Message processing background information 

---

Purpose

The messaging software enables customers to contact your contact center by various forms of email. For example, if your contact center has published an email address and the email address is routed to a mailbox monitored by the messaging software, then a customer using the email address will generate an inbound email message that will be delivered to you or another agent for processing.

Each inbound message (email or fax) will be routed to a specific mailbox. The mailbox to which an inbound message is routed is determined by an address (for an email message call) or a dialed number (for a fax message call).

Inbound email messages

The following information describes some types of email messages that can be used to generate messages supported by the messaging software:

• Form-based email (file attachments supported)�a form-based email is a form provided by the contact center that the customer fills out and then submits. See Forms-based email for more information.

• Free-formatted email (file attachment supported)�a free-formatted email is a message that is addressed (using your company's email address) and created by the customer. This email may be in response to a link in a Web page or may be independently composed by the customer.

Inbound fax message calls

Inbound fax messages may be distributed through the messaging software if your fax server supports retrieval of the fax through Post Office Protocol 3 (POP3). To use faxes with the messaging software, your email server must support a fax server interface (for example, Intuity AUDIX with Internet Messaging). The fax server interface treats the fax image as an attachment to an email message.

Differences between fax messages and email messages

Both fax and email messages are delivered to you in the same manner: the DEFINITY Enterprise Communications Server (ECS) notifies you of a message by sending a message call to your voice terminal.

There are appearance and operational differences between the two types of messages. The following table provides the operational differences between a fax and an email message:

Fax Message

Email Message

The operations of a fax message are as follows: After you answer the message call, a PagePop associated with the fax message is delivered to you. The message contains a file attachment which contains the fax image. You must click on the file attachment to view the fax message. Reply�You must use a third-party utility provided by the contact center to compose and send a fax response. The original fax image (not the newly created, annotated, or modified fax image) is stored in the message database. You must mark the original fax message as closed (with a reason code) to complete the processing. If you used a third-party utility to compose a fax reply, you must still close the original fax message in the messaging software to complete the process.

The operations of an email message are as follows: After you answer the message call, a PagePop associated with the email message is delivered to you. The message display contains the customer's return email address, the subject, the text body and possibly a file attachment. You do not have to take any action to view the email message (the email message is in the text body). Reply�Use the messaging software tools to compose a reply. You must mark the original email message as closed (with a reason code) to complete the process.

   

---

Copyright © 2001 Avaya Inc. All rights reserved. Modified: March 19, 2001