Q4 '22 release

 Platform-wide feature

 Optional feature

General Availability Features

Service Cloud Voice

Consult with VBC Contact Directory Users

In the Q4 ‘22 release, we gave agents the ability to consult with VBC users, straight from the Omni-Channel widget or utility within Salesforce. Agents can also see if the user in VBC is available for a call or if they are already busy with another interaction.

This allows front office teams to easily contact back office teams. Agents can provide a better and quicker resolution to customers, as they can use one system to communicate with multiple parties.

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Consult with VBC Contact Directory Users

For more information, see the Consulting, transferring, and conferencing (or merging) calls section in Vonage Premier for Salesforce Voice.

Consult with Microsoft Teams Contact Directory Users

In Q4 ‘22, we also enabled agents to consult with Microsoft Teams users, straight from the Omni-Channel widget or utility within Salesforce. Agents can also see if the user in Microsoft Teams is available for a call or if they are already busy with another interaction.

This allows front office teams to easily contact back office teams. Agents can provide a better and quicker resolution to customers, as they can use one system to communicate with multiple parties.

Open

Consult with Microsoft Teams Contact Directory Users

For more information, see the Consulting, transferring, and conferencing (or merging) calls section in Vonage Premier for Salesforce Voice.

Salesforce Omni-Channel Flows Route VCC Calls to Agents

In Q4 ‘22, building on existing functionality, we enabled Salesforce Omni-Channel flows to route inbound calls to agents, as well as to interaction plans. This allows you to make routing decisions in Salesforce as well as in VCC. It also provides the option of using Salesforce as a single routing engine for all interactions. Having a single routing engine can reduce setup and maintenance time. The single routing engine can also ensure agents are routed work effectively across all channels.

For more information, see the Omni-Channel flow routing section in Vonage Premier for Salesforce Voice.

Salesforce Omni-Channel Flows Support Multiple Record Popping

As part of our integration with Omni-Channel flows in Salesforce, within a flow you can pop multiple records at once when the call is delivered to the agent. This means additional context can be provided to agents as soon as the call is presented to them. In turn, this allows agents to review all relevant information more quickly which can help reduce average handle time of the call.

For more information, see the Omni-Channel flow routing section in Vonage Premier for Salesforce Voice.

Auto Select Callback Number Based on Prefix of Number Dialed

Since the Q4 ‘22 release, agents can automatically present a callback number based on the prefix of the number dialed when making an outbound call in Service Cloud Voice. When making an outbound call to a geographical number, a callback number from the same geographical region is automatically selected and then presented. Automatically presenting local geographical numbers can reduce pre call admin time for agents as well as increase the likelihood of the recipient answering the call.

For more information, see the Prefix-based callback numbers section in Vonage Premier for Salesforce Voice.

Desktop Notifications for Inbound Calls

Not all agents spend all their time using Salesforce. For some of the time they may be using other applications such as Microsoft Word or Excel, or another browser-based application. When a call is presented to the agent within the Salesforce web application, the agent may not see it as their focus is on the other application. In the Q4 ‘22 release, we added desktop notifications that show the agent that there is an inbound call. The agent can click on the notification to be taken to the Salesforce web application for Service Cloud Voice.

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For more information, see the Desktop notifications for inbound calls section in Using Vonage Premier for Salesforce Voice.

Queued Callbacks

Queued callbacks are a core part of the Vonage Contact Center platform. Also known as virtual hold, it enables callers to drop from the inbound call queue while retaining their position in the queue. The caller is then contacted by the first available agent user. This capability is now available in our Service Cloud Voice integration. The configuration for queued callbacks in SCV is the same as for the core Vonage Contact Center platform.

For more information, see the Queued callbacks section in Vonage Premier for Salesforce Voice.

Salesforce Open CTI

Log A Call Enhancements in Lightning

In the Q4 ‘22 release, we gave Salesforce administrators greater control over Vonage’s Log a Call Lightning component. This feature is only available to users within Salesforce’s Lightning Experience, not within Classic.

Administrators can now restrict the objects that a call can be related to by replacing the standard RelatedTo Field on the Log a Call component with a custom field. They can also remove either or both of the Name and RelatedTo fields.

For more information, see Restricting which object types agents can relate calls to and Hiding fields for relating calls to objects.

VCC-VBC Integrated Experience

Transfer to Groups & Queues

VCC agents now have the capability to transfer to a VBC call group or call queue. Both call groups and call queues are at the bottom of the directory list. Entering “queue” or “group” in the search box will filter the list accordingly.

Administration

Feature Permissions Management in User Admin

Previously, managing feature permissions for supervisor and admin users could be done only within User Access and only for individual users. Permissions couldn't be managed for multiple users at the same time.

In the Q4 ‘22 release, we migrated permission management into User Admin. This was done in parity with User Access and takes advantage of User Admin capabilities.

The new section of feature permissions is now available in the single user form and in bulk actions. The ability to manage user permissions through bulk actions improves efficiency and significantly reduces time to manage permissions for multiple users.

For more information, see Configuring admin and supervisor feature permissions and the Permissions settings—Feature permissions section in Configuring multiple users (using bulk actions).

Service Name Reporting Improvements

Before the launch of Interaction Plans Manager (IPM), Interaction Architect had a one-to-one relationship between destinations and interaction plans. The name of the destination would always be provided to Salesforce Advanced Reporting, Insights Stats API, and Analytics in the service name property.

IPM reduced the number of interaction plans and removed this one-to-one relationship — many destinations can be mapped to a single interaction plan. Reporting groups, which relate to interaction plans, replaced the service names. Removing service names made reporting on landing destinations/numbers more difficult and reduced the visibility of where interactions originate.

In Q4 ‘22, we added a new property to destinations within IPM. This property allows admins to choose the source of the service name that will be assigned to the interaction for reporting.

The options available are:

• Reporting group (Default)

• Interaction plan name

• Destination name

The configured value flows through to the Insights Stats API, Analytics, Dashboards, and Salesforce Advanced Reporting.

For more information, see the Service names section in Interaction Plans Manager and Viewing service names in Real-time Analytics.

Automatic Presence Change After Wrap or Unexpected State

When an agent finishes a call they go into a wrap state. Or, if an agent can’t take a call for some reason they will be put into an unexpected state. Previously, after a configured timeout for the wrap or unexpected state expired, the agent would go back to a ready state. Since Q4 '22, administrators can configure post-wrap and post-unexpected states in each queue to control the state the agent is in after the wrap or unexpected state times out.

For more information, see Changing post wrap state and Changing post unexpected and fault state.

Removal of Duplicate Queued Callbacks 

Previously, if a caller was routed to a queue multiple times and requested a callback each time, they would receive multiple callbacks.

In the Q4 '22 release, we updated the Callback applet to check whether there is already a callback for this caller in this applet. If a callback already exists, the applet doesn’t create a new request. The Callback applet uses the caller's CLID to check for an existing callback. If the caller requests a callback from a different Callback applet—associated with a different queue possibly—they will still receive an additional callback.

For information, see the Duplicate callback calls section in Queued callbacks.

Analytics

Historical Data Available From 2018 Onwards

In the Q4 ‘22 release, we enabled Analytics to access historical data starting from 14th February 2018. Data from before February 2018 can be retrieved only from Stats and Reports.

For more information, see the What range of historical data is available? section in Overview of Historical Analytics.

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