Spring '20 release

General Availability Features

Vonage integration

Vonage rebrand

Your NVM Contact Center has got a new name and a new look—but, other than new Spring '20 features, its functionality has stayed the same. The NVM brand has been sunsetted, so all our products and communications now bear the Vonage brand. It’s most obvious at log in, across your Admin Portal, and on ContactPad. The product name has changed to Vonage Contact Center—because the Vonage brand is all about being clear and straightforward in everything we do.

Vonage Contact Center and Vonage Business Communications integration

This Spring we are integrating Vonage Contact Center (VCC)—formerly NewVoiceMedia—and Vonage Business Communications (VBC)—formerly Vonage Business Cloud. This integration will provide the following benefits:

• Synchronization of presence, reflecting a user's availability to work with interactions in either platform

• Shared directory of VCC and VBC contacts, making these contacts available in both platforms for consults, transfers, and conferences

• Single interface, in which ContactPad is integrated with VBC desktop, for controlling calls

More information will follow shortly.

Sales

Salesforce High Velocity Sales (HVS) Integration

Spring '20 included HVS Integration which integrates Vonage Contact Center with Salesforce's High Velocity Sales (HVS) product. If enabled for your account, your agents can contact leads using ContactPad. Those leads can progress through the cadence process based on the outcome of calls made.

For information about HVS integration, see Sales Engagement Powered by Vonage.

User experience

Screen Lock for Vonage Contact Center

The Screen Lock for Vonage Contact Center extension updates an agent's state whenever their computer locks—either manually, by the agent, or automatically, due to inactivity.

The agent can choose from Away, Extended Away or Log Out states, plus any minor states within them. Changing their state to one of these will prevent Vonage Contact Center from delivering interactions that the agent is unable to handle because their computer is locked.

For more information, see ContactPad with Screen Lock for Vonage Contact Center.

Telecommunications

CLI validation changes (UK)

New regulations in the UK require us to validate caller line identities (CLIDs). The CLIDs must be both in a valid format and within a valid range. Vonage Contact Center is being updated to validate CLIDs that we receive and replace them, where required, to ensure the call continues correctly.

Vonage Contact Center WebRTC

From Spring '20, existing WebRTC customers are being migrated to our own WebRTC implementation. Administrators need to update firewalls to allow traffic from a new list of IP addresses. When configured correctly, agents will not notice any changes before, during, or after migration.

For information about using Vonage Contact Center with WebRTC, see ContactPad with WebRTC.

Report audio problems

Using ContactPad, from Spring '20 onward, agents can report any audio problems experienced during a call. Reportable problems include echo, distortion, delay, and so on. Any problems with inbound calls are viewable in Dashboards.

For information about reporting audio problems, see Reporting problems in ContactPad.

Recording

Auto pause/resume recordings when going on/off hold

By default, when an agent puts a call—which is being recorded—on hold, Vonage Contact Center continues to record the call. Agents must manually pause and resume call recording before and after putting the call on hold if they wish to stop recording.

From Spring '20 and if enabled for your account, when the agent puts a call on hold, recording is automatically paused and then resumed when the agent retrieves the call.

For information about automatically pausing and resuming recordings, see Call recording.

Interaction Architect

Set Data Source enhancement

Previously, administrators could create one data source in each Set Data Source applet. Since Spring '20, administrators can create, or delete, up to 100 data sources using the Set Data Source applet.

For information about the Set Data Source applet, see Set Data Source applet.

User Admin

Scheduled logout (previously limited availability—generally available from Spring '20)

If an agent forgets to log out of ContactPad at the end of their shift, Vonage Contact Center may deliver an interaction to them that they are unavailable to work with.

The scheduled logout feature, available since Spring '20, ensures that agents are logged out at the end of their shifts, preventing Vonage Contact Center from routing interactions to agents who are not available to handle the interactions.

Agents can still log out and back in manually. If the agent needs to carry on working after the rule has logged them out, they can log back in to ContactPad in the usual way.

If an agent is handling an interaction when the rule tries to log them out of ContactPad, the rule changes the agent’s intended state to Logged Out. The rule changes the user's intended state regardless of whether the agent’s account is configured to use intended states. NewVoiceMedia automatically logs the agent out when they finish working on the interaction, including any automatic wrap up time.

For information about configuring schedules that define when to log agents out of ContactPad, see Configuring schedules.

Custom unexpected and fault state timeouts (previously limited availability—generally available from Spring '20)

Previously administrators could configure the timeout period of unexpected and fault states at group level only. Since Spring '20, administrators can configure custom timeouts at agent level for the following states:

• Agent No Answer Timeout (Unexpected)

• Agent Line Busy Timeout (Unexpected)

• Agent Invalid Number Timeout (Fault)

• Agent Network Issue Timeout (Fault)

At the end of the configured period, the agent’s state is changed to Ready.

For information about configuring custom unexpected and fault state timeouts, see Configuring individual users.

Reporting

Advanced Reporting and Statistics in Salesforce

Since Spring '20, the Advanced Reporting and Statistics package is generally available in Salesforce if enabled for your account.

For information about Advanced Reporting and Statistics, see Advanced Reporting and Statistics in Salesforce.

Dashboards

External data integration for Dashboards (previously known as Insights Data Source Mapping)

If data source data is available for interactions, since Spring '20, administrators can configure their Vonage Contact Center account to make that information available as custom metrics in Dashboards. When configured, this information is also accessible through the Insights Stats API.

For information about viewing data source data in Dashboards, see Viewing mapped data source data in Real-time Analytics.

Conversation Analyzer

Adding new languages to Conversation Analyzer

Previously, Conversation Analyzer supported six languages. In the Spring release, this support was extended to handle twenty two languages.

For information about which languages are now supported, see Overview of Conversation Analyzer.

Furthermore, English (Global) transcription has been improved.

Pilot

Global PCI

IVR secure payments

IVR secure payments, available as a pilot feature in Spring '20, extends PCI Pal Agent Assist Secure Payments to enable agents to take secure payments through an IVR.

Firstly, a Data Connector obtains cardholder data. The secure PCI Pal IVR service then collects sensitive credit card information and transmits that data to your merchant payment service provider for processing. The Data Connector can write transaction results into a backend system.

Virtual Assistant (pilot)

Our Virtual Assistant uses artificial intelligence to:

• Deliver enhanced self-service interactions.

• Enable additional capacity within your contact center.

• Interpret what the customer’s question is and, if required, ask clarifying questions to formulate the appropriate response. That response may reference content from an FAQ, proposing an action to update or read customer data, or routing the call to the correct queue within Interaction Architect.