To further enhance the database facility, Text To Speech facilities can also be licensed. TTS facilities can enhance the callers experience by allowing the system to read back to them any information that has been captured from a database. In the examples above, a Book Shop system, the caller dials into the system and is asked for an ISBN number or for the Author's name of the book they require. The caller enters an Authors name through the telephone keypad and the system locates the title of the book from the database. As well as finding the title, as in the wizard above, the system could also look up the Author of the book and whether there were any books in stock. By using TTS, the system could now respond to the call:

" The book, Lord Of The Rings, costing $6.99, written by J R R Tolkien is in stock".
Offering to allow the caller to order this book by entering contact and credit card details could now enhance this system further.

The TTS facility is provided as a license through the use of either the IPO LIC-IP400 Avaya TTS RFA 1 or IPO LIC - IP400 3rd PARTY TTS SPPRT RFA 1.

Each license purchased provides a single use of a TTS engine, multiple engines can be licensed on each Voicemail Pro system. For example, a four port Voicemail may have two TTS licenses enabled, these two TTS engines will be used by all four Voicemail ports on a first come first served basis. At any instance in time only two callers can use the TTS facility in this example. Purchasing additional licenses will increase the number of TTS engines available.

The Avaya TTS RFA1 utilizes the Avaya TTS engine. In addition to this license the TTS software media pack IPO CD - IPO AVAYA TTS CD SET will also need to be ordered, this is a 5 CD set containing the TTS engine software and all supported languages.
The 3rd Party TTS SPPRT RFA provides the Voicemail system with a SAPI 5 interface for use with another suppliers TTS engine. When using this license, Voicemail Pro will look for a pre-installed SAPI 5 compliant TTS engine on the Voicemail Pro server and utilize this for the delivery of TTS facilities. Once again a TTS RFA will be needed for each TTS engine that is required. For information, all Microsoft Server Operating systems are shipped with the Microsoft TTS engine included as part of the system. As a result this engine should be available for use by a customer as default. The Microsoft TTS engine will operate with Voicemail Pro.
The Avaya TTS engine currently includes 14 languages as default. During installation the Administrator can select which Languages they wish to have installed on the Voicemail Pro server. Once installed on the Voicemail Pro server the TTS engine can use any combination of these languages. The language used will be decided by the system or user localization that is configured. This means that multi language solutions can be easily provided, for example some users may have their emails read in US English and others have theirs read in Chinese. Within a call flow, information can also be read back to callers in different languages by using the 'System Prompt Language' to select the require language.

Email Reading with Text-to-Speech & Microsoft Exchange

In addition to providing a unified mailbox for voicemails, emails and Fax message, Voicemail Pro can also provide the ability to retrieve Voice and Email messages through the telephone. When operating in Intuity mode and with the system licensed for Text To Speech (TTS) facilities the user will be presented with a list of both Voicemail messages and Email messages. The emails can be read out over the telephone in any of the supported 14 languages, based upon the system or user localization settings. The benefit to the user is that their messages are now accessible while in and out of the office through any telephone.

When accessing messages through the telephone all new Voicemail messages will be presented to the mailbox owner before any new Email messages. When accessing an Email message the system refers to the message as "New message with text".
The TTS facility is provided as a license through the use of either the IPO LIC-IP400 Avaya TTS RFA 1 or IPO LIC - IP400 3rd PARTY TTS SPPRT RFA 1 (see TTS in Call Flows for a description of these two licenses and the TTS media pack).

The differences between these two licenses are the language support and a difference in the Email reading capability. With the Avaya TTS RFA, a TTS engine is included with support for a minimum of 14 languages. All languages supported are included are made available as part of the license charge and TTS media pack (see TTS in Call Flows for a list of supported languages). Furthermore, when reading emails the Avaya TTS engine will analyzes (parse) the Email contents and only play out information that is appropriate, with the 3rd Party TTS RFA the capabilities offered will depend upon the TTS engine that is then utilized.

Configuring the reading of emails to users is a simple exercise. Firstly, TTS services will be loaded onto the Voicemail Pro server (the Avaya TTS media pack will install the Avaya TTS engine). Secondly a license key will need to be purchased and entered into IP Office manager. Thirdly, for each user who is wishes to utilize Email reading, the user's email address will need to be entered into the User profile details in IP Office Manager and the facility enabled through the email reading checkbox.