In Exchange 2007 Unified Messaging, there are no options exposed within the Exchange Management Console that would allow an administrator to configure broadcast or announcement capabilities for voice mail messages.  For example, let’s say that you need to send a voice mail message to your entire staff announcing a mandatory meeting later today.  There really is no easy way to configure this functionality in the current release – but it can be done, thanks to the following solution provided by Wayne Harper, a Senior SEE for the UM escalation team in Las Colinas, Texas.


Caveats:

  • Exchange 2007 Service Pack 1 must be installed on the server hosting your Unified Messaging role
  • Mail-enabled Universal Distribution Groups should be used, as Security Groups are not processed by grammar generation process

Configuration Steps:

  1. Launch the Exchange Management Console and drill down to Recipient Configuration in the navigation pane on the left
  2. Click on Distribution Group, then select New Distribution Group* from the actions pane on the right
  3. Create a new Universal Distribution Group called UMAnnouncements with an email alias of UMAnnouncements
  4. After creating the new distribution group, open its properties in the Exchange Management Console and click on the Mail Flow Settings tab
  5. Open the properties of Message Delivery Restrictions and configure the distribution group to only Accept Mail from Senders (add a designated UM Enabled user)
  6. Open the Members tab and add selected UM Enabled users to the membership list of the distribution group, then commit your changes
  7. Next, open the properties of your UM Dial Plan, click on the Features tab, and allow callers to contact Anyone in the Default Global Address List
  8. Open the Exchange Management Shell, then enter the command:  set-distributiongroup “UMAnnouncements” –createdtmfmap $true
  9. Using AD Sites and Services, replicate all of your domain controllers in the Active Directory site where your UM servers reside
  10. On each UM server associated with the UM Dial Plan, open a command prompt and navigate to \Program Files\Microsoft\Exchange Server\BIN
  11. From the command prompt, run:  galgrammargenerator.exe –g –o .\generateGAL.log to manually generate the grammar file for the Global Address List
  12. Again from the command prompt, run:  galgrammargenerator.exe –l –o .\generateDL.log to manually generate the grammar file for Distribution Lists 
  13. Open both the generateGAL.log file and the generateDL.log file using Notepad and verify that the UMAnnoucements group was processed successfully
  14. Using a telephone, call the Outlook Voice Access/Subscriber Line for the UM Dial Plan, and log in as the designated UM Enabled user from Step 5
  15. From the main menu, say ‘Directory’ then search for the UMAnnouncements group (it should find the distribution group and prompt you for confirmation)
  16. Next, say ‘Send A Message’, then leave a voice mail message for the UMAnnouncements group.  Say ‘Send It’ to confirm delivery and hang up the phone
  17. The voice mail message should be delivered to all UM Enabled users who are a member of the UMAnnouncements distribution group.

Hope this helps!

-- Dave