Using Enable-UMMailbox cmdlet to enable user for UM throws the error message: “A name for the SIP resource identifier (for example, abc@def .com) must be specified.”

I came across an error message today while enabling users for Exchange UM that I thought was worth writing a post about because the message tip didn’t seem to clearly communicate the problem (at least not to me).

Problem

You’ve been using the Enable-UMMailbox cmdlet to enable users all day but you run into the following error message for a user:

[PS] C:\Windows\System32>Enable-UMMailbox -Identity user@domain.com -UMMailboxPolicy "Toronto Default Policy"
Enable-UMMailbox : A name for the SIP resource identifier (for example, abc@def
.com) must be specified.
At line:1 char:17
+ Enable-UMMailbox <<<< -Identity user@domain.com -UMMailboxPolicy "Toronto Default Policy"
[PS] C:\Windows\System32>

When I initially saw this message, the first thought I had was that Exchange was complaining about this person not being enabled for SIP but when I checked the user’s account properties, they already had a SIP address:

Resolution

After reviewing the users settings, I finally figured out that Exchange was actually complaining that it does not know what extension to give the user because the telephone number field for the user’s Active Directory account was not populated:

All I had to do was populate the field with their extension and rerun the PowerShell cmdlet:

Alternatively, you can also use the -Extensions parameters to specify the extension for the user. For more information, see the Enable-UMMailbox TechNet technical reference: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb676425(EXCHG.80).aspx