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Release 24

Telia ACE 24 is here. It includes a number of big and small updates for increased usability, compatibility, and performance.

For the growing Finnish market, it is good news that Telia ACE 24 works for organizations with the Cisco-based communications platform Telia TOP Max.

Agents get new ways to organize and navigate their workspace with a “sidebar” in ACE Interact. It makes it easy to switch between cards and even get notified of new events in cards when they are out of view. For organizations with Teams integrated with their PBX, it is now possible to answer incoming Teams calls directly in ACE Interact.

Our web-based administration tool ACE Coach gets several important updates. In Call flows, you can add Functions, a powerful and flexible way to add features such as e-ID authorization or self-service logic to your IVR. Also new in Call flows is time controlled status for phrases and functions for temporary and/or planned changes to normal IVR operations.

New and updated features

New features in ACE Coach

Insert, view and configure call flow functions in ACE Coach

The introduction of functions in the call flow configuration in ACE Coach allows for easy, yet flexible and very powerful management of self-service logic or integration to other systems like CRMs in your call flows.

A typical example would be adding a step for identifying the caller using an eID service as part of your IVR.

Functions introduce a modular approach to the IVR and allows for reuse of logic and functionality at different points in your IVR trees.

From this version of ACE Coach, it is possible to choose which function to insert at a desired point in your call flow and configure any associated parameters to get the correct behavior. Functions are defined in ACE Admin and their potentially complex inner workings may be represented in a simplified way in the ACE Coach call flow interface.

Status with Start/Stop time for Functions and Phrases

This new feature lets you configure intervals for active status, start and stop times for phrases and functions in your IVR call flow. It’s possible to set a future start or stop time as well as define an interval for activation or inactivation of a phrase or function. Permission to use the feature is part of the ACE access control system.

The actual function or phrase is not affected by these active/inactive settings in the call flow, meaning that if the function is used in another part of the call flow it can have its own active/inactive settings at that point.

The feature might for example be used when setting up a time limited campaign or setting other temporary announcements to your IVR.

Selectable statuses are: always active, inactive, active from, active until, active during and active except.

View routing of contacts in ACE Coach

A logical step towards making ACE Coach a full-fledged, web-based administration tool for the contact center is the added possibility to work with contact routing. In this release it is possible to view and inspect routing rules configured in ACE.

Routing rules control how contacts are dynamically routed to queues and waiting lists based on complex input like contact metadata, IVR choices, agent availability, schedules, integrations with other systems and more.

Manage queues & Waiting lists in ACE Coach

An important part of contact routing management is the possibility to get a comprehensive view of available queues and waiting lists in the organization. In ACE Coach 24 it is possible to get that overview in a searchable table. Given the right access rights the administrator may also create new items and edit current queues and waiting lists for calls, callbacks, chat and email.

ACE Coach user interface in Norwegian

Localization of interfaces is an important part of expanding within our current footprint in the Nordic and Baltic countries. This is why we now introduce ACE Coach in Norwegian. It’s available as a choice at login, starting with ACE Coach version 24.1.

New features in ACE Interact

Added in ACE Interact 24.1 – Set and view activity for TCM

An operator using ACE Interact 24.1 can view and set current and future activity/attendant messages for other users in the organization when searching in the TCM catalog.
This allows the operator to give relevant information to a person calling in, and also keep the information about colleagues whereabouts up to date.

Answer incoming Teams calls from ACE Interact

Microsoft Teams has quickly become an established tool for collaboration, effectively blurring the lines between computer communication and telephony. It allows for remote work and easy communication across entire organizations, not just in the contact center.

It is in that context that we further enhance integration and interoperability between Telia ACE and MS Teams.

In ACE Interact 24 it is possible to answer incoming Teams calls, directly from the ACE Interact workspace without having to switch to Teams. The feature uses a plugin, installed on the agent desktop and MS Teams telephony in Telia ACE relies on Teams-PBX integration.

Sidebar in ACE Interact

As contact center functionality grows, channels are added and the agent takes on more tasks and more complex tasks, the need to get an overview and easily navigate the work area grows. This is why we introduce a new sidebar in ACE Interact 24.

The sidebar shows open cards and makes it easy to navigate between them, also using keyboard. The sidebar also displays activity notifications for cards that are out of view, minimized or covered by others. For example, an incoming contact, new chat or upcoming callback time.

The sidebar has a dynamic sort order, depending on last use. It can switch between compact mode, showing just icons, and expanded view with text labels for each object. Cards can now also be minimized, either from the sidebar or from the card itself. Minimized cards are shown in grey and can be restored from the sidebar.

Updates for organizations using the Mitel CMG catalog/directory service

Mitel CMG UC platform is a popular choice for catalog and directory services and ACE Interact contains many integrations for smooth workflows in organizations combining CMG and Telia ACE.

  • On incoming internal calls, ACE Interact makes a CMG catalog search and presents the name of the caller as a subheading on the card. This makes it easier for the agent or operator to manage the incoming call correctly.
  • An operator using ACE Interact can view and set current and future activity/attendant messages for other users in the organization when searching in the CMG catalog. This is an access function that needs to be granted to be used. Available activities to set are controlled in ACE Admin.

Many usability improvements in ACE Interact

ACE Interact constantly gets improvements to make everyday life a bit easier for the agent. Taken together they save both time and effort.

Additions to Interact 24 include:

  • Email address field auto completion suggesting previously used addresses
  • Place call directly from search field using a keyboard shortcut, Ctrl+Enter. (more keyboard shortcuts will follow as it speeds up work for experienced users)
  • Send DTMF-tones using keyboard during ongoing call. Handy and better ergonomics if the agent needs to navigate an IVR menu
  • To create a more consistent agent experience, it is now possible to place outgoing call and send SMS for interactions without task type. Applies to internal and external in- and outgoing calls
  • To minimize clutter and distractions in the agent work area it is now always possible to filter the queue and waiting lists to show only the ones that the agent is logged in to and currently serving
  • Automatic search in configured address book, also on incoming internal calls presents name of the colleague calling

Agent Interface JSAPI improvements

A number of extensions to the JSAPI Agent interface for ACE Interact makes it possible to build even more powerful and feature rich integrations for efficient agent workflows across applications.

  • Change Work level from the integrated application, such as SalesForce, without having to switch to the Interact tab
  • Extend wrapup time from any integrated third-party application without the stress of having to switch to another browser tab
  • Writing to chat, allowing a chat bot/agent assistant to take part in the conversation and suggest answers in an ongoing chat, making agent work easier
  • Support for fetching current queue status to the integrated application by asking the JSAPI interface for a “subscription”
  • JSAPI may fetch info about number of agents serving a queue, place in queue and expected queue time which are useful deciding factors before transferring an ongoing contact to another queue
  • Fetch information about the logged in agent to the integrated application. Including full name, extension, ACE Interact version, organization and a selection of settings
  • Get available feedback types and corresponding descriptions for callback and campaign allows for greater campaign control from integrated applications
  • Subscribe to event when contact data keys are changed
  • JSAPI may close custom content cards when not needed to keep the agent workspace focused, removing distractions and lowering risk of confusion
  • It is now also possible to add (and remove) custom content cards to the menu via JSAPI, giving the agent easy access to custom cards from a tailored menu

Single sign on for multi organizational users

Single sign on is a very convenient feature for ACE Interact users in organizations with Microsoft Active Directory. Once logged into your desktop, you just have to open ACE Interact and start working.

In Telia ACE 24 SSO functionality is extended to work also for users belonging to more than one organization area in Telia ACE. That is, one AD user account can be used for multiple ACE user accounts. This is useful in very large organizations divided into units that are managed in separate organization areas in Telia ACE. A multihomed user is prompted to choose organization area at login, instead of having to keep track of different user credentials. The update will not affect users with only one organization area, they will experience the normal login flow.

Ultimately it saves time and effort for employees that work in different organizational departments depending on work-force schedule .

Show or conceal hidden fields from TCM

When performing searches in the TCM catalog, it is now possible to control if “hidden fields” should be displayed or not according to your access rights. Entire catalog records or just specific fields may be marked as hidden in TCM, meaning that only agents with operator access rights are allowed to see them.

In the case of an aggregated search hit (with data both from ACE and TCM), only the allowed part of the aggregated information is displayed. If there is a search hit only in a hidden field and the agent doesn’t have access to hidden fields, the record isn’t shown at all in the search results.

Updates to ACE Book Me

ACE Book Me has extended functionality for the personal online meeting, including a choice of two different platforms for video calls and screen sharing.

Administrators can choose to set up bookable meeting type “Online Meeting” with a choice of using Microsoft Teams or the platform Telia Chat Plus for video and screen sharing.

When the end user then books an appointment using ACE Book Me web widget, the system creates meeting links both for the agent/advisor and the end user and reserves the calendar slot.

To further enhance ease of use for the end user when booking an appointment in a logged in context (typically a “My Pages” scenario), the booking widget can pre-populate fields for name and contact details. This way the end user only needs to choose a suitable date and time from the calendar and click “book”.

Operator Statistics and more in ACE Business Intelligence

To make it easier to follow up operator related statistics a number of features have been added to ACE Business Intelligence. Operators are identified by their access rights to perform certain functions and it is now possible to follow up their work specifically using pre-defined sheets in ACE Business Intelligence, “Operator agent” and “Operator task”. They cover data like answered IVR calls, recalls, forwarded calls, calls placed in queue, enquiries and more. As a part of this, it is also possible to view and follow up on the destination for connected calls. That lets you for example see which extensions that often result in recalls to the operator.

By popular demand, ACE Business Intelligence user interface is now available in Norwegian.

There is also an added feature that makes it possible to monitor and follow up stats for contacts that are routed to an agent but not accepted, per media type and per agent.

Continued development of ACE IVR G2

We continue to add features and compatibility improvements to our next generation cloud based IVR platform ACE IVR G2.

  • Call in to the IVR to record and update voice phrases
  • Personal greeting phrases allows the IVR to play an agent-specific greeting when the caller has navigated through the IVR menu and reaches an agent. This adds a personal touch, improving customer experience, and saves time for the agent at each contact
  • Extended compatibility. Tested and verified support for using ACE IVR G2 with the Siemens/Unify OpenScape communications platform

Telia ACE with Telia TOP Max for the Finnish market

ACE 24 brings a compatibility and network upgrade that is significant for the Finnish market where Telia ACE has a growing user base. It is now possible to run Telia ACE, including ACE IVR G2, together with the Cisco based Telia TOP Max communications platform.

This strengthens Telia’s offering in Finland to large organizations with high demands on performance, reliability and configurability.

Teams presence in ACE Interact 24.1 with TCM

An update in ACE Presence Adapter G2 makes it possible for customers running Telia Communication Manager (TCM) and ACE Interact 24.1 to use Microsoft Teams and Office365 as presence source for external contacts (entire organization, also outside of ACE).
Calendar data from Office365 will be shown as future presence and Microsoft Teams presence will be used as active/current presence when searching the TCM catalog.

Microsoft Teams and Office365 presence data cannot be set or modified from ACE.

Minor updates

Minor updates to ACE Interact

Accessibility improvements ACE Interact

We strive for WCAG 2.1 compliance and constantly make accessibility improvements to ACE Interact. In this release many small improvements have been made for this purpose, e.g. new menu option, adapted for keyboard navigation, for changing password.

Support for inactivity logout in ACE Interact

ACE Interact now takes central settings and timer for inactivity logout into account. This is expected behavior from an administration standpoint. When inactivity logout is triggered, a message is displayed for the agent with the option to initiate a new logon.

Enhanced change log for ACE Admin

If an access role is edited with added or removed access functions, the change is now added to the change log in ACE Admin. Assigning roles to users is also logged.

Performance improvements

Most new releases have optimizations and performance improvements. In ACE 24 they include:

  • Significant improvements in performance regarding timebooked callbacks for customers with high loads during short time intervals. Particularly useful for all our customers in the health care sector
  • Backend is upgraded to Erlang 24 that promises significant performance boost and will increase server efficiency. That means that they will use less energy and that is also good for the planet
  • Performance enhancements for Interaction View searches

Internal compatibility improvements

ACE 24 brings support for SQL Server 2019. This paves the way for phasing out support for SQL Server 2012 in the upcoming release, ACE 25.

Compatibility

Version requirements for the individual clients

To use the new functionality in Telia ACE 24.0 you need latest version of each respective sub product.

The following versions of ACE clients are compatible with ACE 24.0:

  • ACE Admin versions 22 or newer are supported
  • ACE Coach must be upgraded, only version 24 is 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 (*)
  •  (*) Note that, if single sign-on is used, ACE Agent 21.0 or newer, ACE Pulse 21.0 or newer and ACE Report or newer are supported; older versions are thus not supported.
  • ACE Interact versions 12.0.0 or newer are supported
  • ACE Monitor versions 12.0.0 or newer are supported
  • When upgrading ACE Database to 24.0.0, all users of ACE Coach, ACE Interact 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 24.0.0
    • the system parameter governing the primary version of ACE Interact will automatically be changed to 24.0.0 and the system parameter governing the secondary version of ACE Interact will automatically be changed to the primary version used before the upgrade
    • the system parameter governing the primary version of ACE Monitor will automatically be changed to 24.0.0 and the system parameter governing the secondary version of ACE Monitor will automatically be changed to the primary version used before the upgrade
  • If upgrading from a version older than ACE 23, it is strongly recommended to read release notes for all intermediate versions. For instance, if upgrading from ACE 19.0 to ACE 24.0, ACE20ReleaseNotes, ACE21ReleaseNotes, ACE22ReleaseNotes and  ACE23 ReleaseNotes should be read in addition to the current release notes
  • Also note that SQL Server 2012 will not be supported from ACE 25