On the AA we need to have an option to leave a group voicemail directly, without having to call a particular user and waiting for the call to time out. This voicemail needs to be forwarded to all users on the calling group. This is vital for our out of office hours functionality.

Hi Toby, This is actually a Common and valid request, I am hoping our Engineering team will consider this feature. I just wanted to suggest that for now you may be able to do this with a Workaround. You can Create a Common User (Cloud PBX PSTN calling) Give him an Online Mailbox and set a call queue such that when the Queue Times out the call with be sent to This User. Callers can leave a VM and then you can give Permissions to Everyone in the Call queue to this Users Mailbox, That way everyone might be able to see the new VM that comes in. This maybe one way of achieving what you like but is certainly not a pretty workaround. Some challenges with it You will need to create a User specially for this purpose which is an Additional License for SFB and EXO Every other agent in the Queue will need to be given permissions to this users inbox If one of the agents checks the Incoming voicemail from this users inbox then it will be marked as read and others may not see it as a new Unread voicemail.

That seems like it could work. Why can I not just add an Outlook rule to an incoming VM to forward to an email alias? It seems like Outlook doesn't handle VoiceMail like normal emails. Thoughts? Thank you

You can do that too, You may be able to create a Rule in Outlook that where anytime a user gets a email with the Word "Voice Mail" in the subject line the email is forwarded to another user or a group. I just tested this in my tenant and it did work. Screen shot of the test rule i created is attached PS: You may still need to Create a Common User (Cloud PBX PSTN calling) Give him an Online Mailbox or use an existing user and set a call queue such that when the Queue Times out the call with be sent to This User. The Voice mail will be delivered to this user and when the users client receives it, the Message will then be forwarded to wherever the outlook rule points, along with the voicemail attachment.

I have already tested this. and the problem is that Outlook is not handling the Voicemail like an Email. It has no header information and the rule doesn't get processed like a normal email.Did you try actually leaving a VM for yourself and seeing if your rule worked?

I just tested the rule on the current Voicemails that I already had in my Inbox, i ran the rule against them and it forwarded the existing voice mails to the user who i wanted to, I thought if that worked a fresh incoming one should work too. I apologize, ill try leaving one as well and see if it works, give me a little time and ill get back to you

On the AA we need to have an option to leave a group voicemail directly

11 Replies

Mohammed Anas Shaikh
Microsoft
Feb 15, 2017
Hi Toby, This is actually a Common and valid request, I am hoping our Engineering team will consider this feature.

I just wanted to suggest that for now you may be able to do this with a Workaround.

You can Create a Common User (Cloud PBX PSTN calling) Give him an Online Mailbox and set a call queue such that when the Queue Times out the call with be sent to This User.

Callers can leave a VM and then you can give Permissions to Everyone in the Call queue to this Users Mailbox, That way everyone might be able to see the new VM that comes in.

This maybe one way of achieving what you like but is certainly not a pretty workaround.

Some challenges with it

You will need to create a User specially for this purpose which is an Additional License for SFB and EXO

Every other agent in the Queue will need to be given permissions to this users inbox

If one of the agents checks the Incoming voicemail from this users inbox then it will be marked as read and others may not see it as a new Unread voicemail.
- Niles Schambers TeamADR
  Brass Contributor
  Feb 23, 2017
  That seems like it could work. Why can I not just add an Outlook rule to an incoming VM to forward to an email alias? It seems like Outlook doesn't handle VoiceMail like normal emails.
  
  Thoughts?
  
  Thank you
  - Mohammed Anas Shaikh
    Microsoft
    Feb 23, 2017
    You can do that too, You may be able to create a Rule in Outlook that where anytime a user gets a email with the Word "Voice Mail" in the subject line the email is forwarded to another user or a group. I just tested this in my tenant and it did work. Screen shot of the test rule i created is attached PS: You may still need to Create a Common User (Cloud PBX PSTN calling) Give him an Online Mailbox or use an existing user and set a call queue such that when the Queue Times out the call with be sent to This User. The Voice mail will be delivered to this user and when the users client receives it, the Message will then be forwarded to wherever the outlook rule points, along with the voicemail attachment.

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On the AA we need to have an option to leave a group voicemail directly