Create a UM Auto Attendant

Article
07/29/2013

Applies to: Exchange Server 2010 SP3, Exchange Server 2010 SP2

After you create a Unified Messaging (UM) auto attendant, incoming calls to an external telephone number that a human operator would ordinarily answer are answered by the auto attendant. Unlike for other Unified Messaging objects, such as UM dial plans and UM IP gateways, you aren't required to create UM auto attendants. However, auto attendants help internal and external callers locate users or departments that exist in an organization and transfer calls to them.

Looking for other management tasks related to UM auto attendants? Check out Managing UM Auto Attendants.

Prerequisites

A UM dial plan has been created. For detailed steps, see Create a UM Dial Plan.

What Do You Want to Do?

Use the EMC to create a UM auto attendant
Use the Shell to create a UM auto attendant

Use the EMC to create a UM auto attendant

You need to be assigned permissions before you can perform this procedure. To see what permissions you need, see the "UM auto attendants" entry in the Unified Messaging Permissions topic.

In the console tree, navigate to Organization Configuration > Unified Messaging.
In the work pane, click the UM Auto Attendants tab.
In the action pane, click New UM Auto Attendant.
In the New UM Auto Attendant wizard, complete the following fields:
- Name Use this text box to create the display name for the UM auto attendant. A UM auto attendant name is required and must be unique. However, it's used only for display purposes in the EMC and the Shell.
  If you have to change the display name of the auto attendant after it's created, you must first delete the existing UM auto attendant and then create another auto attendant that has the appropriate name. If your organization uses multiple UM auto attendants, we recommend that you use meaningful names for your UM auto attendants. The maximum length of a UM auto attendant name is 64 characters, and it can include spaces.
  Although you can include spaces in the name of a new UM auto attendant, the name cannot include spaces if you integrate Unified Messaging with Office Communications Server 2007 R2 or Microsoft Lync Server. Therefore, if you created an auto attendant that has spaces in the display name, and if you are integrating with Office Communications Server 2007 R2 or Microsoft Lync Server, you must first delete that auto attendant and then create another by using a display name that does not include spaces.
- Select associated dial plan Click Browse to select the UM dial plan to associate with this UM auto attendant. Selecting and associating a UM dial plan with the auto attendant is required. A UM auto attendant can be associated with only one UM dial plan.
- Pilot identifier list Use this field to enter the extension numbers or pilot numbers that callers will use to reach the auto attendant. Type an extension number or pilot identifier in the box, and then click Add to add the number to the list. The number of digits in the extension number or pilot identifier that you provide doesn't have to match the number of digits for an extension number configured on the associated UM dial plan. This is because direct calls are allowed to UM auto attendants.
  The number of extension numbers or pilot identifiers entered is unlimited. However, you may create the new auto attendant without an extension number listed. An extension number or pilot identifier isn't required.
  You can edit or remove an existing extension number or pilot identifier. To edit an existing extension number or pilot identifier, click Edit. To remove an existing extension number or pilot identifier from the list, click Remove.
- Create auto attendant as enabled Select this option to enable the auto attendant to answer incoming calls when you complete the New UM Auto Attendant wizard. By default, a new auto attendant is created as disabled.
  If you decide to create the UM auto attendant as disabled, you can use the EMC action pane or the Shell to enable the auto attendant after you finish the wizard.
- Create auto attendant as speech-enabled Select this check box to speech-enable the UM auto attendant. By speech-enabling the auto attendant, callers can respond to the system or custom prompts used by the UM auto attendant using touchtone or voice inputs. By default, the auto attendant won't be speech-enabled when it's created.
  For callers to use a speech-enabled auto attendant, you must install the appropriate Unified Messaging language pack that contains Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR) support and configure the properties of the auto attendant to use this language.
On the Completion page, confirm whether the UM auto attendant was successfully created:
- A status of Completed indicates that the wizard completed the task successfully.
- A status of Failed indicates that the task wasn't completed. If the task fails, review the summary for an explanation, and then click Back to make any configuration changes.
Click Finish to complete the New UM Auto Attendant wizard.

Use the Shell to create a UM auto attendant

You need to be assigned permissions before you can perform this procedure. To see what permissions you need, see the "UM auto attendants" entry in the Unified Messaging Permissions topic.

This example creates a UM auto attendant named MyUMAutoAttendant that can accept incoming calls but isn't speech-enabled.

New-UMAutoAttendant -Name MyUMAutoAttendant -UMDialPlan MyUMDialPlan -PilotIdentifierList 55000 -Enabled $true

This example creates a speech-enabled UM auto attendant named MyUMAutoAttendant.

New-UMAutoAttendant -Name MyUMAutoAttendant -UMDialPlan MyUMDialPlan -PilotIdentifierList 56000,56100 -SpeechEnabled $true

For more information about syntax and parameters, see New-UMAutoAttendant.

Other Tasks

After you create an auto attendant, you may also want to:

For More Information

Understanding Unified Messaging Auto Attendants

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