisco Unity. Also give them the name and extension of the Cisco Unity system administrator. There are spaces to record this information in the Cisco Unity User Guide, the Cisco Unity at a Glance card, and the Cisco Unity Phone Menus and Shortcuts card.

If you enable easy message access on subscriber phones, show them which button or key to use to access Cisco Unity.

Provide each subscriber with a phone password. Subscriber template settings include a default phone password for subscribers, which is 12345. To protect Cisco Unity from unauthorized access, the default phone password should be changed. See the "Subscriber Template Passwords Settings" section on page 13-4 for more information.

Give subscribers the URL to the Cisco Personal Communications Assistant (PCA) website: http://<Cisco Unity server name>/ciscopca. Subscribers can use the Cisco PCA website to access the Cisco Unity Assistant. There are spaces to record the URL in the Cisco Unity User Guide, the Cisco Unity at a Glance card, and the Cisco Unity Phone Menus and Shortcuts card.

Note that in version 3.1 and earlier, the Cisco Unity Assistant was known as the ActiveAssistant, or AA. Subscribers who use a bookmarked ActiveAssistant URL will be redirected automatically to the Cisco PCA website.

If you have Internet subscribers in your organization, review the Networking in Cisco Unity Guide for information on how Cisco Unity behaves differently for these subscribers, and acquaint them with Cisco Unity accordingly. In particular, explain to subscribers the methods for addressing voice messages to other locations: over the phone, and in IBM Lotus Domino Unified Communications Services (DUCS) for Cisco Unity. For detailed information, refer to the Networking in Cisco Unity Guide, which is available at http://www.cisco.com/univercd/cc/td/doc/product/voice/c_unity/unity40/net/net403/dom/index.htm.

If your organization has subscribers who will use TTY and the TTY prompt set, provide training on using TTY with Cisco Unity. For more information on TTY, see the "TTY Overview" section.

Make sure that subscribers who own call handlers or public distribution lists understand their responsibilities (if applicable). See the "How Cisco Unity Handles Messages Without a Specific Recipient" section.

Tell subscribers how to use the Cisco Unity Greetings Administrator, as applicable. See the "Using the Cisco Unity Greetings Administrator to Change Call Handler Greetings" section on page 21-5.

Provide training on using the phone or the Cisco Unity Assistant to personalize subscriber settings in Cisco Unity, as summarized in Table 9-1. Subscribers can refer to the Cisco Unity User Guide or the online Help available in the Cisco Unity Assistant for further guidance after orientation.

Table 9-1 Settings That Subscribers Can Change 1

Settings That Can Be Changed By Using the Cisco Unity Assistant
Settings That Can Be Changed By Using the Phone Menus

Greetings:

Record a personal greeting

Enable or disable greeting

Switch between system prompt and personal greeting

Greetings:

Record a personal greeting

Enable or disable greeting

Call Transfers:

Transfer calls to an extension or send to the greeting

Change extension

Call Transfers:

Transfer calls to an extension or send to the greeting

Change extension

Call Holding and Screening:

Select the action that Cisco Unity performs for unidentified callers when the subscriber phone is busy, including placing the caller on hold, prompting the caller to hold or leave a message, and sending the caller directly to the greeting

Select the action that Cisco Unity performs when the subscriber answers calls from unidentified callers, including telling the subscriber who the call is for, announcing that Cisco Unity is transferring the call, prompting the subscriber to accept or refuse a call, and prompting callers to say their names

Call Holding and Screening:

None

Message Notification:

Enable or disable a notification device, and change its number

Specify dialing options

Select the types of messages and message urgency for which Cisco Unity will call a device

Set up a notification schedule, and specify what happens when a device does not answer, is busy, or fails

Message Notification:

Enable or disable a notification device, and change its number

Message Playback:

Select full or brief Cisco Unity conversation menus

Select the action that Cisco Unity performs when the subscriber calls Cisco Unity, including greeting the subscriber by name and announcing the number of new messages by type

Select the action that Cisco Unity performs when messages are played, including announcing the name and number of the sender who left a message, whether the timestamp is played before or after the message, and the volume level at which messages are played

Message Playback:

Select full or brief Cisco Unity conversation menus

Message Addressing:

Switch between addressing messages to other subscribers by name, or by extension

Specify order for addressing messages by name (last name followed by first name, or vice versa)

Message Addressing:

Switch between addressing to other subscribers by name or by extension (by pressing ##)2

Caller Options:

Allow callers to edit messages

Allow callers to mark messages urgent

Caller Options:

None

Personal Settings:

Record a name

Specify a fax delivery number

Change directory listing status

Change password

Select the language used for the subscriber phone conversation

Personal Settings:

Record a name

Specify fax delivery number

Change directory listing status

Change password

Private Lists:

Enter a display name

Record a name

Add and delete members

Private Lists:

Add and delete members

1 The Conversation settings that subscribers can change are detailed in the "How Subscribers Can Customize the Cisco Unity Conversation" section on page 7-9.

2 Note that this depends on whether you have enabled spelled name addressing. See the "Configuration Settings" section on page 28-2 for details.


Operator Orientation

Operator orientation should address the same points as subscriber orientation, but in greater detail. Operators must be familiar with how subscribers use Cisco Unity. Depending on the size of your organization, when subscribers have questions about Cisco Unity, the operator may be the person they are likely to ask.

In addition to the items discussed in the "Subscriber Orientation" section and the "Support Desk Orientation" section (as applicable), operators also need to understand the following concepts and tasks:

Roles of the Operator and the Automated Attendant

The way your organization uses the automated attendant determines what the operator responsibilities are. The automated attendant is a call handler that is used in place of a human operator to answer and direct calls by playing greetings and responding to touchtones. The automated attendant can provide a menu of options (for example, "For Sales, press 1; for Service, press 2."), and it can also provide information (for example, "Our normal business hours are Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.").

Directing Calls

Regardless of how your organization uses the automated attendant, many calls will go to the operator. The operator must know how to direct calls to voice mail and to subscriber phones. To direct calls to voice mail, the operator can dial Cisco Unity and at the Opening Greeting, dial the subscriber extension and then press #2. The subscriber phone does not ring, and the transferred caller hears the subscriber greeting.

You can also create a call handler for each subscriber to send calls directly to their greetings. For details on setting this up, refer to the techtip, "How to Transfer a Caller Directly into a Mailbox," available at http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/sw/voicesw/ps2237/prod_tech_notes_list.html.

Forwarding Unaddressed Messages to Intended Recipients

If an operator also owns a call handler or public distribution list, make sure that the operator knows to review unaddressed messages frequently, and to forward them to the intended recipient(s). See the "How Cisco Unity Handles Messages Without a Specific Recipient" section.

Using the Cisco Unity Greetings Administrator

An operator who is responsible for changing call handler greetings for the organization can use the Cisco Unity Greetings Administrator when changing a greeting in the Cisco Unity Administrator is not practical. For example, if the office is unexpectedly closed because of bad weather, the operator can call from home to use the Cisco Unity Greetings Administrator to enable the alternate Opening Greeting, or to rerecord a call handler greeting stating that the office is closed. For more information, see the "Using the Cisco Unity Greetings Administrator to Change Call Handler Greetings" section on page 21-5.

Support Desk Orientation

Support desk orientation should address the same points as subscriber and operator orientation, but in greater detail. Support desk staff must be familiar with how subscribers and operators use Cisco Unity.

To prepare for possible calls to the support desk at your organization, familiarize the support desk staff with the following resources and potential subscriber concerns.

Support Desk Resources

Subscriber documentation is available at http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/sw/voicesw/ps2237/products_user_guide_list.html. In particular, support desk staff may find the Cisco Unity at a Glance cards helpful in gaining a high-level visual understanding of the flow of Cisco Unity conversation.

The Compatibility Matrix: Cisco Unity and the Software on Subscriber Workstations is available at http://www.cisco.com/univercd/cc/td/doc/product/voice/c_unity/cmptblty/clientmx.htm.

The "Setting Up Client Applications" chapter offers information on how subscriber workstations should be set up, and describes how subscribers utilize Cisco Unity tools.

The "Cisco Unity Conversation" chapter summarizes the ways in which Cisco Unity administrators and subscribers can customize the conversation.

The Cisco Unity Troubleshooting Guide is available at http://www.cisco.com/univercd/cc/td/doc/product/voice/c_unity/tsg/tsg403/dom/index.htm.

For descriptions and the URLs of all Cisco Unity documentation on Cisco.com, refer to About Cisco Unity Documentation. The document is shipped with Cisco Unity and is available at http://www.cisco.com/univercd/cc/td/doc/product/voice/c_unity/about/aboutdoc.htm.

Potential Subscriber Concerns

If your organization set up Cisco Unity to use SSL, but did not add it to the Group Policy in order to distribute the certificate to the trusted root store for all users in the domain (or did not tell subscribers how to add the certificate to the trusted root store on their own computers), subscribers may be concerned about the security alert that will be displayed each time that they access the Cisco PCA. Tell them that they can ignore the warning and proceed to use the Cisco PCA without doing any harm to their computers or the network.

(To prevent the browser from displaying the security alert, see the "Configuring Subscriber Browsers to Use the Cisco PCA" section.)

Subscribers may not understand that Cisco Unity and IBM Lotus Notes both handle deleted messages in the same way; thus, when subscribers delete messages over the phone, they cannot use Cisco Unity to retrieve them.

Subscribers who work with Lotus Notes offline may not know that Cisco Unity relies on the Domino server to determine whether the subscriber has listened to new messages. Therefore, when a subscriber listens to new messages by using Lotus Notes with IBM Lotus Domino Unified Communications Services (DUCS) for Cisco Unity, MWIs on subscriber phones are not turned off until the Lotus Notes client replicates with the Domino server.

Depending on how Cisco Unity is set up at your organization, subscribers may be surprised at how Cisco Unity handles messages when calls are intentionally or unintentionally disconnected (for example, when a subscriber hangs up or when a cell phone loses its charge or signal) while subscribers are in the process of sending, replying to, or forwarding a message. See the "How Cisco Unity Handles Messages That Are Interrupted by Disconnected Calls" section in the "Default Accounts and Message Handling" chapter for details.

If your organization has enabled the warning tone for the maximum allowable recording length, explain to subscribers that as they record messages, subscribers may wonder about the warning tone that sounds before they reach the maximum recording length. When they hear the warning tone, they must conclude the message. For more information on the warning tone, see the "Setting a Warning Tone for End of Recording" section on page 28-19.