Dial Plans

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Dial Plans

Although Exchange Server 2007 Unified Messaging has many Active Directory directory service objects that must be created and configured during deployment, Unified Messaging dial plan objects are the central component of the Unified Messaging system.

A Unified Messaging dial plan object is an Exchange Server 2007 organization-wide object that is created in Active Directory. The Unified Messaging dial plan is an Active Directory container object that logically represents sets or groupings of Private Branch Exchanges (PBXs) that share common user extension numbers. In practical terms, users' extensions that are hosted on PBXs share a common extension number. Users can dial one another's telephone extensions without appending a special number to the extension or dialing a full telephone number. A Unified Messaging dial plan is a logical representation of a telephony dial plan.

Note that a telephony dial plan is configured on a legacy PBX or IP-PBX. In Exchange Server 2007 Unified Messaging, the following Unified Messaging dial plan topologies can exist:

  • A single dial plan that represents a subset of extensions or all extensions for an organization that has one PBX.
  • A single dial plan that represents a subset of extensions or all extensions for an organization that has multiple networked PBXs.
  • Multiple dial plans that represent a subset of extensions or all extensions for an organization that has one PBX.
  • Multiple dial plans that represent a subset of extensions or all extensions for an organization that has multiple PBXs.

Users who belong to the same dial plan have the following characteristics:

  • An extension number that uniquely identifies the user mailbox in the dial plan.
  • The ability to call or send voice messages to other members in the dial plan by using only the extension number.

Unified Messaging dial plans are implemented in Exchange Server 2007 Unified Messaging to ensure that user telephone extensions are unique. In some telephony networks, multiple PBXs can exist. In these telephony networks, there could be two different users in Active Directory who have identical telephone extensions. Unified Messaging dial plans resolve this situation. You can put the two users into two separate Unified Messaging dial plans, making their extensions unique.