Release Notes for all 2021 Q1 Updates

All releases listed are deployed to all Symbee Connect Regions globally. Each release begins deployment in US Virginia (us-east-1) region first, and then progresses to all other regions globally over the course of approximately 48 hours.

The release dates below mark the date of the release deployment into the first region (us-east-1).

2021 / 03 / 29

What's New

  1. Support for User Integration when Amazon Connect is configured with Active Directory

    • Updates to support Symbee Connect User Creation Integration for Amazon Connect instances that are configured to use an Existing Directory as the Amazon Connect user directory (i.e. not the internal Amazon Connect provided directory, and not SAML enabled)
    • A new Connect Directory Type setting is added to the Amazon Connect Integration screen in the Administration Portal.

  2. New Customer Facing WebChat Access Control Features

    • A new Webchat Access Control settings group is added to the Webchat Instance configuration screen:
      • Restrict Webchat to Frame Only - allows the Webchat Instance to be restricted to not run as a top level window, and therefore only be allowed to run hosted in another website page (served up by the client’s website) – the new Hosting Domains setting (below) then becomes relevant.
      • Hosting Domains - allows you to then restrict which website domains are allowed to host the Webchat Instance. An Access Denied page will be displayed if the Webchat Instance is attempted to be used on a web-page that is not hosted by one of the listed domains. A value of * (asterisk) allows all domains.

  3. New Developer Examples section added to Webchat Instance Configuration screen

  4. New Inbound Call Treatment Rules added to Chime Integration

    • Chime Integration has been moved out to its own section in the Administration Portal

    • New Chime Inbound Call Rules configuration screen is added for administering Calling Treatment Rules for Inbound Chime PSTN phone numbers that are not configured as Direct User DID's:

      • Initial Rule types supported are BRIDGE and FORWARD.
      • Handling of Inbound PSTN Calls from Chime react to configured Call Rules based on match of the configured target phone number

    • Added Invalid Call support (“call cannot be completed as dialed…") for arriving inbound Chime PSTN calls that do not match a Call Treatment Rule and are also not configured as a Direct User DID..

What's Fixed

  1. Update to resolve Failed Login being seen by some users.
  2. Updates to address issues experiences with multiple-party adds/drops/conferences.
  3. Preview Channel update to address issue where Campaign Cleanup and Export functions initiated through the Administration Portal weren’t working in some customer installs (when the customer has more than 100 Lambda’s deployed in the region).
  4. Email (Standard) update to address issue where sending outbound emails wasn’t working in some customer installs (when the customer has more than 100 Lambda’s deployed in the region).
  5. SMPP SMS Channel update
    • Addresses issues when configured for Amazon Delivery, relating to Disconnect Flows and conversation restart.

What Else

  1. Administration Portal Security Updates
  2. Customer Facing Webchat Security Updates
  3. Symbee Connect Agent/User UI Security Updates
  4. Online Docs Portal now hosted and served via HTTPS through AWS CloudFront

  5. Product Signup and Administration Portal updates to support the new Amazon Connect CCP URL style being introduced shortly by AWS on newly provisioned Amazon Connect Instances:

    • Now supports both the old-style Amazon Connect domain format (https://instancename.awsapps.com/connect/ccp-v2)
    • And the new-style Amazon Connect domain format (https://instancename.my.connect.aws/ccp-v2)

  6. Updates to support Branded Partner expansion outside of Partner's initial region.

Feature Integration CloudFormation Updates available

  • Chime CloudFormation
    • Updates to create a new S3 bucket in the customer account to hold system prompts, and Inbound Call Treatment prompts.

2021 / 03 / 05

What's New

  1. New “Suppress System Messages to Customer” option for SMS, Social, and Pinpoint

    • A new option is added to all SMS, Social, and Pinpoint configurations in the Administration Portal.
    • When checked, all system messages in the chat conversation (e.g. Customer joining/leaving, Customer Leaving, Chat disconnected, etc.) are withheld from the customer's side of the conversation.
    • Feature is targeted / expected to be most useful in SMS/Pinpoint channel configurations, to reduce the number of SMS messages received by the customer.

  2. Updates to Amazon Delivered Chat and all Symbee Connect delivered Tasks

    • New implicit ContactId and TaskId attributes are added/generated within Symbee Connect to allow a no-code/configuration only way to display the values in to Agents in the Customer Fusions area, and use the values in URL and Async HTTP Screen Pop fusions.
      • ContactId attribute contains the Amazon Connect ContactId for all Voice calls and Amazon Delivered Chats and Tasks.
      • TaskId attribute contains the Symbee Connect TaskId for all Symbee Connect delivered chats and tasks.

  3. Customer Facing Webchat support for being embedded in an IFrame

    • Customer Facing Webchat updated to support continuing a chat conversation across a page refresh/reload
    • Webchat Customer Ending Conversation detection is reworked to no long use "window closing/unloading" as a means for indicating conversation end (to allow embedded webchat in websites to be re-loaded as the user navigates from one page to another)
    • New Customer Communication Timeout Seconds setting added to the Webchat Instance Chat Control section in the Administration Portal, to control how Customer Ending Conversation is detected in Window Close / Customer leaving scenarios.

What's Fixed

  1. Chime Outbound PSTN Calling update to not show a state of Connected too early before the customer (far-end) answer.
  2. Symbee Connect Agent/User UI update to address minor layout issues in Firefox browser.

What Else

  1. Customer Facing Webchat Security updates.
  2. Chat updates for all chat channels (Webchat, SMS, Pinpoint, Social) to better handle Idle Timeouts and Amazon Connect Disconnect Flows, and restarting a chat conversation after the agent leaves and the customer re-engages.
  3. Do Not Call update for better monitoring.

2021 / 02 / 24

What's New

  1. Optimize Screen Recording added support virtualized User Desktop environments

    • Windows MSI Installer updates to support Per User installs.
    • Support added to both the Symbee Connect Agent/User UI and Windows Screen-Recording service to support multiple instances running on the same Virtual Host:
      • Localhost TCP Port hunt range now configurable within Company Environment Optimize settings.
      • Symbee Connect Agent/User UI hunts for the port associated with the current user.
    • Support added to allow the location of a user’s local scratch space to be optionally configurable to support virtual users scratch-space to be a shared drive / SAN location.
    • Update to not record audio (i.e. screen only) when in virtual desktop mode.
    • Enhancement to dynamically handle screen resolution and provide quality scaling to reduce the storage size of the MP4s.

  2. Customer Facing Webchat updates for more extensive foreign language support

    • All literal text used in the customer facing UI is now configurable in the Web Chat Instance settings within the Administration Portal:
      • A series of new settings added in the Canned Messages section, one for each text literal used.
      • Allows a complete no-code, configuration only, foreign language version of each Webchat Instance, in as many languages as needed.
    • Update of all existing Webchat Canned Messages settings to support embedded HTML.
    • Updates to the UI to handle embedded HTML in system messages.

  3. Symbee Connect Supervisor and Agent UI – Now Indicates Pending Unavailable Agent State

    • Supervisor Agent View and respective Pop-out Window now indicates the target state when someone is pending-unavailable, and shows the state color as blended Blue/Yellow.
    • Presence indicator in the Agent Directory also shows new Split color indicating Busy/Unavailable (the tooltip/hover-over shows the target state).

  4. New Chime Integration support for PSTN Calling - Administration Portal updates

    • New settings added to the Administration Portal for configuration of PSTN Calling:

      • New PSTN Calling settings added to the Chime Integration Company Environment level settings screen.
      • New PSTN Calling settings added to User profiles/Templates.

    • User level Direct Outbound Calling Allowed setting controls whether PSTN calling is allowed or not, and whether PSTN calling is allowed only while currently in progress on a Contact Center call, or at any time

    • User level Direct Outbound Calling Number Presented setting controls what number is presented as the Outbound Calling Identifier.

  5. New Chime Integration support for PSTN Calling – Symbee Connect Agent/User UI updates

    • New Outbound panel updates to support outbound PSTN calls via both Amazon Connect and/or Chime, based on user settings, and current call state

      • Channel selector updated to different options based on settings and state:

        • Phone - when only one outbound PSTN call mode available to the user
        • Call Center Call - when both modes available, an outbound Amazon Connect call
        • Direct External Call - when both modes available, an outbound Chime call
        • Direct User Call - if enabled, a direct user-to-user call

      • When only Direct User Call allowed, no Dial Pad, only User Directory

      • When Direct User and PSTN allowed, both Dial Pad and a Directory available
      • Updates reflected in both Unison and Engage

    • When making Chime outbound PSTN calls, all existing dialing features apply:

      • Country Code in the settings applied if set.
      • Local Access Area code applied if set.
      • Contact Permissions for blocking/allowing applied if set.
      • Do Not Call Lists applied if enabled.

    • Inbound and Outbound Chime PSTN calls reflected correctly in the users Call History.

  6. Email Enhancements

    • Email Attachment updates in the Email Viewer/Editor:

      • Attachments from inbound email now copied over to both Reply and Forward emails by default.
      • Attachments can now be either removed or left attached from a response email at the users discression (either new attachments added by the user, or existing attachments from the inbound email).

    • Added support for uploading embedded images directly in the email body of replies/forwards/outbounds (for inline display, as opposed to images only being “attached”).

    • Auto-Accept Inbound Email behavior change for better usability - when a user is configured for multiple concurrent emails with auto-accept enabled, if the user is already activelyresponding to another email being worked, new arriving emails are now loaded into the Email Editor as a slowly-flashing background tab, rather than immediately becoming the focused email (and stealing the user's focus).

What's Fixed

  1. Symbee Connect Agent/User UI updates to resolve issue related to Outbound Calls occasionally failing in certain situations where the user also had other active concurrent Tasks (obscure race condition).

  2. Social (e.g. Pinpoint) and SMS updates to address issues with Idle Timeout behavior for Amazon Delivered chats.

  3. User-to-User direct calling update to resolve issue where one party on a two-party call sometimes didnt get notified immediately of the other parties state.

What Else

  1. Email To: address behavior update on replies

    • Modified to always use the value of the true “From: ” header from an inbound email (some customer SES environments where email is being forwarding into SES, the previous value used for the “From:” was not always the true customers address, but instead the forwarding mailbox, depending on the forwarding mail gateway type).

  2. Preview Channel updates for better supportability

  3. Email Channel updates for better supportability

Feature Integration CloudFormation Updates available

  • Chime Integration CloudFormation
    • For new PSTN Calling Support - installs the new SIP Media Application Lambda.

2021 / 02 / 06

What's New

  • Nothing of note in this release.

What's Fixed

  1. Preview Channel update to address issue when agent is configured for multiple-task-handling as well as Allow Amazon over Symbee behavior, agents weren't always getting delivered inbound Amazon calls when working a Preview task.

  2. Update to address issue where Pending Unavailable state was not always stopping new inbound calls being delivered (agent configuration had to be: multiple-task-handling enabled, Full Mixing enabled, with maximum concurrent tasks (4+) already active).

  3. Update to address a known (but undocumented) Amazon Connect issue where Amazon Connect sometimes may deliver an inbound Voice call even when the agent is successfully moved to a not-routable state

  4. Customer Facing Webchat update to address wrapping of words in long chat message sentences (3-4 lines +).

  5. Optimize Evaluations update to address issue with Disputes.

What Else

  1. Symbee Connect Agent/User UI Email updates

    • Reply-All behavior updated to populate the To: and CC: addresses using the same behavior as other major mail clients.
    • Modified Email auto-response behavior to use the Outbound Email Address on the Email Endpoint Configuration if configured, as the From: address on emails sent out
    • Display a preemptive error to the user when attempting to send an email > 10 MB in size.

  2. Email Sending Performance updates.

  3. SaaS Cloud High Availability updates

  4. Customer Facing Webchat update to Queue Status endpoint for CORS.

  5. Customer Facing Webchat update to transcripts for Symbee Connect Delivered chats

  6. Customer Signup updates for Partner Branding

Feature Integration CloudFormation Updates available

  • Email Channel CloudFormation
    • Updates for better Email delivery performance.

2021 / 01 / 16

What's New

  1. New Direct User-to-User Calling Feature

    • Allows direct calling between users without going out through the PSTN and Amazon Connect, and without needing DID's and Extensions
    • Users can receive Direct calls when in an Unavailable state
    • Users can make and receive direct calls while actively on a Contact Center Amazon Connect Call
    • Users can have multiple concurrent active Direct Calls (line appearances)
    • Effectively, the akin to direct PBX station calling from legacy on-premise solutions

  2. New Direct User-to-User Calling Feature - Administration Portal updates

    • New Chime Integration option from the Main Function menu.
    • New Company Environment level Chime Integration configuration screen
    • New Chime Integration setting added to User profiles/Templates
    • New Chime Calling settings added to User profiles/Templates:

  3. New Direct User to User (Chime) Calling - Symbee Connect Agent/User UI updates

    • Support added throughout the Agent/User UI for the new Direct Call interaction Type:

      • A User-to-User (Chime call) is shown as green rather than blue, to clearly delineate its not a Contact Center phone call.
      • User-to-User calls for Contact Center agents can be made from and to any Work State (i.e. can call, and be called while Unavailable, Available, in Wrap, or on another call).
      • Additionally, a User-to-User call does not change a Contact Center user’s Work State, and a Ring-No-Answer for a User-to-User call does not leave the called party in a Missed state.

    • Chime SDK Library loaded but only when Chime is enabled for the User (based on user settings).

    • Various updates to support the concept of having both an Amazon Connect Phone call and Chime Direct User-to-User calls active at the same time, and in general multiple concurrent Phone Calls being active at the same time:

      • If a Direct call is received while on a customer phone call, the incoming call ring-tone is replaced by a Call Waiting Indicator (double-beep every 4 seconds) in the agents headset while the call is alerting, so the agent can still hear and converse with the customer call.
      • The agent can choose to decline the incoming Direct call while on a Customer call if they wish.
      • If an incoming call starts alerting when already on another call, and is then accepted by the receiving user, all other in-progress calls are placed On Hold.
      • If multiple calls are active, and one call is taken Off Hold, all other calls are automatically placed On Hold.
      • If an outbound call is initiated while other calls are active, all other calls are automatically placed On Hold when the outbound call starts ringing

    • Updated Mute behavior to handle you can now be on either an Amazon Connect phone call, a Chime User-to-User call, or both, and in general have multiple active phone calls in play:

      • Mute/Unmute occurs at the same time across all active phone calls (Amazon Connect or Chime).
      • That is, if you Mute on the user-side, it will mute all your active calls

    • Directory Tool updated to allow click to call another user (via Chime):

      • An omni-presence user can now have multiple action icons (click-to-call, and IM, if both are enabled).
      • Action Icons will only be display if BOTH the Sender is allowed to Send, and the Receiver is allowed to receive.
      • Icons not displayed if that feature (IM or User Direct Calling) is not enabled on your user.
      • Icons not displayed if that feature is not enabled on the target user.
      • Icon’s honor the four User profile options (send only, receive only, send & receive).

    • The “+” (New Outbound) panel now has a new Direct User Call option (performs the same action as a click to call from the Directory).

    • Call History panel updated to support logging/tracking of the new User-to-User calls.

    • User-to-User Calling fully qualified in both Chrome and Firefox browsers.

    • NOTE: Refer to the Step by Step Guide for configuring Chime with Symbee Connect: Amazon Chime.

  4. Modified Instant Messaging behavior

    • Instant Message behavior updated to always immediately Auto-Answer on the receiving side, and avoid the ringing/ring-tone.
    • Updated visual system-messaging during Instant Message conversations.

  5. New Optimize Evaluations support for Disputing/Contesting Evaluations

    • New Optimize Dynamo Region added to the Company/Environment Symbee Connect Integration screen.
    • New Evaluations Listing screen added under the Optimize section in the Administration Portal that lists recent evaluations made.
    • Listing screen allows an Evaluator to see Contested Evaluations, and acknowledge the disputes.
    • If a Contested evaluation results in an evaluation needing to be updated, the Evaluation can be updated accordingly.
    • Evaluations made in-error can also be Voided to remove them from reporting.

  6. Optimize Evaluations Symbee Connect Agent/User UI updates

    • New Dispute/Contest concept added to the Agent-side of Evaluations.
    • New form at the bottom of completed evaluations to allow the agent to submit a contest/dispute. Contesting/Disputing takes the form of a free-text entry and Submit Contest button.
    • New Dispute/Contest Evaluation form has a Contest status included in the header. After a contest has been submitted, the Contest status changes to “contest submitted.”
    • If the agent revisits the evaluation at this point, the Contest status displays Contested. The form has been re-enabled and the agent can submit an update to their contest. The agent can update this contest until the status has been resolved by an evaluator.
    • After the evaluation contest has been reviewed and resolved by an evaluator, the agent can view the evaluation again to see the updated Contest status and the Contest response from the evaluator.

  7. New Progressive Dialing Features added to Preview Channel

    • Enabling Progressive behvaior causes Preview Campaign tasks delivered to the agent to begin the outbound call automatically, without waiting for the agent to clcik-to-call
    • Progressive behavior can be configured to begin dialing immediately, or after a configurable countdown delay.

    • 3 new settings are added to the Symbee Connect Skill Queue add/maintain screen to control the configuration of progressive behavior:

      • Progressive behavior Enabled - If enabled, upon accept, outbound dialing of the first valid listed phone number on the Preview task will automatically start, rather than the user manually clicking to begin an outbound call
      • Progressive Delay (seconds) - Controls the optional delay (in seconds) before automatic dialing begins for a Preview task, after it has been delivered and accepted by the user. A value of 0 results in the progressive auto-dial starting immediately upon accept.
      • Progressive Cancelable - Controls whether the user is able to cancel before the auto-dial action begins during the Progressive Delay period.

    • Preview Dial option on the Main Function Menu is now: Preview and Progressive Dialing.

    • All Preview screens updated to reflect Preview and Progressive Campaigns

  8. New Progressive (Preview) Dialing - Symbee Connect Agent/User UI updates

    • Updates to user experience when receiving a Preview Contact task, if the Skill Queue the task is delivered through has the new Progressive Settings enabled.
    • If Progressive is enabled, the task is scanned for the first listed “callable” (i.e. valid value) phone number field in the list of fields on the Preview task, and automatically begin the outbound-dial as soon as the task is “accepted” by the agent.
    • If Progressive delay is set, upon accept, a countdown-timer displays, counting down through the delay seconds prior to auto-dialing starting, to let the user know how much time remains to review the record and be prepared for the call.
    • If the Cancelable setting is enabled, the user gets an addition X to allow cancelling the progressive auto-dial countdown, but leave the task in a working/active state. The agent can then continue to review the task further, call a different number, or close out the task.
    • A timed Progressive Dial is automatically cancelled if the user manually clicks any of the click-to-call buttons early, to initiate the call to either the primary number or any other number on the Preview task.

What's Fixed

  • Nothing of note in this release.

What Else

  1. Symbee Connect ACD updates related to delivery of Chime Direct User Calls and Instant Messages, to support multiple concurrent active phone calls on a user, and to allow delivery of Instant tasks to a user in any state (i.e. even when Unavailable).
  2. Removed the requirement to have to explicitly assign the Instant Message skill to a user/agent.
  3. Instant Message control now moved to the User Profile/Template to align with

Feature Integration CloudFormation Updates available

  • Optimize CloudFormation
    • Updates to add new permissions for use of AWS DynamoDB.