Administration

Single Inbox now enabled for voicemail users to manage messages in Outlook

A new voicemail feature has been integrated with Office 365 that will allow Penn State faculty and staff voicemail users to more easily manage their voicemail messages, save time and share information quicker. Credit: Penn StateCreative Commons

A new voicemail feature has been integrated with Office 365 that will allow Penn State faculty and staff voicemail users to more easily manage their voicemail messages, save time and share information quicker. 

Single Inbox connects faculty and staff voicemail accounts with email inboxes and gives users more options for retrieving, managing and storing their messages for better long-term accessibility and increased productivity.

In addition to the traditional methods of checking and managing voicemail (i.e. desk phone, remote call-in, and my.voip.psu.edu), users can now check and manage their voicemail in Outlook. With Single Inbox, they will receive an email each time they receive a new voicemail. The email includes a transcription and an audio recording of the message.

With Single Inbox, the voicemail telephony server and the email server communicate to keep messages synchronized across systems. As a result, moving or changing the status of a voicemail message in Outlook email will have a corresponding effect of the message in the telephony system. For more information, visit, KB0011920: Telephony: Single Inbox – How Voicemail and Email Synchronize with Each Other on the Knowledge Base.

Because voicemail messages now exist in email, users can easily organize their messages by simply moving them into related email folders such as ones for projects, certain co-workers or events as they would a normal email. Where it previously wasn’t possible, users will be able to share voicemails received from outside working groups with team members by forwarding the message along like a regular email.

Additionally, the upgrade will allow users to better leverage Outlook’s calendaring features. Voicemail users will be able to call into their voicemail to hear a list of upcoming meetings and their participants, send a message about a meeting, accept or decline invitations and cancel a meeting they’ve organized.

Single Inbox is enabled for all faculty and staff who subscribe to the University’s VoIP voicemail services, however, users will be able to change their preferences for voicemail notifications and how they appear in their email inboxes.

Single Inbox is only available in areas serviced by the University’s Cisco voicemail system and whose users have migrated to Office 365.

To learn more about the Single Inbox feature or to discontinue, resume or modify preferences for voicemail notifications, visit KB0011940 Telephony: Single Inbox - Index of Informational Articles on the Knowledge Base.

For questions or support, reach out to your local service desk or contact the IT Service Desk by email at ITservicedesk@psu.edu, by phone at 814-865-4357 or in person at 130 W. Pattee Library at University Park.

Last Updated January 29, 2019