Cisco Unity Fundamentals

108 Chapter 4: Unified Communications Subscribers

COS settings should be in place before you define any subscriber templates. The account policy

and COS settings combine to provide system security and subscribers’ level of access to the

system and its features. Subscriber templates control the way subscribers interact with the

system on a daily basis. Once you have set up all your COS settings, you can define the settings

that will apply to groups of subscribers in the subscriber templates. At this point, you can begin

adding subscribers.

Understanding Cisco Unity Individual Subscriber

Accounts, Templates, and Settings

Subscribers are the main reason voice-messaging systems exist. A large part of an

administrator’s job, once the initial system setup is complete, involves moves, adds, and

changes to subscriber accounts. Knowing what kinds of accounts are available and how to set

them up efficiently can make your life as an administrator much easier. Thus, augmenting

individual subscriber accounts is discussed in the next section of this chapter.

To benefit fully from this section, it is recommended that you have the following prerequisite

skills and knowledge. (If you need a quick review, see the designated chapter, where you can

find more information on the topic.)

• A navigational understanding of the Cisco Unity System Administrator (see Chapter 3,

“Setting Up Cisco Unified Communications”)

• Cisco Unity standard features (see Chapter 1, “Cisco Unified Communications System

Fundamentals”)

Setting Subscriber Accounts Versus Subscriber Templates

A subscriber template is used as a “model” to specify the default settings of a new subscriber.

You can think of it as a one-time filter that the subscriber’s information passes through during

the creation process. When adding or importing a new subscriber, you must choose a template

to provide subscriber setting information. As you are adding the new subscriber, you supply

information that is specific to that subscriber, the extension, and the first and last name. After

the subscriber is added, you have other information that is available on an individual basis:

private distribution lists, message notification, and alternate extensions. Once the subscriber is

added to the Cisco Unity system, you can change any of the individual settings for that

subscriber.

Once a subscriber has been added using a particular template, any changes you make to the

account must be made on the individual subscriber’s page. Changes made on the subscriber

template apply only to subscribers added after the template is changed. This is the primary

reason for verifying the proper template configuration during the initial system setup.