Thomas A. Alspaugh, Annie I. Antón, and Abdi Modarressi
19 June 2001
(HTML encoding revised 15 Jan 2004)
announcement A subscriber's announcement is a recording that a caller hears when he or she reaches the subscriber's voice mailbox.
archived message An archived message is a message that the subscriber has listened to and has marked so that he/she can listen to it again later. An archived message can be kept for some long (but not unlimited) period of time. (See message state.)
caller A caller is a person (or automatic device) who has called a subscriber's voice mailbox.
command A command is an input to EMS from a subscriber or caller. Commands are presently given by punching keys on a telephone keypad, although there are other possibilities such as voice recognition.
EMS EMS is the Enhanced Messaging System.
erased message A erased message is one that has been erased. Nothing else can be done to it. (See message state.)
held message A held message is one that has been listened to or skipped, but not archived. (See message state.)
message state A message state is one of the following: new message, held message, archived message, or erased message. Each message is initially a new message.
next message An urgent new message, if there are any; otherwise, the newest remaining message.
new message A new message is one for which no action has yet been taken. (See message state.)
old archived message An old archived message is an archived message that was received more than some certain interval of time ago.
old held message An old held message is a held message that was received more than some certain interval of time ago. The interval of time need not be the same as that for old archived messages (and is expected to be substantially shorter).
passcode A passcode is a confidential sequence of digits, asterisks, and hashes (the symbols on a telephone keypad) that is used by a subscriber to identify himself/herself to EMS.
private A private message is one that the caller that left it identified as such by a command; private messages may not to be forwarded.
recipient A recipient is either a single phone number, or a group of phone numbers already defined by a subscriber and identified by a two-digit number.
stuttered dial tone A stuttered dial tone is a dial tone that begins with an alternating tone-silence pattern.
subscribed phone The subscribed phone is the subscriber's phone; callers to this phone are directed to the subscriber's voice mailbox if their call is not answered after a certain number of rings (or if the subscriber's phone is busy).
subscriber The subscriber is a person for whom EMS provides a voice mailbox.
urgent An urgent message is one that the caller that left it identified as such by a command; urgent messages are treated with a higher priority in certain cases.
R1.1. Access EMS The subscriber shall dial a phone number for EMS in order to use it.
R1.2. Access from another phone EMS shall require a subscriber to enter his/her phone number when calling from a phone other than the subscribed phone.
R1.2.1. Identity cue EMS shall announce the subscriber's name.
R1.3. Passcode EMS shall require a subscriber to dial a passcode.
R1.4. Passcode authentication EMS shall authenticate the passcode dialed by the subscriber.
R1.5. Subscription Subscription to voice mail is not handled by EMS.
R1.5.1. Initial passcode A subscriber shall be given an initial passcode by the system that handles subscription.
R2.1. Change passcode EMS shall allow the subscriber to change his/her passcode.
R2.2. Configure announcement EMS shall allow a subscriber to configure the announcement a caller hears before leaving a message.
R2.2.1. Record announcement EMS shall record the subscriber's name and announcement.
R2.2.2. Default announcement EMS shall allow the subscriber to choose a default announcement rather than recording one of his/her own.
R2.2.3. Confirm announcement EMS shall play the subscriber's newly recorded name andDTerm(announcement) for confirmation. EMS shall require the subscriber to confirm the name and announcement for purposes of saving.
R2.2.4. Announcement configuration exit EMS shall allow a subscriber to exit from configuring their announcement.
R2.2.5. Configure announcement bypass EMS shall allow a subscriber to configure their announcement to allow or prevent callers from bypassing it.
R2.3. Phone number group EMS shall allow a subscriber to set up recipients that stand for groups of phone numbers.
R3.1.1. Check for messages EMS shall allow a subscriber to check for messages.
R3.1.2. How many messages EMS shall notify a subscriber of how many new, held, and archived messages they have when the subscriber checks.
R3.1.3. Pager notification EMS shall support pager notification; that is, EMS shall be able to call a subscriber's pager when an urgent message is received.
R3.1.4. Stuttered dial tone EMS shall support notification by stuttered dial tone; that is, EMS shall interact as necessary with other systems so that when the subscriber has one or more new messages, the subscribed phone will give a stuttered dial tone rather than a standard dial tone.
R3.1.5. New message light EMS shall support notification by "new message" light; that is, EMS shall interact as necessary with other systems so that if the subscribed phone has a "new message" light, that light is on when the subscriber has one or more new messages.
R3.2.1. Presentation sequence EMS shall present messages in the following order: old archived messages and old held messages; then urgent new messages, from newest to oldest; and finally all other messages, from newest to oldest.
R3.2.2. Listen to messages EMS shall allow a subscriber to enter a command and listen to messages one after another. Listening to a new message changes its state to held message.
R3.2.3. Skip rest of message EMS shall allow a subscriber to skip the remainder of a new, held, or archived message rather than listen to all of it. This is allowed for messages whether they are urgent, private, or neither. Skipping a new message changes its state to held message. Skipping a held message or archived message does not affect its state.
R3.2.4. Next message EMS shall move to the next message when the subscriber takes one of the following actions: listen to the next message, archive the current message, or erase the current message.
R3.2.5. Jump within message EMS shall allow a subscriber to skip around within a message while listening to it: to its beginning or end, and 5 seconds forward or backward.
R3.2.6. Date and time If the subscriber requests it by a command after EMS plays a message, EMS shall also play the time and date the message was received and the phone number it came from.
R3.2.7. Erase message EMS shall allow a subscriber to erase a new message, held message, or archived message. Erasing a message changes its message state to erased message.
R3.2.8. Archive message EMS shall allow a subscriber to archive a held message. Archiving a message changes its state to archived message.
R3.2.9. Reply EMS shall allow a subscriber to reply to a held message or archived message by recording a message to be sent to the subscriber who left the original message.
R3.2.10. Forward EMS shall allow a subscriber to forward a held message or archived message to a recipient, if that message is not a private message.
R3.2.11. Forward with preface EMS shall allow a subscriber to forward a held or archived message to a recipient, if that message is not a private message, and to record a preface to be forwarded along with the message.
R3.2.12. Confidential This requirement is excluded from public versions of the requirements.
R3.2.13. Record new EMS shall allow a subscriber to record a message and send it to a recipient. This can occur at any point, and the recipient need not be a caller who has left a message.
R3.2.14. Idle limit EMS shall hang up if no action is taken within some limit of time.
R3.2.15. Prompt on old held EMS shall prompt a subscriber to erase or archive each old held message before EMS allows the subscriber to listen to any other messages or take any other action other than forwarding the message (see R3.2.7 "Erase", R3.2.8 "Archive", and R3.2.10 "Forward").
R3.2.16. Prompt on old archived EMS shall prompt a subscriber to erase each old archived message before EMS allows the subscriber to listen to any other messages or take any other action other than forwarding the message (see R3.2.7 "Erase" and R3.2.10 "Forward").
R3.2.17. Erasing is final EMS shall allow no actions to be taken on an erased message.
| Summary of subscriber actions that can be taken for/at messages in each state | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Action | "new" | "held" | "archived" | "erased" |
| listen R3.2.2, R3.2.3 | yes | yes | yes | no |
| date and time R3.2.6 | yes | yes | yes | no |
| erase R3.2.7 | no | yes | yes | no |
| archive R3.2.8 | no | yes | no | no |
| reply R3.2.9 | no | yes | yes | no |
| forward R3.2.10, R3.2.11 | no | yes | yes | no |
| call R3.2.12 | no | yes | yes | no |
| record new R3.2.13 | yes | yes | yes | no |
R4.1. Play announcement EMS shall play the subscriber's name and announcement to each caller.
R4.2. Leave message EMS shall allow a caller to leave a message.
R4.3. Review message EMS shall allow a caller to review the message he/she has just left, and re-record it if he/she wishes.
R4.4. Urgent or private EMS shall allow a caller to distinguish his/her message as urgent or as private by giving a command.
R4.5. Return to operator EMS shall support caller-return-to-operator (allow a caller to press 0 to reach a receptionist).
R4.6. Bypass announcement If the subscriber has configured his/her announcement to allow it, EMS shall allow a caller to bypass the announcement by pressing a code.
R4.7. Call EMS directly EMS shall allow a caller to leave a message for a subscriber in two ways: by calling the subscriber's number (if the subscriber doesn't answer), and by calling EMS directly.
(None so far)
1. Administrative requirements are explicitly outside the scope of these requirements.
2. It is assumed that EMS has been set up appropriately by an administrator.
3. "Sunny day" operation is assumed.
4. Multiple mailboxes and sub-mailboxes are not considered.
5. There is a limit within which EMS must be checked - beyond that time some action is taken (perhaps move all messages received more than a certain number of days ago to secondary storage). But we won't worry about this.
6. A useful extension would be to allow certain actions on erased message - listen to and unerase - and have erased messages vanish at the end of the session. But that is beyond the scope of what we are doing.
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