Enable PIN-less sign-ins for voice mail in Exchange Server

  • Article

Applies to: Exchange Server 2013, Exchange Server 2016

You can set up Unified Messaging (UM) so that your users can sign in to their voice mail without using a PIN. By default, Outlook Voice Access users are prompted to enter a PIN to sign in to their mailbox and access their voice mail, email, calendar, personal contacts, the directory, and personal options.

Warning

Enabling PIN-less sign-ins for a single user or a group of users that are enabled for voice mail decreases the level of security for voice mail and poses a security risk to your organization.

To enable PIN-less sign-ins, you must set the parameter AllowPinlessVoiceMailAccess to $true on the UM mailbox policy and set the parameter PinlessAccessToVoiceMailEnabled to $true on the UM mailbox. By default, both parameters are set to $false, which requires an Outlook Voice Access user to enter their PIN when they access their voice mail.

Setting both parameters to $true allows you to enable PIN-less sign-ins to voice mail for a large group of users who are associated with a UM mailbox and also enable PIN-less sign-ins for a single UM mailbox or a subset of UM mailboxes. Even if you enable PIN-less sign-ins to voice mail for a group of UM-enabled users or a single UM-enabled user, when they access their email, calendar, personal contacts, the directory, or personal options, they'll be prompted to enter their PIN.

To enable PIN-less sign-ins to voice mail for a user, the following conditions must be met:

  • You've run the following cmdlet on the UM mailbox policy: Set-UMMailboxPolicy -id MyUMMailboxPolicy -AllowPinlessVoiceMailAccess $true

  • You've run the following cmdlet on the mailbox of the UM-enabled user: Set-UMMailbox -id tonys@contoso.com -PinlessAccessToVoiceMailEnabled $true

  • The UM-enabled user is associated with the same UM mailbox policy for which you enabled PIN-less sign-ins.

  • The UM-enabled user dials in to Outlook Voice Access from a phone number that's been assigned to them.

  • You can only use the Shell to perform this procedure. To learn how to open the Shell in your on-premises Exchange organization, see Open the Shell. To connect to Exchange Online PowerShell, see Connect to Exchange Online PowerShell.

For additional tasks related to UM mailbox policies, see UM mailbox policy procedures.

For additional tasks related to UM mailboxes, see Voice mail-enabled user procedures.

What do you need to know before you begin?

  • Estimated time to complete: 3 minutes.

  • You need to be assigned permissions before you can perform this procedure or procedures. To see what permissions you need, see the "UM mailbox policies" entry in the Unified Messaging permissions topic.

  • You need to be assigned permissions before you can perform this procedure or procedures. To see what permissions you need, see the "UM mailboxes" entry in the Unified Messaging permissions topic.

  • Before you perform these procedures, confirm that a UM dial plan has been created. For detailed steps, see Create a UM dial plan.

  • Before you perform these procedures, confirm that a UM mailbox policy has been created. For detailed steps, see Create a UM mailbox policy.

  • Before you perform these procedures, confirm that the user or users have been enabled for UM and voice mail. For detailed steps, see Enable a user for voice mail.

Use the Shell to enable PIN-less access to voice mail for UM-enabled users on a UM mailbox policy

This example enables PIN-less voice mail access on a UM mailbox policy named MyUMMailboxPolicy for users associated with the mailbox policy who dial in to Outlook Voice Access.

Set-UMMailboxPolicy -id MyUMMailboxPolicy -AllowPinlessVoiceMailAccess $true

Use the Shell to enable PIN-less access to voice mail on a UM-enabled user's mailbox

This example enables PIN-less voice mail access for the user who dials in to Outlook Voice Access to reach the mailbox named tonys@contoso.com.

Set-UMMailbox -id tonys@contoso.com -PinlessAccessToVoiceMailEnabled $true