Release 21

A more flexible work area in ACE Interact (also released for ACE Interact 20)

A new “card framework” give agents more freedom in tailoring their work area to optimise for their tasks, workflows and individual needs.

• Instead of using fixed width columns, size and position can be set independently for every individual card in the browser window
• Cards may overlap, partially or fully
• Card placement is maintained on window resize. Scroll bars are added dynamically if needed
• “Snap” function helps the user to organise cards neatly in the work area
• When upgrading to ACE Interact 20 or later from earlier versions it remembers where you left off to make you feel right at home

The new work area lets the agent place cards and adjust size to get the most important information and tools in focus and in the order they are used. This way it’s possible to reduce distractions, resulting in a better and more effective work environment.

More tweaks to the work area

• A shortcut button makes it easier to log out and terminate the work shift correctly
• Improved and colour-coded status area makes it clearer what status the agent is in
• New and improved design of toggle for paused/active
• Activate forwarding without having to pause first. Saves seconds and improves statistics accuracy

Improved and extended Single Sign On with Microsoft Azure Active Directory

Single sign on in Telia ACE lets a user log in using either an account in the local AD or cloud based Azure AD.

This feature builds on OpenId Connect Authorization Code Flow, which is a flexible model for synchronizing ACE users to AD users and strengthens security and simplifies for both administrators and users.

When a user account synchronized by SCIM (System for Cross-domain Identity Management) is deleted, the corresponding user account in ACE is locked and is later automatically removed after a configurable number of days.

To comply to AD security, user accounts that have been locked via SCIM synchronization cannot be unlocked in ACE Coach or in ACE Admin.

In summary:

• Supports Microsoft Identity Platform that also may be configured for multi factor authentication
• Supports AD synchronization via SCIM
• Secure account provisioning – if a user leaves the company the account will affect all systems connected to Microsoft Azure Active Directory. Only one place to lock/remove account.
• Easier to create accounts – e.g. a new user account will affect all systems connected to Microsoft Azure Active Directory
• Easier for users to start their workday as there is no need to enter username and password when starting any of the concerned ACE clients
• Applies to the following clients:
  • ACE Interact
  • ACE Coach
  • ACE Monitor
  • ACE Agent
  • ACE Admin
  • ACE Report
  • ACE Pulse

ACE Knowledge One Widget Portal interface

The modular ACE One Widget framework is extended to include a Portal type styling and logic. It is primarily intended for internal use and complements the existing widget types, Inline and Floating. It is optimised to work on all types of screens.

Naturally, it keeps all the functionality of the old portal widget while adding many useful features:

• New design with better accessibility
• Accordion style guide display for fast access to guide content without opening a new page
• Contextual tag cloud – adapts to the current view
• List of latest updated guides
• Improved search – easily combine text, tags and categories to narrow down your search. Use @ and # to get drop downs of available categories and tags
• Previewing subcategories
• Open images in full screen lightbox
• Optimized layouts for tablets and smartphones
• Automatic shortcuts to “similar guides” in the same category
• Security settings to control access to the interface

Part two of Workflow in ACE Knowledge Admin

This release contains part two of the enhancements to the information owner role and workflows for maintaining and quality-checking content in the knowledge base. It will now be possible to let editors make changes to guides and send them for review to an information owner that can approve or send back the changes with comments. A feature that simplifies information management, especially for organisations with large volumes and many stakeholders.

• New item “Information owners” in the settings menu
• Configurable default review intervals and the option to send email reminders about outdated content
• The new workflow functionality will prevent editors that are not information owners to publish changes to guides with an owner. Instead, they may send changes for review to the information owner
• The information owner can in turn approve, send back or discard the suggested changes with optional comments that are shown in the guide version history as well as sent out via e-mail to the editor in question
• Status for guides sent for review or sent back for correction is displayed in the guide list in the admin interface

New administration features in ACE Coach

A number of features are added to ACE Coach extending its usability towards being the perfect tool for easy everyday administration of the contact center.

• Manage entrances
  In the new main section “Building Blocks”, it is possible to list and manage entrances, see their associated access number and use one-click shortcuts for easy viewing/editing of opening hours and call flows
• Add or remove task types
• Set contact data, including task type and priority, at different steps in the graphical call flow editor
• New feature to manage sequences of extensions makes it possible to add or remove extensions in bulk
• ACE Coach remembers last view between sessions

ACE Interact now supports Mitel MiCollab softphone

Full CTI integration between ACE Interact and Mitel MiCollab softphone eliminates the need of a hardware phone and makes remote work easy in organisations using Mitel’s UCC solution MX-ONE.

ACE Interact can control all telephony functions of the softphone transparently making the agent’s work simple and efficient.

Social Media Orchestrator for live and virtual agents (beta) makes Facebook Messenger conversations easy

A new feature, built on our modular ACE Conversational Hub architecture, that adds the possibility to manage Facebook Messenger conversations using both virtual agents and live agents with mutual handover.

For the live agent, the conversation is managed exactly as a “regular” chat in the agent tool ACE Interact. No new learning required.

Any integrated or third-party virtual agent/bot supported by ACE Conversational Hub may be used for automated conversations, e.g. Boost.ai.

Handover from bot to agent includes conversation history and the agent may forward the conversation to a colleague, or hand back to the bot or virtual agent to continue or close the conversation, once the customer’s issue is solved. In effect, this (beta) feature makes it easy to add Facebook Messenger to your omnichannel and automation strategies.

The resulting conversation is stored in Interaction View in its entirety, and can be exported to Interaction analytics tools, such as NICE Nexidia. Analytics are a useful tool for fine tuning bots, making them meet customer expectations and needs.

Increased flexibility for passing contact data in Screen Pop

It is now possible to decide which specific data keys to be used to trigger a screen pop for ACE Interact. This makes it easier to tailor screen pop to your needs, further enhancing the agent workspace.

The the data key selection is made easy in a new ACE Admin dialogue:

ACE Conversational Hub connector adds Talkamatic to the “bring your own bot” concept

Our modular “ACE Conversational Hub” platform for building smart contact flows now has a connector to use the Talkamatic platform as a remote agent.

Talkamatic are experts in conversational AI and dialog offering a solution for dialog between human and machine using all human means of communication (speech, text, images, gestures, signals, etc.) language independently.

Security and robustness enhancements

Security is at the very core of Telia ACE Development. We continuously aim to meet or exceed the strictest regulations, policies and best practices.

• Configuration of the system parameter adminLogCleanDays, governing how long to keep records in in the change log visible in ACE Admin, is automatically increased to 400 days when upgrading ACE Database to 21 (if the value already is 400 or higher, nothing happens).This change aligns the visible log with the underlying system audit trail which is always kept for 400 days. Organizations may choose to change the system parameter.The audit trail is an important tool for providing evidence in security investigations. The 400 day period meets industry best practice.
• External audit report ISAE 3000
• Quarterly security KPI report

New and improved connection to PSTN Norway

As a result of Telia’s extended operator presence in Norway we have a new connection for landline telephony. It uses a simpler and higher performing architecture resulting in better call quality and robustness.

Version requirements for the individual clients

To use the new functionality in Telia ACE 21.0 you need latest version of each respective sub product.

The following versions of ACE clients are compatible with ACE 21.0:

• ACE Admin versions 20 or newer are supported.
• ACE Coach versions 20 or newer are supported.
• CallGuide Report / ACE Report versions 11.0.0 or newer are supported.
• CallGuide Agent / ACE Agent versions 9.0.0 or newer are supported.
• CallGuide Pulse / ACE Pulse versions 9.0.0 or newer are supported.
• ACE Interact versions 12.0.0 or newer are supported.
• ACE Monitor versions 12.0.0 or newer are supported.
• When upgrading CallGuide Database to 21.0.0, all users of ACE Coach and ACE Monitor will automatically start using the new version at next login after upgrade:
  • the system parameters governing the primary version and the secondary version of ACE Coach will automatically be changed to 21.0.0.
  • the system parameter governing the primary version of ACE Monitor will automatically be changed to 21.0.0 and the system parameter governing the secondary version of ACE Monitor will automatically be changed to the primary version used before the upgrade.
• It is a strong recommendation to immediately upgrade ACE Core to version 21.0 when ServiceNode Tenant G2 has been upgraded to version 21.0.