The last 2 companies that I have worked for have had the technology referred
to generally as "unified messaging." There are several players in the field,
but I am most familiar with Avaya's product as it interfaces with Microsoft
Exchange and the Octel voice messaging servers. I guess I've worked with
this technology for 5 years now.

I'm inserting a brief product description below directly from Avaya's
website:
"Unified Messenger® for Microsoft Exchange
Working with Microsoft® Exchange, Avaya's Unified Messenger extends your
messaging investment enterprise-wide and enables you to use a single
interface to check all your voice mail, e-mail and fax messages. By using
any touch-tone phone or personal multimedia computer, you can retrieve and
read messages as well as reply, send, forward and store them too, regardless
of the media in which they were created. The results for your organization
are streamlined communications, increased productivity and improved
workflow. System administrators can manage the messaging system more easily
and cost effectively, too, with single-point administration for the entire
system."

Besides email and voice messaging, a user (if this feature is activated) can
also receive faxes directly to their PC as opposed to a fax machine or
central fax distribution. In my case right now, I technically have 2 lines -
one for voice and one for faxes. Faxes arrive in TIF format directly to my
email box. Voice mail also comes to the PC and I can listen to it through my
PC's speakers. I can also access via traditional land line over my phone.
Accessing my mailbox through the phone will also tell me if I have received
new email and I can have those read to me by the system.

So now that you are totally impressed by all this combination of technology,
it gets even better - all your tape or disk backups will also backup voice
mail and faxes. If it is in your mailbox it is on any backup. Writing your
email policy just got more complex. Searches for litigation become
multi-dimensional. It is critical that your organization tracks who is
assigned to what lines and when. Careful tracking of user ids and email
addresses and what server those ids/addresses have been assigned to is also
critical. Believe me, if you ever have to restore for any reason whatsoever,
this information is necessary.

I usually do not write posts this long, but thought since I have the
background why not. I would not be afraid of this technology. I would use it
as an opportunity to work with my technical operations staff and learn. The
goal should be to build a policy that can be actually be implemented (how
many of us have an email policy that states email is to saved off the
Exchange servers and then we have no other place to save our messages??).

Rock on!
Sharon Burnett
Sunny Seattle WA

List archives at http://lists.ufl.edu/archives/recmgmt-l.html
Contact [log in to unmask] for assistance