Retiring Unified Messaging in Exchange Online
Published Feb 08 2019 11:00 AM 84.3K Views

Microsoft is retiring Unified Messaging (UM) in Exchange Online and replacing it with Cloud Voicemail and Auto Attendant services.  This impacts voicemail processing and Auto Attendant in Exchange Online for all customers using these workloads. The following servers connecting to Exchange UM Online will be transitioned by Microsoft to Cloud Voicemail on or before February 28, 2020:

  • Lync Server 2013
  • Skype for Business Server 2015

Please note this announcement refers to Unified Messaging which is the processing of voicemails and Auto Attendant in Exchange Online. Storage of voicemails will continue to be supported in Exchange Online and Exchange on-premises Servers.

Customers using the above-mentioned servers to connect to Exchange UM Online will be transitioned to Cloud Voicemail by Microsoft. The transition timing will vary depending upon how your company has utilized the UM features. Over the course of this calendar year, we will selectively notify customers via the Office 365 Message Center of their coming transition. The first group of customers will be notified in February 2019 and then can expect to be transitioned in March 2019. The experience for each customer will be transparent – Microsoft will switch your users over to Cloud Voicemail and perform the necessary validation and testing. Customers who have received a transition notification and would like to request postponement can do so by submitting a request via the support tool in the Office 365 Admin Portal. Please remember that final retirement date is February 28, 2020. Lync 2010 Servers connected to Exchange Online Unified Messaging will not be transitioned or supported with Cloud Voicemail. Customers using this topology must upgrade to Skype for Business Server prior to February 28, 2020 for continued voicemail support via Cloud Voicemail. The benefits of Cloud Voicemail are many. Cloud Voicemail uses Azure services based in the Microsoft Global Network to provide flexibility and scalability. It harnesses additional modern platform services such as Cortana, Graph, and AI to enhance those core experiences. Being native to the cloud allows for a single support model for all voice modalities including Skype for Business on-premises, Skype for Business Online, and Microsoft Teams. As we update Cloud Voicemail, all customers benefit regardless of platform. Cloud Voicemail also supports Microsoft voice architectures including Phone System, Calling Plans, and Direct Routing meaning it works great today and is ready for tomorrow’s innovations. Cloud Voicemail also adds additional countries to its regulatory compliance list making the technology available to more customers. And finally, Cloud Voicemail has successfully been at work since 2016 processing millions of calls per month for cloud customers. Customers using Auto Attendant in Exchange UM Online are required to upgrade to Cloud Auto Attendant before February 28, 2020. Administrators will need to recreate their auto attendants in Cloud Auto Attendant and switch their phone numbers over to them. Microsoft plans to introduce enhancements to the Cloud Auto Attendant service in Q1-CY2019 to provide customers with the necessary features to migrate their Auto Attendants from Exchange UM online, such as Hybrid Number support, multiple number support, transfer to PSTN, and more. See Set up a Phone System auto attendant to learn more about creating Auto Attendants. For further information on this retirement, please visit our support article.

Exchange Team

25 Comments
Not applicable
It would be nice if Cloud Voicemail supported....

-Direct Routing (I don't want to port my number to MSFT as a service number)

-Subscriber Access Numbers

-Zero Out

-Shared Voicemail Boxes

-Temp/Holiday Greetings

Not applicable
@WisconED

- Direct Routing with CVM is supported, there's a known issue when Media Bypass is enabled, and its being fixed

- Subscriber access: there's no plan as of today to support this in CVM

- Zero Out: is a feature we are introducing this quarter, its currently in preview and planned to be available before the end of March 2019

- Shared Voicemail: this is a road-map item that we're currently designing, no timeline yet to share. However, current workaround that customers use for Auto Attendant and Call Queues will not break when customers migrate to Cloud Auto Attendant, which is configuring a user with immediate forward to voicemail.

- Holiday greetings: is already supported for CVM. Users can configure an Out of Office specific greeting to be played all the time, while Auto-reply is active, or based on their calendar.

Not applicable
100% agree!! I wish I was an option about two years ago, and my organization would be on Exchange online already. We had to postpone our exchange go live because our on-prem UM wasn't going to be supported without adding E5 or phone system to all users. Sadly that delayed our project significantly as we went with a third-party voicemail provider.
Not applicable
@Waseemh - Thank you for the response.

To further clarify my previous statement when I mentioned Direct Routing, the scenario I was thinking about was using an Auto Attendant. Today if you create an Auto Attendant in the Legacy SFBO M365 Admin Center, the only phone number one can choose is a service number (# ported to Microsoft). The Auto Attendant documentation on docs does not reference Direct Routing anywhere, only using a service number. The Direct Routing documentation on docs only references setting up subscriber (User) numbers, not service numbers (Auto Attendant, Call Queue, Audio Conferencing DiA#). What if we want to keep our on-prem SIP Trunk for all numbers?

If I take my on-prem PBX and try and Direct Route to an M365 Auto Attendant configured with a Microsoft Service number my SBC recieves a 404 not found from Microsoft.PSTNHub.SIPProxy. This is my definition of Direct Routing to a service number and this does not work in my tenant.

Subscriber Access number in my opinion goes along with shared mailboxes which also goes along with the customized / scheduled greeting. Branch office/Retail store scenario where the main office number has a voicemail box, ideally just a shared voicemail box. Certain users within the branch may need to dial in to set a customized greeting "we are closed Wednesday due to in climate weather and the pending blizzard". Keep that message for 1 day or a set schedule and then have it revert back to a standard greeting. The same could apply to a holiday.

Not applicable
@WiscoED Direct Routing support for Auto-Attendant is also a planned enhancement that we are delivering in Q1CY19, check out the support article link in the blog for more details on that. Holiday schedule for AA is available today as well, you can change that along with the greeting message using the Administrator web portal. There's no support though to do that by dialing in from a PSTN number.
Not applicable
Stop Luftes dhe Varferise ne Bote !
Not applicable
Is this a big bang migration, or can this be testing/piloting before all users are moved to Cloud Voice mail? At least TechNet documents looks abit big scary bang migration as it says: "...When testing voicemail functionality after your users have been migrated, make sure to consider the following scenarios..."
Not applicable
The migration is a tenant-level migration and not a user-level one. To validate and test the CVM feature set you can create a Skype for Business Online user or Teams user.
Not applicable
Will Cloud Voicemail be supported in the O365 or M365 E3 license as with Exchange UM Online or will the Phone System license be required for the user that needs Cloud Voicemail?
Not applicable
SFB Onprem users do not need a cloud license to use Cloud Voicemail if they are EV enabled. Note that they need to have an Exchange mailbox, so they still need to be licensed for that. Online users on Skype for Business will require Phone System license to take advantage of CVM, while Teams users do not require that anymore, starting from this week.
Not applicable
What's a cloud?
Not applicable
A term that is usually used to refer to a network of computer servers. But if you live in Vancouver BC like me, its what you see everytime you look upward!
Not applicable
This is unfortunate and a show stopper for our move to Office 365 as we use Exchange Unified Messaging as our voicemail system connected to our relatively new on-premises PBX. Moving to Skype for Business Enterprise Voice (a requirement for Cloud Voicemail) is not an option with our large investment in on-premises PBX (documentation states, "Once a user is moved to Skype for Business Online and Phone System in Office 365, their legacy PBX phone will no longer work"). We need to investigate alternative voicemail systems. It would be nice if there was a direct path (through Audiocodes/SBC/whatever) to Cloud Voicemail from on-premises PBX (versus a complex setup through Skype for Business/Teams Enterprise Voice that we don't need otherwise).
Not applicable
Unfortunately there is no solution for connecting a 3rd party PBX to Cloud Voicemail, this offering by Exchange UM Online was announced to be retiring in July 2017.
Not applicable
Ti Japim Paqen Botes !
Copper Contributor

Hi Microsoft Team,

We have implemented an hybrid environment consisting of Skype for Business Server 2015 On Premise and Exchange UM Online, i have 2 questions:

1. Will this change be transparent or will it affect in some time our Voicemail service?

2. We need to migrate to Microsoft Teams? or the new Cloud Voicemail will can work with our Skype for Business Server 2015 On Premise infraestructure?

Regards.

Copper Contributor

Does Auto Attendant in Exchange Online work with Microsoft Teams direct routing? as extension dialing from cloud auto attendant is not working yet.

Copper Contributor

Hello Team, 

 

What's is the way forward for SfB 2019 hosted and office 365 Cloud voicemail?.

I am in search of the guideline of the process "How to setup Cloud VM with hosted SfB 2019"

At present the are all referring to Cloud VM with SfB Hybrid in our scenario we don't do Hybrid 

 

Your Reply or suggestions are highly appreciated

Asim 

Brass Contributor

This is yet another complete joke by Microsoft.  They force users onto another platform/"solution" that doesn't have all the features, and requires users to purchase/buy more licenses to make it work.  For example, we use a 3rd party hosted Skype solution and currently O365 Exchange UM for VM/Auto attendant.  So they host the Skype in their Cloud, and O365 Exchange UM does the VM/AA.  Our vendor moved us over to 2019 Skype Server on-prem which automatically forced us over to Cloud Voicemail.  Yes, MS actually had the greetings moved already for the end-users and things mostly work the same, and they did add one useful features, greeting can follow OOO in outlook.  But of course, after testing the auto attendant and Call Queues in Teams Voice, come to find out, we need to buy phone licenses for any user you transfer calls to from a Call Tree?!?!  This cost nothing now for customers.  If you have 8 internal numbers, well, you have to drop $1200/yr now to make that happen on top of the licensing E3 we already have and our vendor integrates with UM.   Then, there is this ridiculous thing that you can't transfer calls to external numbers?!?!  Seriously!!!!  Only way we could figure this out would be to create an extra user with E3 license/phone license, and set a forwarding rule on that user to an outside number so.   So in the Cloud AA, it would then see it as an internal user, then route to them, then forward to the external number?!?!  But if you have multiple external numbers you route to...oh let's say, for reservations or something to another location/office...well, it won't work now unless we rig something again, costing more money/licenses that costs nothing and just works now in Exchange UM.  So, more money, less features...and they say, sorry, deal with it.  Oh, and they promised Q4 2019 you can route externally.  Hasn't happened yet.  Broken promise again and feature that doesn't exist still.  Our cloud vendor is saying let's hope MS last minute backs out of this and extends the termination as usual with many things if they get enough push back.  They have no answer to solve this issue unless they host the AA/Queues for $$$.  They are really trying to get rid of on-premise, 3rd party Skype hosted solutions and force everybody to their cloud and Teams to make more $$$$$.  Don't blame them, but don't promise and force people onto things that don't have the same features and abilities of current systems.  At a complete loss here on this one.  We aren't sure what to do.  Now user's have cloud voicemail, OK, good, whatever, it works.  But now our AA and Call Queues are FUBAR.  Thanks MS!!!

Brass Contributor

Hi Team,

We are here 2 days away from the end date. Is there any last-minute change or we will see UM removal starting March 1st, 2020?

Brass Contributor

@Tech Logik Our customer is going to lose only the Message Waiting Indicator, rest has been taken care with TE systems anynode and skype for business 2019. Let me know if you need any help.

Copper Contributor

@The_Exchange_Team 

For customers who have not opted in to the transition to Cloud Voice Mail, exactly when can we expect the cutover of Auto-Attendants?  When will Exchange UM Auto-Attendants stop working?  What about Voice Mail? Currently, the "Set Up Voice Mail" option in Skype for Business clients directs to OWA.  After the switch, will it route to aka.ms/vmsettings?

 

Feedback:

  • We have many informational Auto-Attendants that are updated daily by users in the field who do not have internet access.  As Cloud Voice Mail/Teams auto-attendants lack the ability to update greetings from a phone, they will no longer be able to update these greetings.

 

  • As Teams lacks granular administrative roles, we must grant Auto-Attendant managers the Teams Telecommunications Admin role.  This not only grants them access to ALL Auto-Attendants, but gives them access to many other Voice-related controls that they should not have access to.  We have already experienced several major voice outages due to accidental deletions/misconfigurations.

 

These are huge pain points for our organization.  We are a large customer with many blue-collar employees in industrial environments and in the field.  While we embrace the benefits of a connected workforce where possible, we have many employees who are traditional voice users who only have a deskphone.  These changes are restricting them from doing their jobs and forcing us to reevaluate our voice platform.

Copper Contributor

3/1 and we're still not seeing Cloud VM / Teams AA.  Are EDU clients on a different schedule?

Copper Contributor

HI, we are experiencing call email notification continuously, duplicate of voice notifications.
please assist on what to do on our side

Copper Contributor

Hello, 
Our user VM greetings have been moved from the UM (with SfB as a front end). 
Now all the users greetings are set to 'default' text to speech.
While all the custom greetings appear to be in the new backend....they are not 'activated' or saved. 

Is there a global way to say to all the VM boxes to 'save' the greeting that is there?

We'd rather that than have all the users go out and do it manually. 

Thank you.  

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‎Jan 30 2020 01:59 PM
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