INTUITY AUDIX Messaging provides electronic mail (email) messaging
and integration with other email systems. INTUITY AUDIX is a true multimedia
messaging platform. It integrates voice, fax, and email messages into
a single system and offers subscribers enhanced flexibility to manage
multimedia messages from their telephones or personal computers.
A few basic overview topics include:
What Is
a Message in a INTUITY AUDIX System?
With the INTUITY AUDIX system, a
message is not limited to voice or fax media type components. A message
can now contain up to four media type components, specifically:
- Voice
- Fax
- Text (created through a
supported email application or INTUITY Message Manager)
- File attachment (a software
file, such as a spreadsheet or word processing file)
For example, a sales manager might
want to inform the distributed sales force of a new compensation plan.
The details of the compensation plan are in the form of a text message
created in INTUITY Message Manager. Using INTUITY AUDIX, the sales manager
can send a message that consists of both voice and text components.
The voice component of the message might be, "This message is going
to all members of the Northeast Sales region. Congratulations on your
excellent results last year. As of January 1, the compensation plan
for new product sales will be changed. Please print the attached text
message for detailed information." The text component of the message
would then be used to specify the details.
When a message is sent, the INTUITY
AUDIX system adds descriptive information to the message consisting
of the following information:
- Header
The header consists of
the time and date of delivery, the type of message, and a listing
of all message components. The system automatically creates a header
for each message sent. If a message is addressed to more than one
recipient, the system creates a header for each recipient.
- Message Body
The message body consists
of the caller's spoken message or a voiced rendering of a text message,
if using Text-to-Speech. In the case of a nondeliverable message,
the message body consists of a standard system message.
What Is
a Mailbox?
A mailbox is a storage area on a
computer disk for messages, personal greetings, and mailing lists. All
INTUITY AUDIX subscribers automatically receive a mailbox when they
are administered on the system. Mailboxes are divided into two sections,
the incoming mailbox and the outgoing mailbox.
Each subscriber accesses his or
her mailbox through a private password. After a subscriber logs in,
the system voices the name of the subscriber (if recorded) and reports
the number of new messages received (if any).
Incoming Mailbox
The incoming section of a mailbox
receives messages from other subscribers, the INTUITY AUDIX system,
and callers redirected to the mailbox because no one answered the telephone.
The subscriber can save, delete, reply to, forward, and in other ways
manipulate these messages.
A subscriber's incoming messages
fall into three categories:
- New
A message and header the
subscriber has not yet listened to. The Message Waiting Indicator
(MWI) on the subscriber's telephone turns on when a new message is
present and turns off after the subscriber has listened to it.
- Unopened
A message whose header
has been listened to, but not the message itself. The MWI does not
stay on for this type of message.
- Old
A message the subscriber
has listened to, but has not deleted.
Outgoing Mailbox
The outgoing section of a mailbox
stores messages a subscriber creates, sends, or forwards. In most cases,
these messages remain in the outgoing section until they are delivered.
Outgoing messages are of the following types (listed in the default
order in which subscribers review outgoing messages). The system administrator
can change this order, if desired.
- Files
Messages that subscribers
create and save in the outgoing section of a mailbox. Later they can
access these messages to modify, address and send again, or delete.
- Undelivered
Messages that have not
yet been sent (for example, those scheduled for delivery at a future
time or date). Subscribers can review, change, or cancel messages
and their addresses at any time before delivery.
- Nondeliverable
Messages that the system
could not deliver. The system attempts to deliver a message up to
10 times (or the administered number of times) then places the message
in this category. Usually this indicates that the intended recipient's
incoming mailbox is full, that the recipient's system cannot recognize
or accept a message component (for example, the system is not fax-enabled),
or that there were transmission problems (for example, with an AMIS
analog line).
Messages defined as "nondeliverable"
can be rescheduled for delivery with a new address, or altered to
allow forwarding, if needed.
- Delivered
Message headers that identify
messages delivered but not yet listened to or that identify messages
containing components that could not be delivered. The latter type
of message header is an Incomplete Delivery header. For example,
if a message contains more than the four components allowable (that
is, a voice, fax, text, and file attachment), the additional components
are not delivered, and the message header indicates that a component
was not delivered.
- Accessed
Message headers that identify
messages that have been listened to. A message is considered accessed
even if only the header has been listened to.
Telephone
Access
All message components can be manipulated
from the telephone. The basic nature of the telephone interface remains
the same, regardless of the component media type. Normally, messages
are created, addressed, delivered, received, and replied to or forwarded.
The following table shows how these actions are implemented when messages
are accessed through the telephone.
Table: Message Manipulation from the Telephone
Interface
|
Action
|
Component
|
|
|
Voice
|
Fax
|
Text (created via Message Manager or an
email application)
|
File Attachment
|
|
Create?
|
Yes
|
Yes
(requires FAX Messaging)
|
No
|
No
|
|
Address?
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
N/A
|
N/A
|
|
Receive?
|
- Hear Message header
- Hear voice
|
- Hear message header
- Print to fax machine
|
- Hear message header
- Hear voiced rendering
of message (requires Text-to-Speech)
- Print to fax machine
(requires FAX Messaging)
|
|
|
Reply/Forward?
|
Yes
(can also include a fax annotation)
|
Yes
(can also include a voice annotation)
|
Yes
(can also include a voice annotation)
|
Yes
(can also include a voice annotation)
|
In summary, voice and/or fax messages
can be created using a telephone, but text messages and file attachments
cannot. When retrieving massages, voice and text messages can be listened
to, and the text message can be printed to a fax machine.
PC Access
INTUITY AUDIX provides the following
methods for managing messages from a PC:
INTUITY Message Manager
INTUITY Message Manager is a software
application that runs on a Windows-based PC and connects with the INTUITY
AUDIX messaging system through a TCP/IP LAN. The program uses a graphical
interface to enable subscribers to view a list of their messages on
their personal computers. Subscribers can choose messages in any order
and, by selecting icons using a mouse, perform all messaging tasks —
everything that can be done with a telephone keypad, and more.
There is a difference between INTUITY
Message Manager and an email system, however Message Manager can be
used to send messages to subscribers on the same INTUITY AUDIX system
or to networked and administered remote INTUITY AUDIX systems. A supported
email system, however, can be used to send messages to systems external
to the INTUITY AUDIX, for example, the Internet or other email systems.
INTUITY Message Manager also supports this if INTUITY Internet Messaging
is enabled. See Overview of Message
Manager Administration for a complete overview of the INTUITY Message
Manager.
Electronic Mail Integration
In many situations, a customer site
may have a voice mail system and a separate email messaging system.
To retrieve all messages, subscribers must access each system individually.
INTUITY AUDIX alleviates this problem with an optional feature known
as Internet Messaging. This optional feature provides a gateway through
which the INTUITY AUDIX system can send and receive messages across
an email network.
As with INTUITY Message Manager,
subscribers can choose messages in any order and, by selecting icons
using a mouse, perform all messaging tasks — everything that can
be done with the telephone keypad. See Internet
Messaging Concepts and Planning for a complete overview of the INTUITY
Internet Messaging feature.
