/mcp• Dial Plan: The dial plan in Unity Connection provides flexibility and access to resources, users, and features through the use of partitions and calling search spaces. Partitions enable an organization to segment resources in Unity Connection for the purpose of dialing, transfers, messaging, addressing, or multi-tenant functionality. The dial plan is an addressing method defined by the network administrator. Partitions are logical groupings of devices with similar reachability and a Search Space is an ordered list of partitions. Extensions must be unique within a partition, but not necessary in case of search spaces. For more information on dial plan, see the Call Management, on page 83 chapter. • Call Routing: Call routing provides a method to route calls from a call agent to Unity Connection. Routing rules influence the call routing as an incoming call is presented to Unity Connection on a voicemail port. The direct routing rule and forwarded routing rules are the two routing rules that can be applied on the calls placed directly to a voicemail number or the calls forwarded when a user is busy. User experience varies depending on the type of caller (internal or outside caller). For more information on call routing, see the Call Management, on page 83 chapter. • Call Management Handlers: Unity Connection offers various handlers as part of call management plan that includes System Call Handlers, Directory Handlers, and Interview Handlers. • A System Call Handler can serve multiple functions in Unity Connection, such as answering calls and playing a recorded announcement to other users or other call handlers. The call handlers are based on pre-defined call handler templates and the functions vary depending on the current call routing rule. The Directory Handlers provide an easy access method to reach the subscribers with recorded names. Interview Handlers offers a way to gather information from callers by playing a series of questions and recording the answers. You can customize the handlers over the phone to offer better user experience. For more information on call management handlers, see the Call Management, on page 83 chapter. Connecting Various Locations in a Network Networking in Unity Connection clusters enables the system administrators to inter-network with other voice messaging systems to achieve inter-interoperability and high scalability. Depending on the messaging needs of the organization, multiple Unity Connection directories (Unity Connection servers or clusters) can be combined to form a site (and to interlink multiple Unity Connection sites to form a voicemail organization. Unity Connection allows you to meet your expanding business needs by providing various networking options: • VPIM: Unity Connection as a unified messaging system provides VPIM gateways with on ramps (gateways that connects from another voicemail networking protocol to VPIM) and off ramp (gateways that connect from VPIM to another voicemail networking protocol) to allow integration of similar and dissimilar messaging systems, such as Avaya Solutions and Unity Connection. Voice Profile for Internet Mail (VPIM) protocol is an industry standard that allows different voice messaging systems to exchange voice and text messages over the Internet or any TCP/IP network. It is based on the Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) and the Multi-Purpose Internet Mail Extension (MIME) protocol. For more information on VPIM, see the Networking, on page 125 chapter. Unity Connection supports up to 10 VPIM locations and 100,000 VPIM contacts in the Unity Connection directory. Note • Legacy Networking: Unity Connection supports intrasite and intersite networking between various Unity Connection clusters. System Administration Guide 9 Introduction Connecting Various Locations in a Network