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Learn About Outlook Web App Voice Mail

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Applies to: Office 365 for enterprises, Microsoft Exchange

If your account is set up for voice mail, you can:

  • Listen to your voice mail, e-mail, and calendar on a phone using Outlook Voice Access.
  • Listen to your voice mail, e-mail, and calendar on a computer or mobile phone using a Web browser or another e-mail program.
  • Receive a text message that shows you part of your voice message in text (Voice Mail Preview).
  • Receive an e-mail message that shows you your entire voice mail message in text (Voice Mail Preview).
  • Call or record a voice message to send to a contact or hear details about the contact using Outlook Voice Access.
  • Use your voice to move through the menu options in Outlook Voice Access.
  • Personalize your voice mail greetings.

Listening to and Receiving Voice Messages

When callers leave voice messages for you, you can listen to the messages by signing in to your e-mail by using an e-mail program such as Outlook or Entourage, or by dialing the Outlook Voice Access number. You can also set up an e-mail account on your mobile phone. This account will download your voice messages. For details about setting up an e-mail account, see Set Up Your E-Mail Account on Your Mobile Phone.

When a caller leaves you a voice message, you can receive a text message on your mobile phone that contains a preview of part of the voice message in text. And when a caller leaves a voice message in your Inbox, the voice message will also be accompanied by the text of the entire message.

Accessing Your Voice Mail

You can call a voice mail access number from any phone to listen to your voice messages, listen to your e-mail, and access your calendar and your personal Contacts. You can have your e-mail and calendar appointments read to you, and make calls, record a voice message for and hear details about your contacts.

You can use your voice to move through the menu system to replay or pause voice mail, reply to or forward e-mail, create or cancel a meeting on your calendar, or get an e-mail address or phone number for a contact. If the voice mail system can't understand what you say or there's excessive background noise, you can use the touchtone interface to move through the menu system using your telephone keypad.

The Outlook Voice Access Quick Start Guide shows all the Outlook Voice Access menu options and how to move through the menu system. You can download a copy of the Quick Start Guide from the Microsoft Download Center.

Personalizing Your Voice Mail

You can record personal greetings to be used when callers reach your voice mail when you can't answer your phone or you're away for an extended period of time. You can also create call answering rules so a caller can leave a voice message for you, be transferred to another person, be transferred to another person's voice mail, be transferred to another phone number that you've set up, or press a key to have the voice mail system find you at another phone number.

What else do I need to know?

  • There are several mobile providers you can use with voice mail.
    • AT&T
    • Sprint
    • T-Mobile
    • Verizon
  • The voice mail service is available for the providers listed above and only for certain customers in certain regions. If you can use the voice mail service, you'll see a welcome message in your Inbox telling you how to set up voice mail for your account.