UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Enterprise IT (EIT) recently upgraded the University's voicemail platform to enable future integration with Microsoft Office 365 and incorporate features that will enhance users’ email and calendaring experiences.

Starting on Jan. 28, Penn State faculty and staff will be able to manage voicemail messages in their Outlook inboxes as part of the new Single Inbox feature integration with Office 365. This enhancement will allow users to save time, share information quicker and store correspondence for better long-term accessibility.

With Single Inbox, voicemail messages will appear as an email in Outlook with a transcription of the message in the email body and a recording of the message attached as a .wav file. Users can listen to, rewind and fast-forward these recorded messages using media players on their systems. Messages that are read or deleted in email will be marked as read or deleted within the voicemail system and vice versa. Likewise, the Message Waiting Indicator light on the user’s VoIP telephone will follow the status of voicemail messages delivered to their email account. Users may still listen to voicemail messages as they normally would on their phones.

Because voicemails will exist in Outlook, users can take advantage of Outlook’s organizational features by simply moving voicemail messages into related email folders such as ones for projects, certain co-workers or events. 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.

If you are not sure if your email is assigned to your phone number, follow the instructions outlined in the Knowledge Base at Telephony: Verifying or Changing the Ownership of a Voicemail of VoIP Telephone.

The new Single Inbox feature will be activated system-wide; however, users will be able to opt out.

Single Inbox is only available in areas serviced by the University’s Cisco voicemail system and whose users have migrated to Office 365. More information about Single Inbox can be found on the Knowledge Base at Telephony: Single Inbox/The Integration of Voicemail and Email with Office 365.

For questions or support, reach out to your local service desk; or contact the IT Service Desk via email at ITservicedesk@psu.edu, by phone at 814-863-4357 or in person at 130 W. Pattee Library at University Park.