Q3 '24 release

 Platform-wide feature

 Paid-for feature

 Enhancement to paid-for feature

Important updates

Launch of the new web address for VCC — vonage.com

In the Q3 2024 release, we are delighted to be introducing new regional URLs for all Vonage Contact Center products and services. This update is part of our ongoing efforts to enhance brand consistency and respond to customer feedback regarding the discontinuation of the NewVoiceMedia brand.
We’ve introduced new cc.vonage.com domains, which will eventually replace the old newvoicemedia.com domains for all our regional services. This change aims to reduce confusion and provide consistency.

Single Sign-On URLs and email links have also been updated to reflect the new URLs. While we encourage the use of our new URLs, the existing newvoicemedia.com URLs will continue to function to ensure no disruption to your service. Links sent within email notifications will begin using the cc.vonage.com domain.

These URLs will be available following the Q3 2024 release. Users are advised to update their bookmarks and any stored links to the new URLs as soon as possible. We believe these changes will provide all users with a more seamless and cohesive experience. For any questions or additional support, please contact our support team.

Historical Analytics: License rightsizing for beta customers

During the Historical Analytics beta phase, all customers who joined the early access program could assign unlimited Historical Analytics viewer and creator licenses.

Over the next three months, we will be rolling out the Historical Analytics default license model to all beta customers. This change means that any accounts using more licenses than the default model allows will need to purchase additional licenses or remove any excess Historical Analytics licenses. For more information on the Historical Analytics default license model, see Historical Analytics licenses and access.

CRM Admin updates

We are updating the Salesforce page within the Business Apps section of the VCC portal, starting with renaming it to CRM Admin. Additionally, we are adding the ability to link Microsoft Dynamics, Zendesk, and Google organizations to the VCC.

General Availability Features

Vonage Premier for Service Cloud Voice

Automatic enforced disposition codes 

We're excited to introduce enforced automatic disposition codes for Vonage Premier for Service Cloud Voice. With this feature, interactions will automatically be assigned a disposition code relating to what happened — the call was not connected or a contact left a voicemail, for example. The feature prevents Vonage Contact Center from assigning the next interaction to an agent until a code for their previous interaction is provided. The disposition code will be seamlessly integrated into the standard Salesforce voice call record.

Visual Engagement

Invite mechanism now supports email 

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Agents will soon have the ability to send video session invitations via email with Visual Engagement, replacing the previous SMS method. Agents will be able to simply enter the recipient’s email address in ContactPad and send an email with a link to join the video session. This new option provides participants with greater flexibility, allowing them to join video sessions easily from a computer or a mobile device.

Conversation Analyzer

Sentiment analysis — now generally available 

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We’re pleased to announce that sentiment analysis will be generally available. This feature will display the sentiment trend throughout a call for both agents and customers. Sentiment trends range from very negative, through neutral, to very positive, represented by red, amber, and green respectively. The data will be available in Salesforce and through our APIs, enabling users to create insightful conversational analyses. For example, users will be able to identify which calls, and thus which agents, exhibit the most (or least) positive (or negative) sentiment, and track sentiment changes throughout the call. Users will be able to uncover calls that started well and ended poorly from a sentiment perspective. Sentiment analysis will be available only in English.

In the following image, you can see that the call started well but deteriorated, recovered a little, and deteriorated again in the middle, and then got better at the end.

Summarization — now generally available 

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After the Q3 2024 release, supervisors will be able to generate summaries by clicking the new Conversation summary tab, located next to the existing Conversation transcription tab. Summaries will be generated upon request using the Google Vertex AI engine and include key topics and follow-up actions. This feature will be available in English only.

Please note that due to legal agreements, rather than technical constraints, the current summary feature is not suitable for HIPAA customers. Further, the creation of the summary is processed in the U.S.

Custom object records for subcategories in Salesforce 

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Currently, Conversation Analyzer creates reportable insights in Salesforce, but this requires a field to be created for each category and subcategory on the Call Summary object. This approach has the benefit of integrating the data into existing call objects, avoiding additional storage usage.

With our upcoming feature, Conversation Analyzer will create a new record in Salesforce for each identified subcategory. While this new method uses additional Salesforce storage, it significantly reduces administration tasks and simplifies reporting. This feature is optional, allowing you to enable it based on your preference and needs. If you choose not to use this new approach, your current setup will remain unchanged.

The following images show the new data structure and an example report.

Agent Experience

ContactPad: My call history feature 

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We’re excited to announce enhancements to the personal and outbound call history feature in ContactPad. Agents will now be able to view the history of all calls made or received and copy the interaction ID of past interactions for easier reference and follow-up.

Please note that when using ContactPad embedded within Salesforce, the Copy ID button will not be available due to Salesforce restrictions. However, the interaction IDs will still be visible for manual copying to ensure functionality is not compromised.

Administration

Two-factor authentication via email — now generally available 

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We are delighted to announce that two-factor authentication (2FA) via email will be generally available in our upcoming release. This marks a significant milestone in our ongoing commitment to fortifying the security of Vonage products.

With this feature, once 2FA is enabled on your account, administrators will be able to enforce mandatory two-factor authentication for selected users. Upon activation, users will receive a one-time code sent directly to their email during login. This code will be essential to complete the authentication process, providing an added layer of security. After successful verification, users will enjoy a seven-day trust period before needing to re-authenticate with 2FA, unless their IP address changes or they use a different browser.

This feature builds on the early access program introduced in our Q3 2023 release and continues our efforts to enhance security across the VCC platform.

Contact your Vonage Account Manager or Customer Success Manager if you want to enable two-factor authentication via email in your account.

New permission control for skill and group deletion 

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We are introducing a significant enhancement to our permissions system, providing greater control over who can manage groups and skills within the platform. Previously, only platform administrators could delete groups and skills, and this permission was automatically enabled for all administrators.

With this update, a new specific permission will be introduced to control who can perform these actions. Account admins will now be able to decide and control who can delete groups and skills. It will be possible to remove this permission from specific admins, ensuring that only selected individuals have access to this action. By default, administrators will have this permission enabled.

This enhancement to our permissions system empowers our customers with greater control over their portal activities, particularly for such critical actions as deleting groups and skills. We believe this update will provide a more secure and customizable user experience.

Insights

Insights Stats API: Interaction outcome insights 

Introducing a powerful enhancement to the Insights Stats API: the new outcome parameter. This parameter aims to simplify interaction reporting, making it easier to analyze and understand the results of your interactions.

Outcome will provide a high-level, automatic description of the interaction conclusion. If the interaction is still ongoing, the outcome will be null. An interaction may have multiple possible values, but the one with the highest level of importance will be returned. The examples of interaction outcome can be:

• Callback not connected. An outbound call from an agent to an external contact was started, but the external contact did not answer. The outbound call was initiated due to a callback request being routed to the agent.
• Outbound connected. An outbound interaction from an agent to an external contact was started and the external contact accepted. 
• Handled by agent. An inbound interaction from an external contact was connected to at least one agent.
• Abandoned in queue. An external contact on an inbound interaction ended the interaction while waiting in a queue.

A list of all possible interaction outcomes, provided in order of importance, can be found in the Insights Stats API documentation

Historical Analytics: Interaction summary dataset — now generally available 

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We are pleased to announce the global availability of the Interaction Summary data within Historical Analytics. This dataset includes over 90 new dimensions and measures that aggregate and report at the level of individual interactions. It is ideal for reporting in scale on overall interactions without focusing on individual interaction events, for which the Interaction Events dataset can be used.

With Interaction Summary, users will be able to report on metrics such as average handle time, average interaction duration, talk time, customer hold time, or agent alerting time. Users will be able to easily report on call volume distribution by the hour, or get the interaction count by the outcome, among other capabilities.

To get the list of all available dimensions and measures, see Historical Analytics reference Interaction summary fields.

Team Monitoring and Real-time Analytics: Compact view enhancement 

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In Q3 2024, we are introducing a significant new Team Monitoring and Real-time Analytics feature: the compact view. This enhancement will enable users to display more information and data on the screen, improving efficiency and user experience.

Users will be able to achieve a more than 60% increase in the amount of information displayed on the screen at once. In our testing, an HD screen resolution increased the number of agents shown from 14 to 23 in Team Monitoring and from 19 to 29 in Real-Time Analytics.

This update is part of our ongoing commitment to delivering improvements that enhance your experience with Team Monitoring and Real-time Analytics. The introduction of the compact view will address the common concern of reduced data display capacity in the new Team Monitoring platform.

Real-time Analytics: Agent side panel upgrade 

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We’re delighted to share news about an upgrade to the agent side panel. Users managed within a Team Monitoring dashboard will have clickable links within embedded Real-time Analytics dashboards. This functionality will provide supervisors with quick access for changing an agent's presence or monitoring a call when viewing Real-time Analytics.

All agents who are members of a team will be clickable; when clicked, the agent side panel will appear over the top of the Real-time dashboard. The user must click the agent name to open the side panel. Clicking the remainder of the row will open the existing Inspect agent dialog.

Any agents not linked to the Team’s dashboard will not be rendered with links.

This feature will be present for supervisors or administrators viewing a Real-time Analytics dashboard only when embedded within a Team Monitoring dashboard.

Real-time Analytics: User experience improvements 

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Within the Q3 2024 release, we’re introducing several user experience improvements to Real-time Analytics.

Inspect agents and interactions within the Explore view

When supervisors explore an Interaction Details or Agents widget, they will be able to click any row and enter the Inspect agent or Inspect interaction view. This enhancement will improve the overall usability of monitoring dashboards, especially for accounts with lots of interactions in their lists.

Filter icons

Another enhancement we’re introducing to the Real-time Analytics applies to the filters section. Users frequently were confused as to what filters were applied to the widget. They had to open and check each available filter group within the widget. With this change, a filter icon will appear next to any active filter group within the widget. This small tweak will bring significant usability improvement, helping users to easily notice that a filter has been applied to the widget.

Agent state metric

The agent state metric visible in Team Monitoring will soon be available within Real-Time Analytics. This metric provides a composite view of the overall agent state, across both their presence and assigned interactions. 

The metric will be most useful when users want a high-level view of each agent's status in a single metric.

Badge designs

The badges showing states and thresholds within Real-time Analytics will be aligned with Team Monitoring to make the same badges easily recognizable across both product areas.

Team Monitoring: Optional agent ID column 

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We are excited to introduce a new optional column for the agent ID in Team Monitoring. This column will be hidden by default, but users can show it using the show/hide column feature, as shown in the following image:

Platform

Queued callback now uses ACD ringing timeout for agents 

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We are pleased to announce a recent update that enhances the management of queued callbacks in our system. This improvement is already live and will streamline your call-handling process.

Previously, the default ringing timeout for delivering a queued callback was 60 seconds, mirroring the timeout behavior for new outbound calls. This setup could lead to inconsistency in how different call types were managed.

We have adjusted the system to ensure that queued callbacks use the No answer timeout settings configured within the Automatic Call Distributor (ACD) applet. This change aligns queued callbacks with our system's expected behavior, ensuring consistency and efficiency in call handling.

This update requires no action and has been implemented automatically to enhance your service experience. We encourage you to review any relevant system settings to ensure they meet your operational needs.

Beta/Early Access Program

Our Beta/Early Access Program gives some customers access to VCC enhancements that are still under development. Incorporating customer feedback during the program allows us to continue improving these features, ensuring that every feature fulfills its purpose in various environments. All customers using Beta/Early Access Program features must agree to participate in the feedback process.

If you are interested in gaining access to a feature in the Beta/Early Access Program, please contact your Customer Success Manager or Account Manager. Participation in this pilot program is at the discretion of Product Management and not guaranteed.

Centralized Scheduling — early access 

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We are thrilled to introduce an enhanced experience for managing contact center schedules with Centralized Scheduling, available now in early access.

Currently, opening times are controlled within the Router-Time based applet within Interaction Plan Architect. This experience is not as intuitive as it should be for such a critical function.

To address this, we will be rolling out a more user-friendly approach for admins to control their contact center schedules. The feature consists of two main parts: a centralized admin page for creating schedules and a new applet within Interaction Architect.

• New centralized admin page
  Within the admin page, admins can create and manage schedules. Within these schedules, admins will be able to set time zones and define timings for each day, including multiple timings per day. Additionally, they will be able to assign default and corresponding service statuses for those times. Service statuses, such as Closed, Open, Lunch, and Special day, will translate to routes within the interaction plan, allowing different timings to have specific announcements, for example. Admins will also be able to create special days in a schedule. Special days, which do not conform to regular opening days, will have all the same features as standard days, including multiple timings per day. Special days will also be repeatable.
• New applet
  The new applet within Interaction Plan Architect will enable admin to configure the routing of the different service statuses to individual applets, allowing unique customer experiences based on time.

Users participating in the early access program are encouraged to explore these new features and provide feedback to help shape the future development of Centralized Scheduling. If you are interested in joining the early access program, contact your Vonage Account Manager or Customer Success Manager.

Two-factor authentication via SMS — early access 

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As part of our commitment to expanding two-factor authentication verification methods, we are introducing two-factor authentication (2FA) via SMS to the VCC platform. Featuring:

• Configurable 2FA for admins: Administrators will gain access to a new Security page, where they can enforce mandatory two-factor authentication for selected user types. They will also be able to specify the duration for which devices are trusted, with options ranging from one hour to 999 days.
• Configurable 2FA for users: Users will be able to select their preferred verification method, either email or SMS. The verification code will be sent to the email address associated with their VCC user account or to the provided telephone number. Additionally, users will have the option to forget all trusted devices if necessary, ensuring security in the event of a compromised device.
• Early access limitations: During the early access phase, users can expect small visual enhancements to the new Security and User profile pages.

Users participating in the early access program are encouraged to explore these new features and provide feedback to help shape the future development of Two-factor authentication via SMS. Contact your Vonage Account Manager or Customer Success Manager if you want to join the beta program.

API for mass downloading interaction content to Amazon S3 — beta 

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We are thrilled to announce the beta release of our new feature that enhances the ability to download interaction content directly to a customer-owned S3 bucket. This new capability will address our customers' need for more flexible and secure data handling, particularly those transitioning from SFTP services.

This release introduces a suite of APIs that will allow administrators to manage one-time or periodic downloads of interaction content. These APIs will facilitate seamless integration with external storage solutions, initially supporting Amazon S3, with plans to extend support to other platforms in the future.

Key features:

• Flexible download options: Admins will be able to configure one-time or scheduled downloads of interaction content, including call recordings, chat transcripts, and more.
• Customizable date ranges and filters: Downloads will be customizable based on specific start and end dates and filtered by content type and interaction direction.
• Direct storage integration: Interaction content and metadata will be transferred directly to a designated S3 bucket, streamlining the process and enhancing data security.
• Comprehensive job tracking: Admins will be able to view the status and progress of download jobs, with detailed reporting on successes and any issues encountered.

By supporting direct download into cloud-based storage solutions such as AWS S3, you will be able to experience several significant benefits. First, we will be able to reduce setup and maintenance costs by eliminating the need for SFTP or a custom-built solution, thus minimizing the associated overhead. Additionally, this transition will enhance data security, as it will decrease the risks associated with static credentials.

Users participating in the beta are encouraged to explore these new features and provide feedback to help shape the future development of Mass download of interaction content. Contact your Vonage Account Manager or Customer Success Manager if you want to join the beta program.

Feature Retirement

Along with the exciting new functionality added to the product with every release, we are also working to retire older parts of the product. The removal of functionality within our product is completed in up to these stages:

Intent to deprecate

This is an optional stage that gives users early warning of our intent to deprecate functionality. It is most commonly used when an alternative is announced, and gives users the ability to migrate ahead of the functionality becoming deprecated. At this stage we encourage customers to stop using the mentioned product functionality, and migrate to an alternative.

Deprecated

This indicates that a piece of functionality is no longer supported. The functionality will continue to work, but no new enhancements or bug fixes will be made (with the exception of security vulnerabilities) and new functionality may not be compatible. We commonly announce the target Retirement date when deprecating. At this stage customers must stop using the mentioned product functionality, and migrate to an alternative.

Retired

After the retirement date the functionality will either cease working entirely, or become completely unsupported.

For a full list of deprecated features, see Vonage Contact Center feature retirement.

Multi-interaction ContactPad (deprecated)

Today, Vonage has three versions of ContactPad:

• Single interaction ContactPad (SICP). Agents handle only one interaction at a time.
• Multi interaction ContactPad (MICP). Agents handle multiple interactions simultaneously, with the lower section of ContactPad displaying a list of interactions.
• ContactPad Refresh (CPR). Agents handle multiple interactions with icon-based (rather than text) control buttons and the interaction list showing each party involved.

SICP	MICP	CPR

As a reminder, the ContactPad Refresh provides the following key benefits over other versions:

• Improved usability. Enhanced user experience with intuitive icon buttons replacing text buttons.
• Greater control. Advanced channel-level controls for managing conference calls and individual interactions.
• Efficient display. Clear interaction cards and reduced wasted space for handling multiple simultaneous interactions.

We strongly encourage all MICP users to migrate to CPR during Q3 2024. To initiate this, please contact your Vonage Account Manager or Customer Success Manager to complete a managed migration. During Q3 2024, we will launch the ability to self-enable CPR from within the Account Configuration page, making the transition even more convenient. 

Upon the retirement of MICP, all MICP users will automatically be moved to CPR.

SICP users can also migrate now, but must review the list of limitations before doing so. SICP is targeted for deprecation during 2025.

Projected retirement date: November 2024

Real Time (legacy) (deprecated)

In the Q1 2024 release, we announced the deprecation of the Real Time (legacy) analytics platform. This strategic decision is a significant step in our journey toward offering more advanced, efficient, and user-friendly analytics tools for our customers. Initially, we announced the project retirement date for Q3 2024. The full retirement of Real Time (legacy) is now moved to the Q1 2025 release, approximately six months from now.

Due to customer feedback, mainly related to the visual aspect and the amount of data that can be displayed in Real-time Analytics and Team Monitoring, we decided to postpone the retirement of the legacy platform and streamline and further improve the user experience of Real-time Analytics and Team Monitoring. Customers can expect multiple enhancements to these products over the next few months, starting with this release, in which we’re announcing the compact view option within Real-time Analytics.

For further information or assistance with the migration, we encourage you to contact your Vonage Account Manager or Customer Success Manager. We're excited about this new chapter in analytics and customer engagement, and we're here to ensure your transition to Team Monitoring and Real-time Analytics is as seamless and beneficial as possible.

Retirement date: Q1, 2025

Unite case routing (deprecated)

We are postponing the retirement of Unite case routing, originally scheduled for the end of Q3, to the end of Q4 2024. This extension provides customers with additional time to transition from Unite to external routing solutions.

Retirement date: Q4, 2024

Visual Engagement: SMS invite mechanism (retired)

Previously, agents could use SMS to send video session invitations to participants. However, this functionality has now been retired and all customers must use email instead. This change was required due to increasing global legislation aimed at reducing spam via SMS. Compliance with these regulations means the SMS functionality could not continue to operate as expected, leading to its retirement.

Retirement date: Q3, 2024

Salesforce package deprecation and retirement

* These packages will be retired after the Q3 2024 release