Release Notes for all 2021 Q4 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 / 12 / 20

What's New

  1. Administration Portal Standard Email Channel (Rich Content related) updates

    • New Outbound and Reply Email Signature Part section added to Standard Email Configurations
    • Allows common Email Signatures to be configured for all emails related to a specific Email address (rather than at the User Profile level)
    • New Email-Address level Signature (above), and existing User Profile level signature now support full HTML markup to allow for Images, font-styling, and customizing the layout
    • Existing Email Automated Response configuration now supports rich HTML markup, to allow for Images, font-styling, and customizing the layout

    • Email Profile level Signature, and User Profile level signatures now support the following tokens to allow generic setup with user-level values injected. Each of these tokens, if present in a signature, will get replaced with the User’s specific Friendly Name, Extension, or Direct Dial values respectively:

      • {Name}
      • {UserFriendlyName}
      • {UserExtension}
      • {UserDirectDial}

  2. Symbee Connect User/Agent UI Standard Email Channel updates

    • Updated Email Viewer/Editor for new rich signatures:

      • Email Signatures now made up of 2 parts (both optional).
      • If the User Profile contains Email Signature content, this is added first
      • If the Email Configuration associated with the Email has content in its Signature Part, and its enabled, this content gets appended after any User Profile content from above
      • Updates to dynamically replace tokens in Signatures with the user values in Email responses and Outbound emails ({Name}, {UserFriendlyName}, {UserExtension}, {UserDirectDial})
      • Signature content now supports full HTML, including images and layout

  3. AutoText Updates

    • Redesigned AutoText maintenance screens in the Admin Portal
    • AutoText entries now support rich HTML markup, to allow for Images, font-styling, and customizing the layout
    • AutoText Entries can now be used for complete Email Templates
    • New Search Bar added to AutoText tool in the Symbee Connect User/Agent UI to allow quickly finding/filtering down the AutoText entries when needed

What's Fixed

  1. Customer Facing Webchat

    • Update to address issue with visual display of chat conversation when both the Agent and the Customer have the same “display name”
    • Update to resolve Webchat conversations not being Idle timed-out correctly when the Customer and Agent had the same display name

  2. AutoText Fix in User/Agent UI

    • Update to address issues with duplicate AutoText entries sometimes showing in the User/Agent UI

What Else

  1. Performance Updates related to Symbee Connect Public API request processing

  2. Performance Updates related to AutoText resolution

  3. Admin Portal Security Updates

Feature Integration CloudFormation Updates available

  • Voicemail and Direct Dialing CloudFormation

    • Updates to address issues observed in Tokyo and Sydney regions related to AWS Lambda transition to Java Corretto, resulting in Queue-based Voicemail Email delivery being delayed
    • Default Lambda memory reservation increased to 750MB (up from 512MB)

2021 / 12 / 12

What's new

  1. Symbee Connect Agent/User UI updates for failed Outbound Calls

    • Outbound Calling to a non-well-formed E.164 phone number now displays Error dialog in the agent

What's Fixed

  1. Administration Portal Updates

    • Update to address issues reported with the Forgot my Password MFA Email and user password reset flow.
    • Better error messages during SAML Admin Portal SSO negotiation failure due to something being misconfigured.

  2. Instant Messaging and UC Chime Calling issue

    • Update to address rare issue where occasionally, if the Instant Messaging and UC Chime Calling checkboxes were enabled on the respective Symbee Connect and Chime Integration configuration screens, IM and UC Calling wasnt always getting enabled in the Symbee Connect ACD

  3. Symbee Connect Agent/User UI update for Agent State behavior

    • Update to address Agents ocasionally being pushed inbound calls when they were in an Unavailable state. Rare use case, but it could occur:
      • Agent Unavailable
      • Start Outbound call to either an invalid number, or a number that doesn’t answer, no voicemail, and the call is simply cleared at the PSTN layer, or there was some failure in Amazon Connect to establish the outbound call (i.e. disconnect by carrier)
      • Contact Center also backed up in queue on the same Queue

  4. Fix For Inbound Email Attachments issue

    • Inbound Emails specifically from Apple Mail, specifically with iCloud Attachments - the attachments were not visible to the Agent in the Symbee Connect Email Viewer

What Else

  1. Admin Portal update - My Settings dialog (top right of the portal main view)

    • No longer displays password-change fields when Admin SSO is enabled

  2. Stability Updates related to issues seen in London and Sydney regions

2021 / 12 / 06

What's New

  1. Administration Portal – Single Sign-on (SAML Integration)

    • Full support added for Single Sign-on, achieved through SAML - the Symbee Connect Administration Portal is now a SAML 2.0 compliant Service Provider

    • The Symbee Connect Administration Portal Supports the following SAML SSO use cases:

      • Service-Provider (SP) Initiated SSO - started from Admin Portal login screen, clicking the Corporate Login “Login” button
      • Identity Provider (IdP) Initiated SSO - started from an IDP Application portal first
      • Identity Provider (IdP) Initiated Single Logout (SLO) - if user logs out of their IdP, user will also be logged out of the Symbee Connect Administration Portal
      • Note: While SAML supports it, the Admin Portal (intentionally) does not support SLO in the reverse direction - logging out of the Symbee Connect Administration Portal does not log the user out of their IdP

    • SAML Integration has been initially tested and verified with:

      • Microsoft Azure AD
      • Okta
      • OneLogin

    • Login Page updated to provide new option for Corporate Single Sign-On

  2. New Single Sign-On Configuration screen added to Administration Portal Company Menu

    • Only visible/accessible when logged in as a Company Administrator (role)
    • Located at: Company (Menu) => Security => Single Sign-On

    • Notes on the above: optional Single Sign-On Required (password based access disabled) setting:

      • Without this set, users can login through existing passwords or using their Corporate Identity Provider (IdP)
      • With this set, users will only be able to use SSO, and password-based access is denied
      • The exception to the above is for Admin users with the full Company Administrator (role), as a back door to allow access to SSO configuration

    • Related to the Single Sign-On Required (password based access disabled) being set to enabled:

      • Password maintenance fields are removed off the Add/Maintain Admininstration Users maintenance screen if SSO Required is set (as passwords become irrelevant)
      • Password fields on the “My Settings” dialog in the top-right of the Administration Portal are removed if SSO Required is set
      • The User Lockout setting on the Maintain Admin Users maintenance screen is still valid – you can still set a user to Locked Out when SSO is enabled if you need to

  3. Symbee Connect (Agent/User) Async HTTP Screen-Pop Update

    • Update to the Async HTTP Screen-Pop plugin to set useCredentials on all cross-site POST/AJAX requests to allow Cookies to be sent with async screen-pop requests

  4. New “Re-Open” action button added to the Interaction panel for CRM Routed Email Tasks

    • Similar concept to the “Re-Open” button on Standard Email interactions that allows the user to re-open the Email Viewer for an active email being worked, if the Email Viewer window was accidently closed.
    • For a CRM Routed Email, clicking the re-open button re-sends the Async AJAX/POST request to the far-side CRM again, if it is configured

  5. Chime Integration updates

    • Updated handling of Inbound PSTN calls that don’t have a configured destination (e.g. an inbound PSTN call to a Phone Number not mapped mapped to an Agent/User DID, and not mapped to an Inbound Call Treatment Rule)
    • Now sends back a SIP failure code to the PSTN network (to allow the PSTN to play its normal signaling tones/messages for failure (e.g. fast-busy, “Call could not be completed as dialed…”, hard/immediate disconnect, etc.).
    • Note: Requires a Chime Integration CloudFormation update to be run to receive these changes

  6. Zendesk CRM Integration Update

    • Added functionality to the Zendesk Contact Flow Lambda to allow targeting lookup of Users and Tickets in Zendesk using multiple simultaneous criteria prior to delivering to an Agent

Whats Fixed

  1. Minor Salesforce Screen-Pop updates to add failure protection if the sf_table Contact Attribute is not set in preparation for a screen-pop that was set up in a Contact Flow

  2. Screen Recording update to address CORS issue being experienced by some customers

  3. Symbee Connect Chat Gateway updates for Amazon Delivered Chats

    • Updates to address Amazon Delivered Chat latency issues witnessed in Canada Region

  4. Zendesk CRM Integration updates

    • Update to address issue related to posting of Call/Contact information into the Zendesk Support Ticket at the completion of an Interaction not always updating

What Else

  1. Internal Admin Portal Authentication process updates

  2. Reliability and Capacity Updates

  3. Security Related Updates

  4. Third-Party library upgrades to latest point versions

  5. Preview Channel - updates related to the new Beta Preview Realtime API

    • Validation added to deny API requests when:

      • A skill-queue is not specified on the API request
      • The request specifies a skill-queue that is already in user by another Preview Campaign

    • Updates to Preview Campaign status-counters (how many tasks in the campaign are: worked, not-worked, completed, etc.) when tasks are added, updated, moved, or removed in a Campaign dynamically as a result of Preview Realtime API requests

  6. Enhanced logging and validation for better troubleshooting when the Chime Integration is not configured correctly (e.g. If the SIP Media Application ID is invalid or not set)

  7. Pinpoint Gateway update

    • Updates to address what appears to be an undocumented change in the message objects being received from Pinpoint that were stopping new inbound SMS Pinpoint conversations from being initiated in Symbee Connect

Feature Integration CloudFormation Updates available

  • Amazon Chime CloudFormation

    • Updates related to new SIP Carrier signalling changes referred to in What's New section above

2021 / 11 / 08

What's New

  1. New Preview Channel Realtime API [Beta] available for public use

  2. Chime Inbound PSTN Call Network Behavior Change

    • Using new features of the Chime SDK, now when inbound PSTN calling a User/Agent using their configured DID, the PSTN network “answer” (SIP 200 OK) is now witheld until the User/Agent accepts the call
    • This means the inbound call doesn't start billing (from the external callers perspective) on the PSTN until the call connects with the user/agent.

What's Fixed

  1. Update to inbound handling of Amazon Connect Task Release/Wrap/End

    • Update to resolve issue where Agent’s underlying Amazon Connect Agent State was not always being returned to Available (routable) after working an an Amazon Task.

What Else

  1. Symbee Connect User/Agent UI updates

    • Updated Inbound Call Accept behavior for UC Calls (User to User direct calls, and inbound DID calls via Chime), to handle change in behavior for Chime PSTN Inbound calling Numbered list of other items in release, not really classed as Features or Fixes:

Feature Integration CloudFormation Updates available

  • Chime Integration CloudFormation

    • Update to the Chime IAM Policy to allow requests to the new Chime SDK Service UpdateSipMediaApplicationCall action.

2021 / 10 / 14

What's New

  1. Service Limits View

    • New Service Limits menu option on the Company dropdown menu

      • Only visible to Company Administrators
      • Displays your current Company Level limits Service Limits and the limits set on each Environment
      • List of Environments shown is limited to what your Administration User has visibility to (based on your Admin User Environment access permissions)
      • Email Link at the top of the view will prefill an email for a “Service Limit Increase” request to support

    • Refer to Service Limit documentation here: Company Service Limits

  2. New optional Email Download and Email Reload features

    • Two new settings on User Profiles and Templates, under: Digital Channels => Email
    • Both settings disabled by default
    • When enabled, the two news settings above result in two additional action buttons on the Email Viewer when handling Inbound emails.
    • Download allows the original inbound email to be downloaded locally and opened in the users preferred Email Client to allow printing to PDF, or replying outside of Symbee Connect if that use-case is required. NOTE: Any email response sent in this manner will not be tracked by Symbee Connect
    • Reload performs an interpreted character-set swap and reloads the email. Useful on occasions where foreign-language emails are received that have multiple character set alternatives, such as Japanese, and the headers on the email set by the far-end Email client didn't clearly indicate which character set is being used, which can result in the email being initially displayed with question-marks or glyph characters.

What's Fixed

  1. Email Handling – Additional Updates

    • Update to address issue where Inbound emails containing email address links were sometimes miss-handled in email replies resulting in the email history on a reply being turned into a long hyperlink
    • Update for inline images not always being included or displayed correctly in email replies

  2. Other updates/fixes

    • Update for Inbound Auto-Answer Voice calls handling, to progress to CONNECTING state earlier, and ignore any Accept clicks

      • Issue seen occasionally when agent is connected/logged-in over long-haul network where latency to Amazon Connect is > 500ms (e.g. Philippines to US-EAST-1)

    • Updates to Amazon Task Handling to display an error message to the agent when the Transfer of an Inbound Amazon Connect Task fails

      • Task Transfer failures can occur if the receiving Task queue has a capacity limit set, and the queue is already full

What Else

  • No additional updates in this release.