January 1998

BY ALEX HADDEN-BOYD

Communication is the lifeblood of business today. Companies have made huge investments in telephone networks, e-mail systems, voice mail systems, fax servers, and computer networks with the express purpose of improving communication. The use of e-mail, voice mail, and online network services is exploding. Communication tools such as personal computers, modems, cellular telephones, and fax devices have proliferated on top of the ubiquitous telephone network. Each has unique messaging capabilities.

EMAIL
At the same time, the way we communicate is changing. E-mail was main-framebased, used by large companies for internal communication. Today, e-mail is universal. E-mail is a convenient way to deliver and request information, document messages, and communicate to multiple people simultaneously. Whether a LAN-based system for the enterprise, or browser-based for the home user, everyone on my block has e-mail. E-mail is no longer used only for internal communication, but is also used to communicate outside the boundaries of the corporation.

VOICE MAIL
Voice mail, until recently, has really been call answering — the replacement for the pink message slip. But voice mail goes beyond simply leaving a message in a person’s voice mailbox. Voice mail is a powerful communications tool when used in a fashion similar to e-mail. It allows users to create, route, comment on, and save voice messages, just like they do e-mail messages. And, voice messages can be retrieved from any touch-tone telephone, from home, at work, or while mobile, any time of day or night. Voice mail became increasingly popular as users became mobile. They realized there was an advantage to being able to listen to those call answering messages from any telephone in any time zone. They started forwarding those messages to other users and replying to those messages. Soon users began relying on non-simultaneous messaging rather than trying to call. Multisite enterprises started connecting voice mail systems between different geographical locations using both the telephone network and their backbone data networks.

FAX
Fax messaging, a valuable communications tool, has been around for a long time. Like e-mail, fax is used to convey written information and detailed comments. Fax also has the advantage of supporting graphics, handwritten comments, and drawings. Like other forms of messaging, fax has traditionally been a one-way communication. In the early 90s, voice mail vendors added fax to their systems. Like voice, fax used the public switched telephone network (PSTN) and could be easily stored and forwarded. Voice mail vendors gave users the capability of printing faxes at their convenience, distributing faxes through the voice mail network, and appending voice comments.

The three different types of messaging discussed have typically been espoused to three different access methods. No one method was available for all users in all communications situations. Throw in low-cost mobile phones, the growing use of laptops, and the Internet into the mix, and what do you get? The opportunity for the killer CTI application — message integration.

MESSAGE INTEGRATION — A BETTER WAY TO WORK
Message integration is a simple, yet extremely powerful concept. An individual’s communication environment is con-stantly changing. The amount of information and their respective sources are constantly increasing. The communications devices and types of media available to individuals are intrinsically tied to every environment change. Users should be able to listen to voice messages, view documents or faxes on screen, send faxes, create e-mail, and manage information in the manner most appropriate to their communications universe — in the office, at home, or on the road. Message integration enables users to see, hear, send, store, or retrieve all of their messages with whatever tool is more conveniently available — telephone, desktop personal computer, or laptop.

There is strong alignment in the messaging industry around user needs for message integration. The challenge for CTI professionals is to bring it all together. Voice, fax, and e-mail vendors, both independently and in partnership, have developed several approaches to message integration. The most appropriate solution depends on the work environment (voice mail, e-mail, communications system, operating systems, LAN infrastructure), the users (mobile, inoffice, telecommuters) and their communications preferences, and finally, the level of investment on current solutions.

DIFFERENT APPROACHES, DIFFERENT FOUNDATIONS
There are four basic architectural approaches for combining voice mail, fax, and e-mail messaging. Each approach has advantages and disadvantages. The level of integration ranges from loosely to tightly coupled. Some of the models leverage existing systems; others do not.

Integrated Desktop — Visual Access To Voice And Fax Messages
This approach was pioneered in the early 1990s by voice mail vendors. It gives users a way to easily and conveniently view their voice and fax messages using a PC-based graphical user interface similar to interfaces used to view and manage e-mail (Figure 1). This method is well-suited for companies that have a relatively new or upgradeable voice mail system, and a legacy or heterogeneous e-mail environment. This approach simplifies message management for users by providing separate desktop applications to access the contents of their voice/fax and e-mail mailboxes, respectively. This approach does not allow access to e-mail via the telephone or the voice mail client. Users still check both voice and e-mail mailboxes. Many of these solutions also allow users to print faxes received in their voice mailbox on a local or network printer. Since there is no interaction with the e-mail system, this method is email system independent. The approach does have some LAN traffic implications based on the application’s ability to stream voice files across the network for playback through a multimediaenabled PC.

This approach does not integrate the voice/fax and e-mail systems into a single architecture. The Telecommunications and IS staff must collaborate in order to manage and administer separate systems. The client applications and communications system (e.g., the PBX) must also be administered through a coordinated effort.

This solution meets the needs of many users. However, its lack of serverbased integration does limit its usefulness for mobile and e-mail-intensive users.

Integrated Client — Universal Client To Separate Non-Integrated Servers
This approach keeps the voice/fax and e-mail servers separate, but provides a client-based bridge between the two which makes it appear to the end user as if one mailbox is offering universal message access. Often referred to as the Integrated Client, it consists of a typical voice network with a PBX and voice/fax mail system, as well as a typical data environment with various functions including e-mail and databases residing on servers connected via the LAN. The voice mail system is connected to the LAN and all message types — including voice, fax, and e-mail — are viewed through a universal client like Microsoft Exchange, Outlook97, or any other POP3-compliant application. Some of the PBX vendors have taken a slightly different approach, and provide a client that performs as a replacement to the e-mail client, combining the voice mail capabilities and adding some PBX functionality.

With the Integrated Client, the messages themselves continue to be stored in separate voice/fax and email servers. An Integrated Client requires the voice/fax and e-mail systems, as well as the applicable client to share common Application Programming Interface (API) and protocol support. Some of today’s most sophisticated and popular mail clients include support for storage features that enable users to minimize or eliminate dual server storage issues.

Like the Integrated Desktop, this approach does not integrate the voice/ fax and e-mail servers. The Telecommunications and IS staff must collaborate in order to manage and administer separate systems. The client applications and communications system (e.g., the PBX) must also be administered through a coordinated effort.

Integrated Messaging — Universal Client With Separate Integrated Servers
In this implementation of the integrated messaging architectural approach, integration software is running on either the e-mail or voice/fax mail server. The software routes message traffic between the systems based on user-controlled settings. This approach typically takes advantage of the e-mail user interface to display all messages. Each subscriber uses a desktop administrative application to govern the transfer of messages between the mail servers. The messages are handled by the separate systems. Users may specify that copied messages remain in the source system, or be deleted as soon as they transfer to the destination system.

The most likely administrative setup, and one that offers the most features to the user from a message access standpoint, is to have all messages stored in each system. Voice messages are copied from the voice/fax mail system, transported across the LAN, and stored on the e-mail server. Similarly, email messages are copied and transported across the LAN to the voice/fax mail server. With this approach, a user can access all message types from either the telephone or the PC and thus, reply to voice mail with e-mail, listen to an email via text-to-speech using a telephone, and reply or forward an email message with voice.

The integration software ranges from product-specific to standardsbased implementations. The productspecific implementation typically synchronizes the voice/fax and e-mail mailboxes based on a polling schedule established by the administrator. If it detects any changes since the last poll, it copies, forwards, or deletes messages on the voice/fax or e-mail servers in order to keep a mirror image of the mailbox contents. The standards-based implementation relies on rules and filter engines to route traffic from the email to the voice/fax mail system. This enables users to take full advantage of the native functionality of their messaging systems, while dynamically tailoring the communications flow to their specific needs.

Telecommunications and IS staff must collaborate in order to manage and administer separate systems. The client applications and communications system (e.g., the PBX) must also be administered through a coordinated effort.

This solution enhances the functionality of existing client/server infrastructure, while supporting integration functionality for both mobile voice and e-mailcentric communities of interest within an enterprise.

Unified Messaging — Unified Client And Server
The Unified Messaging approach leverages the e-mail infrastructure. There is only one message storage facility — the e-mail box. All of the user’s messages (e-mail, voice, and fax) are stored in the e-mail system. Users access this store via an e-mail client extended to include voice mail features or via a telephone user interface which controls voice I/O boards and runs on the e-mail system to access messages by telephone. There is one mailbox for users to review all of their messages. This approach is at the same time the most simple and the most sophisticated (Figure 4). It is simple since there is only one system, one directory, one point of administration and one place for either client, the e-mail client or the telephone, to go for messages. It is sophisticated because it is technically the most difficult to develop and it gives the greatest number of features. Because of the single store and directory, a user can reply to voice mail with e-mail, can listen to an e-mail in textto speech and reply or forward with a voice mail. Further, all of the e-mail functionality such as inbox rules, remote access, folders, sent items, and deleted items apply to all message types.

Because of the sophisticated nature of the addition of voice and fax to the email system, only client/server systems can support a unified approach. Administration is streamlined since there is only one network and one system to administer — the e-mail system. This is the ideal solution for the mobile and the office-centric, e-mail user.

SUMMARY
All approaches have benefits and costs associated with them. It is important to understand exactly where you are on the technology adoption curve in order to understand your options. If you are on a mainframe based e-mail, your only option is to have an integrated desktop. If you are a fully deployed client/server homogeneous or heterogeneous e-mail shop, you will have many options to consider. The bottom line is that there are solutions available in the marketplace that meet the needs of your users and accommodate your environment. As voice and email systems continue to evolve, the degree of integration will continue to increase.

Users and administrators will demand solutions that are more tightly integrated without compromising existing performance and functionality levels. Choose a reputable vendor with a choice of solutions and a migration path, and move forward with the killer CTI application — message integration.

Alex Hadden-Boyd is director of product marketing for Lucent Technologies’ Octel Messaging Division, Unified Messenger product line. The division is the worldwide leader in providing voice messaging equipment and services to businesses, governments, educational institutions, telephone companies, and cellular service providers in over 70 countries.

Lucent Technologies designs, builds, and delivers a wide range of public and private networks, communications systems and software, consumer and business telephone systems, and microelectronic components. Bell Laboratories is the research and development arm for the company. For more information, visit the company’s Web site at www.lucent.com.