Voicemail with Zimbra

I would like to implement voicemail functionality with Zimbra - so, somebody could leave voice message to customer, customer can later log in (via phone) and listen to this message. The first part is ok - the message with wav file attachment is in the mailbox. But then - I'm really confused. The issue is about password for logging into mailbox. When subscriber calls in, he can provide only DTMF input (which is digits only). But, I can't authenticate this user in Zimbra - because there he has password with digits, punctuation sighs and etc ...). So, do you have any idea, how would it be possible to implement user authentication with password, other than stored in Zimbra for accessing web interface?

For example, I could use some other field in LDAP to store digits-only password, and authenticate user against that. But, even if user enters digits pass correctly - I still need to provide his real password in IMAP client in order to fetch the message and play voice attachment to the user. And, this actual password is stored in LDAP encrypted - so I can't read it.

How would you be planning the PSTN-to-Zimbra bridge?
Are you sure an email server is the best way to solve this, wouldnt an Asterisk or freeswitch box be more suited?

PSTN-to-Zimbra is done through SIP vioce gateway. And - yes, you are right - Asterisk would be good - but I will also need ASR and TTS. So, I will use another commercial product with MRCP support (this would be GVP from Genesys).

Asterisk does support Automated Speech Recognition in a very cost effective way with the module from Vestec.
Cepstral Text to Speech functionality works great with Asterisk as sounds almost lifelike (pick Alison would be my advice)

You have me on MRCP though, I dont know what that is.
Given that Asterisk can store its voicemail in an imap store, it'q quite feasible to use Zimbra to hold that, but you would likely need to use a forumalted password that each system knows. That way the Asterisk server would authenticate the caller by DTMF and then signin to the Zimbra server using a stored or calculated password, there's no need to the caller to be able to, or authorised to, access the Zimbra server directly.

I dont know if any of that helps though, or even if it begins to answer your initial question! If I'm way off Im sure someone else will chime in and correct me soon :)

Does anyone know where Zimbra is headed with Telephony?

Zimbra Calendar is an open source group calendar with Linux and Mac OS X server This is from the Zimbra website but it says it will be released as bata in v3.2 is that 7.3.2?? or is this link on the website old?

If it is 7.3.2, than does anyone know when it is expected to be released as stable?

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Sorry for all the questions but we are looking to replace our pbx and don't want to make a switch yet if zimbra is going to be integrating something here soon

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Originally Posted by 50asm

...or is this link on the website old?

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Yes, it's very old.