What's New in Webex Contact Center Enterprise
2024
November 2024
Support for WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger Digital Channels
Webex CCE integrated with Webex Connect enabled agents to handle communication channels such as Email, Live Chat, and SMS. Now, Webex CCE has expanded its support to include WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger digital channels.
For information about how to use the Manage Digital Channels gadget, see the Cisco Contact Center Enterprise Manage Digital Channels Gadget User Guide.
September 2024
Private, Secure Connectivity via Webex Edge Connect (Early Access)
Webex CCE is introducing Early Adopter implementation support for Cisco Webex Edge Connect. Webex Edge Connect is a Cisco offering that provides a managed peering connection with quality of service (QoS), connecting your premises directly to Webex solutions. Customers who already have the Webex Edge Connect, or those keen to take advantage of its Managed Secure Connection feature, can now seamlessly integrate this solution with Webex CCE.
Webex CCE customers using Webex Edge Connect will have a dedicated, fixed bandwidth, managed, QoS supported IP link between their premises and Webex, established via direct peering over Equinix Cloud Exchange (ECX) or Megaport. The connection insulates Webex CCE Operations from the Internet by establishing a private circuit through Virtual Connect via VPN.
For more information on Webex Edge Connect, see https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/products/conferencing/webex-edge-connect/index.html.
New Monitoring Dashboard for Partners and Customers
The new Monitoring Dashboard provides customers and partners with access to the logs of all Webex CCE components and solutions. As a partner or customer, you can view Call Error logs, Call Detail logs, Call Detail Records (CDR), Call management records (CMR), and Agent device status within a chosen time range. Moreover, as a customer, you can also keep track of scheduled maintenance activities, view Windows event messages, and subscribe to receive event notifications via email.
For more information on how to access and use the Monitoring Dashboard, see the User Guide for Webex Contact Center Enterprise Monitoring Dashboard at https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/voice_ip_comm/cust_contact/contact_center/WebexCCE/End_User_Guides/Guide/wxcce_b_monitoring-user-guide.html.
Support for 48000 Agents
Webex CCE supports 48,000 concurrent agents with a call handling capacity of 300 calls per second (CPS) on single tenant.
This enhancement meets the scalability needs of large deployments and aims to enhance customer experience by increasing the number of agents, queuing capacity, and call volume that a single Webex CCE tenant can handle.
Scaling up enables customers to create a central pool of resources that can be flexibly allocated across the services and line of business handled by the Webex CCE tenant. A single Webex CCE instance with its centralized large pool of resources and centralized reporting has the potential to significantly enhance overall user experience and management.
August 2024
Ability to host custom code applications on Webex CCE
You can host and run your custom code applications on Webex CCE. You can easily migrate current CVP applications hosted locally or on distant servers to Webex CCE without disrupting ongoing calls using VXML and Call servers. You can separate your custom code from your core VXML application, making it easier to spot VXML server crashes and other memory leak issues.
July 2024
Regional Media Support
Webex CCE now extends support for regionalized media to all supported data center locations. Regionalized media allows customers and agent media (audio and SIP signaling) to remain local to a geographic region, regardless of where the Webex contact center tenant or home location resides. Keeping media local to a region reduces latency, improves audio quality, meets in-country data residency security compliance requirements, and allows for unique regionalized configurations in multinational deployments.
For example, if a CCAI cloud services tenant is based in the United States (US) region, calls within the US are localized there, European calls are handled in Europe, and Asian calls are managed in Asia. Only control signals are transmitted from the media endpoint to the US region.
Regional media is available at no additional cost for all Webex CCE and on-premises deployment customers who opt for Cisco CCAI services. Ensure that your assigned tenant has been enabled for enhanced media platform capability.
2023
August 2023
Ability to send custom SIP headers in Standalone deployment
You can parse selected SIP headers (custom headers) when using standalone deployment model and SIP trunk termination on VVB. This feature provides you with a great amount of flexibility when sending user-data or context from third-party Automatic Call Distributor (ACD) or service provider to a VXML server for processing. You can send and receive SIP headers only on the initial SIP Invite message and not on the reinvite messages.
July 2023
Support for Microsoft Windows 11 (64 bit)
Webex CCE supports the Microsoft Windows 11 (64 bit) client operating system for Finesse desktop, Call Studio, and Reporting.
June 2023
Partial Response in Virtual Agent—Voice
The partial response feature addresses a key aspect of the user experience by engaging a user during a call. It plays an interim message while the Webhook response takes time to process in the background.
An API or Webhook request to an AI application (Dialogflow CX) that requires several parameters often takes longer to receive the correct response. An end user is kept absolutely silent while an API request is being processed. There is a chance that the end-user will hang up the phone. To avoid this, an intermediate response must be sent to the end user informing them that their request is currently being processed.
This feature allows an AI bot developer to create a static response that may be conveyed to the end user while their inquiry is still being processed. In the CX bot agent, static messages can be configured for up to 30 seconds. Once the final API response is received, the flow can be continued.
FedRAMP certification
Webex Contact Center Enterprise now offers Cisco’s cloud contact center services with built-in U.S. government-level security to give agencies the power to collaborate securely with anyone, anywhere. Webex CCE for Government is a solution that is authorized by the Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program (FedRAMP) to protect your agency’s data and privacy.
April 2023
Get a transcript of conversation between virtual agents and customers
This feature is available to customers on request and only after necessary review and agreement. Please contact your Partner or Customer Success Manager or Cisco Support for details.
In the Transcript gadget, you can view the transcript of the voice conversation between the customer and the virtual agent when the call is transferred to you. This helps you to continue the conversation without making your customers repeat the information. Moreover, there is a Highlights panel that displays the intents and intent parameters based on your customer's query. You can also get an idea of how the interaction is going and how satisfied the customer is with the outcome.
Ensure that you enable the Contact Center Artificial Intelligence (CCAI) service to view the Transcript gadget. See Create a Contact Center AI configuration.
For instructions about how to view the transcript, see the Transcript section in the Contact Center AI Gadgets User Guide for Cisco Contact Center Enterprise.
Connect with business through digital channels using Webex Connect
This feature is available to customers on request and only after necessary review and agreement. Please contact your Partner or Customer Success Manager or Cisco Support for details.
Today's customers want to connect with businesses through any communication channel of their choice. Webex Connect allows the Contact Center business and its customers to interact using digital channels such as email, chat, and SMS.
The Webex CCE solution integrates with Webex Connect to create a seamless omnichannel experience for your agents. This integration helps your customers to interact across voice and digital communication channels as one unified solution.
Webex Connect offers a rich self-service and bot integration to empower your customers to get answers to some common questions. It provides a unified solution for integrated routing, Agent Desktop, and reporting service. Webex Connect provides a simplified framework that helps partners and customers interact through digital channels.
For information about the available digital channels and when you can view the Manage Digital Channels gadget, see the Manage Digital Channels gadget section in the Cisco Finesse Agent and Supervisor Desktop User Guide for Cisco Webex CCE
For information about how to use the Manage Digital Channels gadget, see the Cisco Contact Center Enterprise Manage Digital Channels Gadget User Guide.
Integrate third-party speech-based bot services using Cisco CCAI
The Cisco Contact Center Artificial Intelligence (CCAI) services platform allows you to leverage Cisco's cloud-based Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Natural Language Understanding (NLU) services to design virtual voice agents and create complex IVR call flows. You can integrate third-party speech-based bot services using the Virtual Agent-Voive (VAV) feature via cloud-based connector.
With Cisco's Hybrid IVR functionality, you can leverage your traditional ASR/TTS/CRM integrations, along with cloud-based Dialogflow CX AI capabilities. You can select a few nodes or sections of your application to be processed in the cloud and few nodes to be processed on-premises. For example, in an application, you can perform OTP generation on-premises, while other tasks in the cloud.
Customizable gadget behavior
As an administrator, you can now modify the desktop layout entry of a gadget to customize and override the gadget properties. You can modify the gadget properties for a specific team.
Refresh of drag-and-drop and resize gadgets feature
The desktop drag-and-drop and resize behaviors are refreshed to provide new capabilities. The new capabilities that are now available on the desktop are as follows:
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The restrictions on moving and resizing of page level gadgets are removed.
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Each desktop tab can be customized to have a unique layout without affecting other tabs.
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Each desktop tab can be reset to its original layout without affecting the customizations of other tabs.
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If the browser size is reduced, based on the width of the browser, the gadgets in the desktop layout are automatically organized one below the other.
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When the desktop drag-and-drop feature is enabled, Maximize and Collapse features are available in the Multi-Tab gadget.
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Call Control gadget automatically minimizes and restores when the gadgets under Call Control gadget are maximized and restored respectively.
For instructions, see the Drag-and-Drop and Resize Gadget or Component section in the Cisco Finesse Agent and Supervisor Desktop User Guide for Cisco Webex CCE.
September 2022
Webex Cloud-Connected UC Analytics Support
Webex CCE now offers the Cloud-Connected UC analytics that allows the operations and support team to monitor any issues that are related to call quality. The metrics help the operations and support team to analyze aspects of call quality if there is a degradation.
July 2022
Cloud Security Alliance (CSA) Certification
Webex CCE is now a Cloud Security Alliance (CSA) STAR Level 1 Certified solution.
May 2022
Webex CCE 911 Compliance
Webex CCE is now compliant with the Kari's law and Ray Baum's Act of January 6, 2022 for providing 911 dialing support for all fixed interconnected and nonfixed interconnected devices in the U.S. region. For more information, see the Cisco Webex CCE 9-1-1 Compliance section in the Webex Contact Center Enterprise Partner Technical Guide.
March 2022
Support for Hybrid Model
Webex CCE now supports two models of hybrid cloud deployments—SBC Peering Hybrid Model and Localized RTP Hybrid Model , that allow you the flexibility of few Contact Center and Call Control appliances running in your premise data centers and the rest of the appliances moved to Webex CCE cloud. For more information on hybrid models, see the following documents:
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The Customer Premise PSTN section in the Webex Contact Center Enterprise Partner Technical Guide.
Connect to Webex CCE Through Equinix
You can now connect to Webex CCE through Equinix facilities in the U.S. and EMEA regions. Connect your WAN directly to the Webex CCE Business Partner Network (BPN) through peering over one or more Equinix Cloud Exchange (ECX) fabric locations with bandwidth options ranging from 200 MB to 10 GB. For information about how to establish connectivity, see the Webex CCE Equinix Connectivity Process section in the Webex Contact Center Enterprise Partner Technical Guide.
VPN-less Access to Finesse Desktop (For Agents and Supervisors)
This feature provides the flexibility for agents and supervisors to access the Finesse desktop from anywhere through the Internet without requiring VPN connectivity to the Finesse server.
Important Considerations
Consider the following when you access the Finesse desktop through internet without the VPN connectivity to the Finesse server:
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Finesse IP Phone Agent (FIPPA) is not supported.
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Multiple devices accessing Finesse desktop via Network Address Translation (NAT) is not supported.
February 2022
Webex WFO with new WFM support for Webex CCE
Webex CCE now supports the Webex Workforce Optimization offering with the new Webex Workforce Management (WFM). See https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/support/contact-center/webex-workforce-optimization/series.html.
All Users Group Access
Webex CCE Unified Intelligence Center now allows the non-administrative entity owners to view the All Users group in the permission modal and assign permissions.
January 2022
Preferred agent for chats
Webex CCE now allows you to set up preferred agent for a particular customer during chat interactions. After you set up the preferred agent for a customer, chat activities from the customer is routed to the preferred agent for the incoming chat.
May 2021
Agent Answers
Webex CCE leverages Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Natural Language Understanding (NLU) to provide services that assist agents. These Contact Center AI services are available for the agents through the Agent Answers gadget and the Call Transcript gadget on the Cisco Finesse desktop.
The Agent Answers gadget displays relevant suggestions and recommendations in real time for the agent to consider. The suggestions and recommendations are based on the ongoing conversation between the caller and the agent. Agent Answers enhances the customer experience because the timely suggestions improve the ability of the agent to respond.
The Call Transcript gadget dynamically converts the ongoing voice conversation to text and presents the text to an agent for real-time viewing and reference.
Important Considerations
Consider the following before using the Agent Answers services:
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Agent Answers services are supported on calls that originate from CVP routing clients. Calls originating from routing clients other than CVP or calls that are sent using the translation route to CVP do not support the Agent Answers services.
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Agent Answers services aren’t supported in the following call scenarios:
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Direct Extension calls
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Outbound campaign calls and agent-initiated outbound calls.
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Calls routed to agents on non-CUCM Peripheral Gateways such as the TDM PG and System PG
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Transfer and conference calls
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Agent Answers services aren't supported with G.729 endpoint codecs.
Support for 36000 agents
Webex CCE now enables your contact center to scale up to 36000 agents.
Webex Workforce Optimization (WFO) Support with Webex CCE
Webex CCE now supports the Webex Workforce Optimization offering. See https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/support/contact-center/webex-workforce-optimization/series.html.
Virtual Agent–Voice: Onboarding for OEM Customers
The Virtual Agent–Voice (VAV) feature provides enhanced onboarding experience to the OEM customers (customers who use Cisco's contract, billing, and support for Google's speech services) via Webex Control Hub. The OEM customers can use Cisco services coupled with Google’s cloud-based AI-enabled speech services.
Virtual Agent–Voice for Dialogflow CX
Virtual Agent–Voice for Dialogflow CX leverages Google's Dialogflow CX service that allows designing virtual voice agents and creating and connecting complex IVR call flows.
Using Google Dialogflow CX, multiple agents can be created under the same Project ID and can be accessed and managed for different lines of business with a single Google account. For more information, refer to the Google Dialogflow CX documentation at https://cloud.google.com/dialogflow/cx/docs
Accessibility Compliance
Webex CCE now supports the Cisco Unified Intelligence Center reporting application that complies with Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0. For more information on the supported JAWS version, see Voluntary Product Accessibility Templates (VPAT) report for Contact Center at https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/about/accessibility/voluntary-product-accessibility-templates.html
Agent Device Selection
When agents and supervisors need to use different devices that are configured with the same extension, the administrator must enable the Agent Device Selection feature for them. Agents and supervisors can select one of the endpoints (Desk Phone with Extension Mobility, Desk Phone without Extension Mobility, Jabber, and so on) on the shared Automatic Call Distribution (ACD) lines as the active device while signing in to Finesse desktop. This informs the solution to ignore the other devices and use the indicated device as the only source for call interaction. This allows effective control of the call irrespective of from where the user connects to the system. The user can switch the device based on where they are working, across shifts in an office, moving from one office to another across various locations, or working from home.
When the user signs in with the desired extension, the device selection screen displays a list of devices that share the same extension. If the required device is not listed, the user can refresh the list of devices (if the required device is not listed) and select the device that has to be used as the active device for the current desktop session.
For more information on device selection, see the Agent Device Selection section in Cisco Finesse Agent and Supervisor Desktop User Guide for Cisco Webex CCE.
Agent PG Maintenance Mode
Webex CCE now supports peripheral gateway (PG) maintenance mode, which allows the Cisco Finesse server to reconnect to the alternate PG without interrupting the current operations. When the Agent PG maintenance mode is initiated, Finesse desktop users do not see any interruption during sign in, state operations, or call operations.
Multi-Tab Gadget
Finesse desktop supports accessing multiple gadgets through tabs within a single gadget called Multi-Tab gadget. The Multi-Tab gadget allows the desktop to render more gadgets in a single desktop view and thus allows the contact center to efficiently utilize the desktop area. It enables more information to be presented to the agent in a concise and readily accessible manner, without forcing the user to scroll the page or switch the Finesse gadget container to see additional information.
The Multi-Tab gadget can host most gadgets supported by Cisco Finesse desktop. Multiple instances of Multi-Tab gadget containing different groups of gadgets are also supported, which helps users to stack groups of gadgets as required to customize their desktop.
The Multi-Tab gadget cannot host the following gadgets:
- Manage Chat and Email gadget (Finesse Agent desktop and Supervisor desktop)
- Advanced Supervisor Capabilities gadget (Finesse Supervisor desktop)
The Multi-Tab gadget functionality supports the maximize and collapse options when configured as a page-level gadget or as a desktop container tab level gadget in the default layout setting.
For more information about this feature, see Multi-Tab Gadgets section in Cisco Finesse Agent and Supervisor Desktop User Guide for Cisco Webex CCE.
Simplified Administration Console
As a Webex CCE Partner, if you access the Unified Contact Center Enterprise Administration portal, you must take a note of the following enhancements that are completed to improve the user experience:
Simplified Administration Console for Unified CCE
The Administration Console has been fully redesigned to be more contemporary and efficient. The new console streamlines administrative tasks by merging actions that were previously distributed across the Administration, System, and Tools Consoles.
Consolidation of Consoles into the Administration Console
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System Console functions have been consolidated into the new Administration Console. This group of features is available only to users who have system-level view permissions and system-level manage permissions.
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Tools Console functions have been consolidated into the new Administration Console. Some of the utilities within the Tools Console are available only to users who have system- level view permissions and system-level manage permissions.
Reorganization of Configurations and Settings
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Settings and the configuration processes necessary to setup and maintain the product have been restructured and reorganized to improve the user experience.
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Settings that are specific to particular apps or features of the application can be configured within the same space.
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Apps and their configuration elements have been combined to reduce the number of mouse-clicks and navigation necessary to complete an app’s configuration process.
Pagination and Filters
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The Administration Console has been restructured to use pagination to improve the user experience. This removes clutter from the console and allows users to navigate through the different functions of the console with ease.
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A filtering search feature is available to help users to quickly find the functions they want. This search feature works across the pagination and auto-completes as the user types in the feature name. Filtering search functionality is available in the List and Properties pages to quickly locate objects in the system and save time during the configuration process.
We're sharing details about our planned feature releases that are coming out soon. Keep in mind that we could change release dates and the features themselves.
Introducing Insights - the new BI tool for Webex WFO
Here is a reminder that the new Webex WFO reporting and analytics tool, Insights, is now available for early access. Insights will replace Data Explorer. Data Explorer will be discontinued on March 14th, 2025.
Till March 14th, 2025, both Data Explorer and Insights will be available for use. Please ensure that you update your subscription (change-modify) by March 28th, 2025, to maintain uninterrupted access to Insights. For details, see the FAQ.
More about Webex WFO Insights:
Insights is a modern, fully featured BI solution with a range of features and improvements designed to significantly enhance your data access and visibility within Webex WFO. It aims at elevating the user experience and improving upon the current reporting functionality available in Data Explorer today.
Reasons to get excited about Insights:
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The Insights experience is designed for streamlined data exploration and analysis, while being easy for non-technical users to independently create reports and dashboards.
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AI-powered and highly customizable to help accelerate decision making
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Offers a broad range of visualizations
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Suitable for both efficient ad-hoc analysis and rich dash-boarding
Curious? We have prepared a short video to provide an overview of all the new capabilities that Insights brings to the table. Getting access to Insights is easy – it has already been rolled out to all Webex WFO data centers. For more details, see the FAQ.
Agent Event Details
In 36000 agent deployments, you can now capture detailed information on agent states, allowing you to generate more advanced and granular reports. The Agent Event Detail table logs agent transition events and the time agents spend in different states.
Download CCE Flow Templates from the Webex Connect portal
You can download the Webex Connect CCE Flow Templates, originally accessible on Cisco.com, from the Webex Connect portal. These pre-built flow templates can be imported and customized to suit your needs.
Connect with business through more digital channels
Your customers can leverage new digital channels such as Apple Messages for Business with business.
Ability to view reports in local time
You can set the time based on the time zone of the business operations. Your customers who are migrating from the on-premises deployment to Webex CCE can view the real time and historical reports in their business time zone.
Support for Enterprise Chat and Email (ECE) and Webex Connect on the same Webex CCE deployment
You can sign up for Enterprise Chat and Email (ECE) and Webex Connect on the same deployment. You can choose to use ECE for customer interactions over email and chat, and use Webex Connect for customer interactions through other digital channels.