asterisk users - Nov 2006 - Newbie questions about Voice mail

I am totally ignorant about actually using asterisk for any purpose. I 
have read some of the docs but not all. I am currently doing a telephone 
audit for my company and one of the issues is voice mail. We are spending 
quit a bit of money with our telco for voice mail services and I was 
wondering about using asterisk as just a voice mail system. We are not 
quite ready to move to a full VOIP system yet but if I can get this system 
in place the VOIP will follow.

Could I get all 3000 phones (on 2 sites) or a large subset set to have a 
call forward no-answer feature set to call a number that would be answered 
by asterisk's voice mail.

If so:
    1. what hardware do I need to handle 3000 phones?

    2. how would users retrieve their voice mail?

    3. how does one tie voice mail into an e-mail address? Are their ways
       to do bulk updates for several thousand new users every year?

    4. is there a feature what we call talk mail where you set up a group
       of phone numbers and send the same message to all of them?


Any help would be greatly appreciated.


.....TIA
........Brian Kaye
...........UNB

Hi Brian,
I'm sure some other people will give you better answers but quick
answers are;

1/ Depends on volume of message leaving/collection, is it in a single
location? Multiple locations with multiple time zones? 

Estimate the number of voicemails left per hour and reply with this.


2/ retrieve either via deliver to email or dial in to a number to
collect voicemail via phone (or collect and play via a website)

How are the retrieving their voicemail now? Do you want to replicate
this for ease of replacement as near as possible?


3/ Not sure what you mean by tie in?

4/ Sure, how do you have this configured at the moment? Why not
replicate voicemail group delivery in the same format?



 
Cheers,
 
Dean
 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: asterisk-users-bounces@lists.digium.com [mailto:asterisk-users-
> bounces@lists.digium.com] On Behalf Of bdk@unb.ca
> Sent: Saturday, 4 November 2006 11:54 PM
> To: asterisk-users@lists.digium.com
> Subject: [asterisk-users] Newbie questions about Voice mail
> 
> 
> I am totally ignorant about actually using asterisk for any purpose. I
> have read some of the docs but not all. I am currently doing a
telephone
> audit for my company and one of the issues is voice mail. We are
spending
> quit a bit of money with our telco for voice mail services and I was
> wondering about using asterisk as just a voice mail system. We are not
> quite ready to move to a full VOIP system yet but if I can get this
system
> in place the VOIP will follow.
> 
> Could I get all 3000 phones (on 2 sites) or a large subset set to have
a
> call forward no-answer feature set to call a number that would be
answered
> by asterisk's voice mail.
> 
> If so:
>     1. what hardware do I need to handle 3000 phones?
> 
>     2. how would users retrieve their voice mail?
> 
>     3. how does one tie voice mail into an e-mail address? Are their
ways
>        to do bulk updates for several thousand new users every year?
> 
>     4. is there a feature what we call talk mail where you set up a
group
>        of phone numbers and send the same message to all of them?
> 
> 
> Any help would be greatly appreciated.
> 
> 
> .....TIA
> ........Brian Kaye
> ...........UNB
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