What's New in Cisco Webex Contact Center 1.0

11 February 2022

Date Format Options for Interval Field

The default date format for the Interval field in the Analyzer reports is mm/dd/yyyy. With the new enhancement, the Analyzer allows users to choose different date formats for the Interval field, similar to other fields in the reports.

Customization of date format was available for profile variables only, previously.

For more information, see Change Date Format of the Interval Field in the Cisco Webex Contact Center 1.0 Analyzer User Guide.

22 December 2021

Webex Contact Center stores the filters that are set in each tab of the Agent Performance Statistics (APS) in the Agent Desktop and the Management Portal, in the browser cache. Caching the filters in each tab saves the time taken by agents to set filters every time they change tabs, thereby providing them a better user experience.

The filter changes made by a user are stored in the browser cache of the user's computer for the specific user ID. The filters that the user sets remain the same even if the user refreshes the browser or logs back in to Webex Contact Center using the same browser. The user can reset the filters to the default values by clearing the browser cache.

For more information, see Summary Report, Agent Stats - Historic report, and Agent Stats By State - Historic report in the Cisco Webex Contact Center 1.0 Agent Desktop User Guide.

Retain Column Width in Tabular Reports

Analyzer users can change the column width in tabular reports dynamically when running reports. However, the changed column width was not retained previously when the reports were refreshed, making it necessary for users to resize the columns again.

With the new enhancement, Webex Contact Center stores the changed column width in the browser cache of the user's computer, for the specific user ID. The changed column width remains the same even if the user refreshes the browser or logs out and logs back in to Webex Contact Center using the same browser. The user can reset the column width to the default size by clearing the browser cache, if required.

For more information, see Change Report Column Width in the Cisco Webex Contact Center 1.0 Analyzer User Guide.

Whole Number Format for Contacts Handled

Tabular reports in the Analyzer are enhanced to display the number of contacts that are handled, in the whole number format. This is applicable to the following columns:

• Contacts Handled

• Inbound Contacts Handled

• Outdial Contacts Handled

The reports displayed the data in the decimal format previously.

18 October 2021

Access Reports and Dashboards through Browser Links

Standard agents and premium agents who do not have access to the Analyzer to view and run dashboards and reports can access the dashboards and reports using browser links.

The Drill Down functionality is not available for reports that are accessed through browser links.

For more information, see Access Reports and Dashboards through Browser Links in the Cisco Webex Contact Center 1.0 Analyzer User Guide.

20 September 2021

Contacts in Queue and Agents Available Reports

Two new real-time stock reports are introduced in the Analyzer–Contacts in Queue and Agents Available. These reports are displayed as cards in the Contact Center Overview - Real-time Dashboard in the Analyzer, and also in the Summary tab of the Agent Performance Statistics page in the Agent Desktop.

The new reports enable users to gain information about contacts that are waiting in queue, and the availability of agents in specific teams, without the overhead of having to look for the information in tabular reports.

For more information about the reports, see Contact Center Overview - Real-Time Dashboard in the Cisco Webex Contact Center 1.0 Analyzer User Guide.

Define Column Summary for Top-level Row Segment Group in Analyzer Reports

The Analyzer UI now enables users to define column summary for the top-level row segment group in a report. The user can add formulas–Average, Count, Minimum, Maximum, Sum, and Custom for each column. This feature provides an enhanced data viewing experience for tabular reports.

For more information, see Customize Report Summary in Cisco Webex Contact Center 1.0 Analyzer User Guide.

26 July 2021

Import and Export Reports

The Analyzer UI provides administrators the option to import and export reports as individual files or as multiple files in a folder. This functionality enables administrators and partner administrators to export custom reports on a tenant and import them in other tenants.

Improved View for Grouped Reports

The Analyzer UI is improved to remove blank rows in grouped reports. This reduces the blank area in the reports and provides a better viewing experience.

19 July 2021

Hide Inactive Users

The Users page in the Provisioning module in the Management Portal provides a Hide Inactive Users check box to filter out inactive users. If the administrator selects the Hide Inactive Users check box, inactive users in the tenant will not be displayed.

07 June 2021

Agent Desktop Enhancements

• Support for Google Chrome: The Agent Desktop supports Google Chrome V88.0.4324 or higher. The agents will not be disconnected any longer due to Chrome regulating memory usage for the application.

• Localization: The Agent Desktop user interface supports localization in 27 languages. The following languages are supported:

  Bulgarian, Catalan, Chinese (China), Chinese (Taiwan), Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Serbian, Slovak, Slovenian, Spanish, Swedish, and Turkish.

02 June 2021

Allow Customers to Configure a Mix of Toll and Toll-free Numbers for Cisco PSTN for Contact Center

Prior to this enhancement, if a customer had purchased the Bundle 2: Inbound toll-free number access option with the Cisco PSTN for Contact Center add-on, it was required that the customer configures all inbound numbers as toll-free. For billing, Webex Contact Center considered all dialed numbers as toll-free.

With this enhancement, Webex Contact Center can classify each number added to the tenant as toll or toll-free. Webex Contact Center billing will be computed based on call volumes on all toll-free numbers.

The following license usage reports are enhanced to utilize the ability to classify toll and toll-free numbers:

• License Usage Report: This report is enhanced to provide customers a metrics of the daily observed Max Concurrent Toll-Free Calls. This is indicative of the usage of Bundle 2: Inbound toll-free number access. A breakup of the Max Concurrent Toll-Free Calls is provided, to show the composition of the calls connected to the Agent, IVR system, and Queue when the maximum was observed. Additionally, the report also provides the concurrent call volumes observed on tolled numbers at the time when Max Concurrent Toll-Free Calls was observed. A breakup of Concurrent Tolled Calls is provided to show the composition of the calls connected to the Agent, IVR system, and Queue.

• Historical License Usage Report: Using this report, customers can view the Max Concurrent Toll-Free Calls for the previous months. This report can access data from the past thirty-six months and can display data for a consecutive twelve-month period.

25 May 2021

Onboarding Partner as a Customer

This feature enables a partner to onboard a Webex Contact Center tenant for the partner’s own organization by selecting the I am a Customer option in the Order Setup Wizard in Control Hub. This feature is enabled for this release only on request, to ensure compliance with feature restrictions.

The following are the feature restrictions when a partner provisions a tenant for the partner’s own organization using Control Hub:

• If the country of operation that is selected when provisioning the tenant maps to the United States Data Center, the partner should onboard the tenant to the Default Platform only. The partner should not select the Exception Platform. For more information on Webex Contact Center Data Centers, see the article Data Locality in Cisco Webex Contact Center.

• If the country of operation that is selected when provisioning the tenant maps to any other Data Center, then the partner should not have any existing customer tenants provisioned in that Data Center. The partner should first provision the tenant for the partner's own use, and can then start onboarding customer tenants.

24 May 2021

Filters in the Run Mode

The Analyzer UI offers filtering capabilities while executing a report in the run mode. This feature provides an enhanced report generation experience. Users can choose the filters to be displayed, while creating or editing a visualization, or while creating a copy of the visualization. When the users run the visualization, the selected filters appear at the top-right corner of the visualization page. Users can filter the visualization using the appropriate filters, without having to edit the report.

28 April 2021

Service Details in Control Hub

A new Service Details section is introduced in the Contact Center Settings tab in Control Hub. This section enables administrators and support engineers to quickly identify the platform-level configurations that are applicable to the customer organization. The Service Details section provides the following information:

• Webex Contact Center Country of Operation: This field displays the country of operation that was selected in the Setup Wizard when the contact center tenant was provisioned. The field provides an indication of the geolocation of the customer tenant.

• Webex Contact Center Platform Details: The value 1.0 displayed in this field confirms that the tenant is hosted on the Cisco Webex Contact Center 1.0 platform.

29 March 2021

Supervisory Capability to Sign Out Agents

Supervisors can view the list of agents who are currently signed in to the Agent Desktop, using a new dashboard Agent State Data – Realtime in the Management Portal. The dashboard provides supervisors the ability to sign out agents who are not handling any active contacts; i.e., agents who are in the Available, Idle, or Not Responding state across all media channels. This feature helps enterprises manage concurrent licensing costs.

February 2021

Enhancements to Chat and Virtual Agent Template Creation

The user experience on Control Hub for creating and editing Chat and Virtual Agent templates has been enhanced to support certain platform upgrades. There is no change to the features provided by the templates.

December 2020

Webex Contact Center Support in APJC and LATAM Regions

Webex Contact Center will be supported in Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Thailand, and Vietnam in the APJC region, in addition to the current availability in Australia and New Zealand. In the LATAM region, Webex Contact Center will be supported in Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Peru, Ecuador, Paraguay, and Uruguay, in addition to the current availability in Mexico. The APJC and LATAM regions will be supported by new pairs of geo-redundant voice points of presence (POPs) centers in Singapore and Brazil, ensuring voice quality for regional calls.

Service Specific Administrator Role for Webex Contact Center

A new service specific administrator role is introduced for Webex Contact Center. This role can be assigned to external administrators and administrators in the customer organization. The service specific administrator role enables restricted administrative access on Control Hub. An administrator with this role can manage contact center licenses and administer the contact center service.

Support for provisioning administrators is also enabled in this release. Partner administrators who have provisioning administrator privileges for the contact center service can perform all activities that a partner full administrator can perform.

Support for external read-only administrators is available with this release. External administrators with the read-only role can access all Webex Contact Center administrative interfaces in the read-only mode.

November 2020

Content Security Policy

Content Security Policy defines an approved list of trusted domains that can be accessed from Webex Contact Center applications. This feature helps comply with the content security policy framework that browsers enforce.

October 2020

License Tracking Reports for Bundled PSTN Offer

Two new reports are introduced for license tracking for customers using Cisco PSTN add-on for Webex Contact Center. These reports are available in Analyzer, in the Stock Reports > Historical > License Usage Report folder.

• License Usage Report - Webex Contact Center PSTN: This report provides the daily observed maximum concurrent voice-enabled agent sessions on Agent Desktop. This data is indicative of the usage of PSTN Toll Inbound SKU. The report additionally provides the daily observed maximum concurrent voice calls on the tenant. This data is indicative of the usage of PSTN Toll-free Inbound SKU. Additionally, a breakup of maximum concurrent voice calls is provided. The breakup shows the composition of the calls connected to Agent, IVR, and Queue when the maximum was observed.

• Historical License Usage Report - Webex Contact Center PSTN: This report provides a monthly view of the same data as described in License Usage Report - Webex Contact Center PSTN. A view of 12 consecutive months' data is available at any point in time. Data for the last 36 months is available. This provides an indication of seasonality in PSTN license consumption.

Access Control Improvements for APS Reports on Agent Desktop

Data displayed in the Agent Performance Statistics (APS) reports on the Agent Desktop is now based on the Queue and Team access settings in the Agent Viewable Statistics tab of the agent profile. Earlier, the APS reports were based on the settings in the user profile. The Analyzer access control continues to use the settings in the user profile.

September 2020

Canada DC Rollout

New Webex Contact Center customers who select Canada as the Country of Operation in the Contact Center tab of the Setup Wizard during provisioning will have tenants created in the new Canadian Data Center. The organization's tenant configuration data, call data records, call recordings, and reporting data will reside in the new Canadian Data Center.

Secure BRE

Data access APIs used by control scripts for the Business Rules Engine (BRE) are now secured using the OAuth authorization framework.

August 2020

PCI Certification

Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) Version 3.2.1 Attestation of Compliance (AOC) is now available for Webex Contact Center. As of 31 August 2020, Webex Contact Center has successfully completed the PCI DSS Version 3.2.1 audit and received the Attestation of Compliance from the certification authority Foresite.

July 2020

Analyzer User Interface Enhancements

The Analyzer user interface is enhanced with the following features to improve user experience:

• Renaming of Modules: You can edit and rename modules that were already added in Analyzer reports.

• Enhanced Search: Search is enhanced to recursively search across all folders to provide a view of all folder names, reports or dashboards matching the search string.

Threshold and Alerts

The Threshold feature allows authorized users to create threshold rules in the Management Portal to monitor agent and call data. When a threshold is breached, an alert is sent to the Analyzer user interface for the authorized user to view and acknowledge. In addition, you can configure threshold rules to send alerts to one or more email addresses. Email alerts of HTML or plain text format can be configured.

Usage Report

The Usage Report feature provides the agent license usage details for each day of the month for a given site. It also gives a summary of maximum usage for each month. You can select a site and the period for which you require the usage data.

Bundled PSTN Offer

Cisco PSTN add-on for Webex Contact Center can now be configured for customer organizations via the Control Hub as part of provisioning a new or an update order.

June 2020

External Data Dip

A new secured HTTP connector is now available to connect to external CRM or databases using REST interface. Data fetched by the connector using the Fetch variable block can be extracted from the JSON path and stored in CAD variables. The data can then be used for customizing IVR scripts, selecting queues, or for providing useful information on Agent Desktop.

The HTTP connector uses OAuth 2.0 authorization framework with JSON Web Tokens (JWT) for authentication to interconnect with Salesforce. It also supports basic authentication mechanism using username and password. See Set Up Salesforce for Cisco Webex Contact Center.

Stereo Recording

The Stereo Recording feature replaces the combined mono output file with a stereo output file. The stereo file provides the audio streams of the agent and the other participant (the caller or called party) as two separate audio channels within a single recording. This enables voice analytics better than in a mono file, where the audio is mixed into a single stream.

Salesforce Desktop Connector Version 1.15

A new version of the Salesforce Desktop Connector with highly simplified installation and configuration is now available in Salesforce AppExchange. The Salesforce Desktop Connector currently supports Lightning and Classic versions of the Salesforce Instance. It supports the following features:

• Unified Agent Interface with Agent and Call Controls Embedded in the Salesforce Application: The Webex Contact Center Agent Desktop application is embedded in the Salesforce CTI Panel allowing agents to manage both Inbound and Outbound interactions directly from Salesforce. Full agent state (Login, Idle/Available, etc.) and telephony control (Answer/Hang-up, Hold/Resume, Consult/Transfer/Conference, Pause/Resume Recording and Wrap-Up, etc.) are also available from within the Salesforce application.

• Auto Login of Agents into the Telephone Platform: Single Sign-On to Salesforce and Webex Contact Center is now enabled.

• Screen Pop Based on Incoming Call Parameters: This feature pops up the relevant customer record within Salesforce based on incoming call parameters. Single record, multiple records and no record matches are supported.

• Automatic Call Logging in Salesforce Application: The Salesforce Desktop Connector now logs the call activity information into Salesforce at the end of each call and tags the call log to the call activity record.

  The call recording link will be stored along with the call activity record, which enables playing the recording directly from the Salesforce screen.

• Outbound Calling - Click to Call: Click to Call is enabled for all the phone number fields in Salesforce. This enables agents to initiate outdial directly from Salesforce. Administrators can enable or disable the outdial feature for agents directly from the Webex Contact Center Admin Portal.

May 2020

Partner and customer organizations on Control Hub are no longer required to be in the same geography. For example, a partner organization that is based in the U.S. can onboard and administer a customer organization that is created in the U.K.

Webex Contact Center has added features that are required for PCI compliance in the contact center service to protect customer organizations from data loss while using Email and Chat channels. Customer administrators can decide to restrict attachments from the Email and Chat service for their organizations. If Email or Chat content has cardholder data, then you can configure to either Redact or Drop the content that is in the email subject line or email/chat body. Attachments are always dropped if PCI data is detected.

Webex Contact Center introduced a Cisco-provided, flat-rate PSTN calling offer for contact center. The offer provides base telephony that includes local number access to Webex Contact Center, PSTN termination of the call to agents, and toll-free access to Webex Contact Center. Agents can use any of their telephony solutions such as home phone, mobile phone, and office DID. The customers are charged for usage at a flat rate per agent license. Customers get a combined bill for Contact Center and telecom by Cisco. This offer is available in the US and Canada.

GET API provides Agent and Customer records (Activity & Session) respectively based on the last modified timestamp provided as an input.

April 2020

A new dashboard called Contact Center Overview allows administrators and supervisors to view reports for both real-time and historical data in Webex Contact Center Management Portal.

Administrators and supervisors can log in to the Management Portal to view a dashboard with Callback details for a certain duration.

Webex Contact Center back end registers Subscription Cancel, Suspend, Resume, Expire, Renew events from CCW for accurate tracking of current subscription state.

Predefined Chat Responses

Administrators can create standard chat responses that the agents can use in their interaction with customers. Use of predefined responses reduces the response time, and thus increases productivity of the agent.

New Data Centers

Webex Contact Center is now available in Europe and UK data centers. Your data resides locally and the data stored is compliant with the European data residency standards and laws. See Data Locality in Cisco Webex Contact Center.

January 2020

The Webex Contact Center platform is now integrated with Control Hub. Subscription orders can now be provisioned automatically using the unified service setup flow that the Control Hub platform provides.

You can now use Webex Contact Center Reporting and Analytics to view the activities of your agents during their logged-in session. You can track the time that they spent in each state. This helps you to manage your agents efficiently.

Supervisors in Webex Contact Center can now monitor the calls of their agents and help them solve customer requests. Using real-time call monitoring, Supervisors can also train the agents to handle difficult situations.

December 2019

New Data Centers

A new data center is now available in Australia. Your data resides locally and the data stored is compliant with the European data residency standards and laws. See Data Locality in Cisco Webex Contact Center.

November 2019

New Refreshed Webex Contact Center Reporting and Analytics

Webex Contact Center Reporting and Analytics has a new interface that's simple to use. Reporting and Analytics is the single source of truth for all Webex Contact Center metrics and provides Standard, Historical, and Real-Time reports. The dashboard has details about Webex Contact Center metrics and KPIs.

Support for Salesforce Lightning Integration

You can now integrate Webex Contact Center with Salesforce Lightning. You can use Webex Contact Center for Salesforce to make and receive calls, play customer call recordings, and generate Webex Contact Center reports on the Salesforce interface. When the agent receives any customer contact, Salesforce fetches the customer's records and automatically displays them on the screen. Webex Contact Center for Salesforce has an automatic call activity log for better customer interaction in the Customer Relationship Manager (CRM).

New Refreshed Agent Desktop Experience

We refreshed the Agent Desktop to create a more positive agent experience and reduce the agent fatigue. With the look and feel of other Webex user interfaces, agents can have an intuitive and consistent experience across applications.

October 2019

Chat and Email Integration with Webex

You can create a chat bubble for your organization's website using Webex Contact Center. Then you can customize the bubble by adding proactive prompts, branding, and customized bots. After you set up the bubble, you can transfer files, escalate ongoing chats, and download transcripts. At the end of the chat, you can also collect the customer feedback to improve your services.

September 2019

Increased Scalability

We increased the capacity for Webex Contact Center and it can now scale up to 1,000 agents per tenant. We can support midsize to large-size contact centers in the cloud.

Cloud Tenant Management with Webex Control Hub

We integrated Webex Contact Center with Webex Control Hub to provide faster and simpler customer onboarding with a centralized management experience. We automated the onboarding and provisioning of tenants in Cisco Commerce Workspace orders and trials for Gold tenants. Gold tenants are the partner tenants to demo the product. Experience out-of-the-box single sign-on for all Webex applications, for both the Partners and Customers.