Feroze Daud's WebLog : Exchange/UnifiedMessaging

Test-UMConnectivity Primer

Feroze Daud — Sun, 21 Dec 2008 00:41:09 GMT

Exchange 2007 Ships with a tool called test-umconnectivity that can be used to verify the health of your Exchange Unified Messaging installation.

It has a couple of modes of operation:

Local Voice

In this mode, the task will run on a machine that has the Exchange Unified Messaging role installed. It will run diagnostics against the local UM server.

The way to run this, is to invoke test-umconnectivity without any parameters.

In this mode, the task verifies that the UMService is listening and responding to incoming INVITES.

[PS] D:\users\Administrator>test-umconnectivity

UmserverAcceptingCallAnsweringMessages : True
CallAnswerQueuedMessages               : 0
CurrCalls                              : 0
UmIPAddress                            : 10.197.228.62
Latency                                : 2121
OutBoundSIPCallSuccess                 : True
EntireOperationSuccess                 : True
ReasonForFailure                       :
Identity                               : 62caff65-7a68-46ab-b2a3-ef52a31e431e
IsValid                                : True

Remote Voice

This is an end-to-end test. It verifies that the connectivity from UMServer to Gateway to PSTN is working fine. In this mode, the task does the following:

1) Makes an outbound call to a given phone number using a gateway.

2) The gateway will then send the call to the PBX.

3) The call will then come back to the gateway from the PBX.

4) The Gateway sends the call to a UM server that is linked to the gateway.

5) UM server will respond to the incoming INVITE with some DTMF tones, that are then verified by the task.

This test can be run from any machine that has the Exchange 2007 admin tools installed. It can also be run from any machine that has the Microsoft Operations Manager (MOM) installed, along with the Exchange Management Pack.

For example, I have a UM server setup with an IPGateway. I also have an autoattendant configured with an extension 74808. I want to make sure that my autoattendant is answering calls.

[PS] D:\users\Administrator>get-umipgateway

Name                 Address       HuntGroups    OutCallsAllowed Status
----                 -------       ----------    --------------- ------
UNSECURE_GATEWAY     10.198.250... {74809:UNS... True             Enabled
SECURE_GATEWAY       securegw.e... {}            True             Enabled
sipphonegw           157.56.146.19 {:UNSECURE... True             Enabled

[PS] D:\users\Administrator>get-umautoattendant

Name              UMDialPlan      PilotIdentifier SpeechEnabled Status
                                  List
----              ----------      --------------- ------------- ------
aa1               UNSECURE_DIA... {74808}         True           Enabled

[PS] D:\users\Administrator>test-umconnectivity -UMIPGateway unsecure_gateway -Phone 74808

CurrCalls              : 0
UmIPAddress            : 10.197.228.62
Latency                : 43236
OutBoundSIPCallSuccess : True
EntireOperationSuccess : True
ReasonForFailure       :
Identity               : 385bbfdf-26fc-460e-9ccb-a1f14b750c0b
IsValid                : True

The output of the command shows which UM server answered the call, the call latency, etc.

TuiLogon

In this mode, the task will test that the UM server can connect to a mailbox in a site. This is used to make sure that the UM sever has good connectivity to mailbox servers that have the mailboxes for UM enabled user that the UM server is servicing.

In order to run this command, we need a UM enabled mailbox with an extension. Also, this command needs to be run on a UMServer.

[PS] D:\users\Administrator>test-umconnectivity -tuiLogon:1 -UMDialPlan:unsecure_dialplan -phone:74808 -pin:147258

AutoAttendant: What do the various Greetings mean

Feroze Daud — Mon, 22 Oct 2007 20:17:00 GMT

This post is going to give an explanation of what the various greetings mean, for the autoattendant.

The posting will be divided into two sections. First, I will describe the common structure. Next, I will describe how this manifests itself at runtime for the DTMF AutoAttendant, and the ASR AutoAttendant respectively.

Greeting Configuration for the AutoAttendant

The greetings are configured for the AutoAttendant using the set-umautoattendant command in Powershell, or by using the Exchange Management Console MMC snapin that ships with Exchange Server 2007. When using set-umautoattendant, the following parameters are available to customize the greetings

Prompt	Description
InfoAnnouncementFilename	Informational Announcement
InfoAnnouncementEnabled	Informational Announcement Enabled Flag
BusinessHoursWelcomeGreetingFilename AfterHoursWelcomeGreetingFilename	Welcome Greeting Announcement
BusinessHoursWelcomeGreetingEnabled AfterHoursWelcomeGreetingEnabled	Welcome Greeting Announcement Enabled
BusinessHoursMainMenuCustomPromptFilename AfterHoursMainMenuCustomPromptFilename	Custom Menu Announcement
BusinessHoursMainMenuCustomEnabled AfterHoursMainMenuCustomEnabled	Custom Menu Enabled

If you want to set the Autoattendant greetings using the Exchange Management Console MMC snapin, then you should navigate to the Greetings tab of the autoattendant properties page.

DTMF AutoAttendant Greeting ConfigurationMain Menu Greetings.

The Greetings for the Main Menu of the autoattendant are played in the following sequence.

First, the autoattendant plays the WelcomeGreeting defined on the AutoAttendant. If no greeting is defined, then the default greeting is played. The default welcome greeting is "Welcome to Microsoft Exchange Automated Attendant".

If the call was received during Holiday Hours (as defined in the holiday schedule), then the greeting associated with that holiday is played. After this, the Informational Announcement is played (if defined).

If a custom menu is defined, then the prompt defined in the AutoAttendant's BusinessHoursMainMenuCustomPromptFilename is played. The custom menu can be defined by setting the BusinessHoursCustomMenuKeyMapping. To enable the custom menu, set the BusinessHoursCustomMenuKeyMappingEnabled property to true.

If a custom menu prompt filename is not defined, then the server will do a best effort to render a TTS (Text to Speech) greeting using the CustomMenu options that were defined.

Custom Menu TTS

When a CustomMenu prompt filename is not defined, then the system will TTS the custom menu prompt. In order to TTS the prompt, it will sort the Custom menu in increasing order by the Key that has been defined. Then it will use greeting templates defined for the language of the autoattendant to generate Greeting segments, one for each menu item. The greeting segments are then concatenated to give the final greeting.

For a normal (non-timeout) menu option, the following greeting template is used to generate the greeting segment.

For <description> Press <key>

And if you have a timeout option defined in the custom menu, then the following template is used.

Or, stay on the line for <description>

The following table shows the greeting segment that are generated from the custom menu definition.

Key	Description	Greeting Segment
1	Sales	For Sales Press One
2	Support	For SupportPress Two
Timeout	Directions	Or, stay on the line for Directions

Once we have the greeting segment, the final greeting is generated by concatenating each individual greeting segment:

For Sales Press One. For Support, Press Two. Or, stay on the line for directions.

Autoattendant Greeting Scenarios

The following section describes how the autoattendant sounds when different combinaions of greetings are configured, along with some of the other options that effect greeting playback.

Default Configuration

This is the case where an autoattendant was created, and no settings were modified on the autoattendant. The autoattendant will sound as follows:

Welcome to Microsoft Exchange Automated Attendant.

Custom Welcome Greeting configured

You can change the welcomg greeting of the autoattendant by specifying a Business/AfterHours WelcomeGreetingFilename, and setting the corresponding Business/AfterHours WelcomeGreetingEnabled flag to TRUE. Once you do this, the system will sound as follows:

Welcome to Contoso Corporation.

Custom Informational Greeting configured

You can configure an informational greeting to let the callers know about extraordinary situations like unforeseen closures etc.. This greeting can be configured by setting the InfoAnnouncementFilename & InfoAnnouncementEnabled properties of the autoattendant. If you set this greeting, then the system will sound like this:

Welcome to contoso corporation. We are closed due to year end Inventory processing.

If you set the InfoAnnouncementEnabled property value to Uninteruptible, then this greeting cannot be interrupted by the caller. This means that the entire main menu greetings will become uninterruptible. This includes the welcome greeting, informational greeting, and the holiday greeting as well.

Holiday Greetings

You can also configure a holidy schedule for the autoattendant. When a call comes in during a holiday, the autoattendant will play a greeting specified for that holiday. Normally, it doesnt make sense to have both an Informational greeting and holiday greeting active at the same time, so we will assume for this scenario, that the informational greeting is not configured.

You can specify a holday schedule and greeting for the autoattendant by setting the autoattendant's HolidaySchedule property using Powershell. Or, if you are using the MMC, you can navigate to the Times tab, and set the Holiday Schedule there.

If you specify a holiday schedule for Christmas, for example, and also specify a greeting for that holiday, then this is how the main menu will sound when a user calls in.

Welcome to Contoso Corporation. The office will be closed on the 24th and 25th of December for Christmas. Normal hours will resume from the 26th of december.

Custom Menu Greeting

If a custom menu is defined, then the next greeting that will be played is the custom menu greeting. As explained earlier, the autoattendant will use the greeting defined in the Business/AfterHoursMainMenuCustomPromptFilename. If no greeting is defined, then a TTS greeting will be played to the caller.

If you assume that the custom menu has three options: Sales, Support, Directions as described in the section above, then this is what the caller will hear when no custom menu greeting is defined:

Welcome to Contoso Corporation. For Sales Press One. For Support, Press Two. Or, stay on the line for directions.

Additionally, if Transfer to operator and directory search are enabled for the autoattendant, the autoattendant will give the caller these options as well:

Welcome to Contoso Corporation. For Sales Press One. For Support, Press Two. Or, stay on the line for directions. To contact someone, press the Pound key. To speak to an operator, press Zero.

If the call came in during a holiday, then the holiday greeting will be played after the welcome greeting. In that case, this is what the callers will hear:

Welcome to Contoso Corporation. The office will be closed on the 24th and 25th of December for christmas. Normal hours will resume from the 26th. of December.

For Sales Press One. For Support, Press Two. Or, stay on the line for directions. To contact someone, press the Pound key. To speak to an operator, press Zero.

However, if you define a greeting for the custom menu, then this is what the caller will hear:

Welcome to Contoso Corporation. The office will be closed on the 24th and 25th of December for christmas. Normal hours will resume from the 26th. of December.

To talk to our sales department, press One. For support issues, press Two. Or, you can stay on the line for directions.

If you compare this greeting flow with the flowchard given in the begining, you will noticed that the custom menu greeting did not give the caller an option for transferring to the operator, or doing directory search by pressing the Pound key. If you want to give callers this option, you must record these into your custom menu greeting.

If you dont want to give callers this option, you can disable them on the autoattendant.

PowerShell script to get the reason why a Unified Messaging worker process recycled

Feroze Daud — Fri, 16 Mar 2007 08:24:00 GMT

If you are the administrator of an Exchange Unified Messaging server, you might want to know why the UM worker process is recycling and how often. The following one line PowerShell script will print out all the reasons why the process recycled:

get-eventlog application | where { ($_.EventId -ge 1049 -and $_.EventId -le 1055) -or $_.EventId -eq 1092 } | ft -wrap

If you run this command, you will get an output like so:

Index Time          Type Source                EventID Message
----- ----          ---- ------                ------- -------
56821 Mar 12 20:35 Info MSExchange Unified M     1055 The Unified Messaging Worker Process was terminated because the confi
    9                    essaging                      gured maximum lifetime was exceeded.
56773 Mar 12 20:05 Info MSExchange Unified M     1000 The Unified Messaging Worker Process was started successfully on port
    4                    essaging                       "5065".
56772 Mar 12 20:04 Info MSExchange Unified M     1051 The Microsoft Exchange Unified Messaging service has created a new UM
    5                    essaging                       WorkerProcess because the working set (589 MB) has exceeded the conf
                                                       igured maximum: 500 MB"
52146 Mar 11 03:55 Info MSExchange Unified M     1055 The Unified Messaging Worker Process was terminated because the confi
    1                    essaging                      gured maximum lifetime was exceeded.
52099 Mar 11 03:25 Info MSExchange Unified M     1000 The Unified Messaging Worker Process was started successfully on port
    2                    essaging                       "5067".
52098 Mar 11 03:24 Info MSExchange Unified M     1051 The Microsoft Exchange Unified Messaging service has created a new UM
    1                    essaging                       WorkerProcess because the working set (777 MB) has exceeded the conf
                                                       igured maximum: 500 MB"
49992 Mar 10 02:55 Info MSExchange Unified M     1055 The Unified Messaging Worker Process was terminated because the confi
    1                    essaging                      gured maximum lifetime was exceeded.
49948 Mar 10 02:25 Info MSExchange Unified M     1000 The Unified Messaging Worker Process was started successfully on port
    6                    essaging                       "5065".
49947 Mar 10 02:24 Info MSExchange Unified M     1051 The Microsoft Exchange Unified Messaging service has created a new UM
    7                    essaging                       WorkerProcess because the working set (644 MB) has exceeded the conf
                                                       igured maximum: 500 MB"