5.17.0 Release Notes
Bright Pattern Contact Center version 5.17.0 is a release that includes new features and improvements.
Note: If you are upgrading to this version from a previous release, be sure to review the prior release notes for any versions you may have skipped past, as these release notes include important information about features, defects, and upgrade notes for each specific version.
Notices
Browser Support Changes
Bright Pattern will discontinue support for Internet Explorer 10 (IE10) and Internet Explorer 11 (IE11). Existing applications may continue to work for a time after discontinuation, but Bright Pattern will no longer test products in IE10-11 or fix IE10-11-related issues.
OS Support Changes
Support for Windows 7 is discontinuing, as is support for Ubuntu 18.04.
New Recommendations
Recommended Operating Systems
- Windows 8.1, Windows 10, or Windows 11
- Mac OS X 10.15 (Catalina) +
- Chrome OS (support via auto update
- Ubuntu 20.04
Recommended Browsers
- Google Chrome 96.0 and later for Windows OS
- Microsoft Edge 13 and later
- Mozilla Firefox 94 and later
- Safari 15.1 and later for Mac OS X
Changes in System Behavior
Ring-Back Tone Plays Immediately to Callers
Previously, for any inbound and/or internal call delivered to any contact center destination, the system would wait for a progress response (e.g., SIP "180 Ringing") from the receiving side before playing the ring-back tone to the caller. Now, by default, the system will start playing the ring-back tone without waiting for the SIP response (i.e., as soon as the call is routed).
This change is made to ensure callers will not experience an extended period of silence before receiving the ring-back tone (or answer) when their calls are routed to mobile agents. In the Bright Pattern Mobile app, which is likely to often be in sleep mode when a call arrives, the SIP response can be sent only after the app "wakes up" (i.e., when the agent reacts to the push notification).
This new default behavior applies to calls delivered to all types of endpoints, including the Mobile app, the Agent Desktop application, all CRM widgets and hardphones, and should generally go unnoticed by callers.
If necessary, your service provider can revert your contact center to the previous behavior. Note, however, that in this case your customers may experience an extended period of silence prior to ring-back tone or answer if/when their calls are delivered to agents logged on mobile devices.
Activity History for Inbound Interactions
Previously an agent party was added to activity history only for the agents that accepted an incoming interaction. Starting from this release, an activity history record will also be created for agents who reject an interaction or do not answer it within a No Answer timeout. This may affect scenarios/workflows where a BP Search Object block is used to find out who handled the interaction. If you use such logic in any of your scenarios or workflows, you may need to implement additional checks to verify actual agent involvement; please contact our Customer Success team for more information.
Use of CNAM Info in Automatically Created Contacts
Starting from this release, if automated contact creation is used for incoming calls, the name portion of the CNAM will be used to populate the "First Name" and "Last Name" fields of the created contact.
Added/Updated Features
The following features have been added or updated for this release.
Agents
Bright Pattern Mobile App
Bright Pattern is pleased to announce the addition of the Bright Pattern Mobile app to Bright Pattern Contact Center (BPCC) software. The Mobile app is modeled after the Agent Desktop application and is available for both Android and iOS operating systems. It lets agents take Agent Desktop on the go, allowing them to continue to provide services to your customers while they are away from their desks.
All calls and messages sent to and from the Mobile app pass through the BPCC platform. As such, all of the essential contact center functions can be applied to these communications (i.e., routing, reporting, and recording).
Agents can use the app to:
- Make outbound calls
- Receive inbound calls via service queues and the calls made directly to their extensions
- Handle chat sessions initiated via webchat and/or SMS
- Initiate SMS chat sessions
- Send and receive direct SMS messages
- Make and receive internal calls
- Send and receive direct internal chat messages
- Process calls initiated by third-party apps
The Mobile app is available for iOS versions 14.4 and later and Android versions 8.0 and later. You may download the Mobile app from the App Store or the Google Play store. Note that before your users can log in via the mobile app (1) your service provider needs to enable the mobile capability for your contact center and (2) you need to enable the new Login to mobile app privilege for all those users. For more information, see the Bright Pattern Mobile App Administrator Guide.
Administrators
Mobile Information for Admins
- In order for agents to use the Mobile app, they must have the privilege Login to Mobile app enabled.
- The new Exit No Answer State settings allow you to automatically return Mobile app users to the Ready state after a configurable timeout. To prevent constant transitions in and out of the No Answer state (e.g., when a smartphone is misplaced or left unattended), there is an additional option to log the user out automatically after a configured number of No Answer transitions.
- You may add Mobile app information to the Agent Login/Logout Report via the report customization function.
- The User Login Info tab now includes information about Mobile app usage.
- Supervisors are able to easily identify agents on the Mobile app with a new Agent Metrics View icon.
- Please refer to the complete Bright Pattern Mobile App Administrator Guide for more information.
Omni DID
This version of Bright Pattern Contact Center software introduces Omni DID. This is a feature that utilizes our software’s built-in omnichannel functionality, allowing direct connection between customers and agents through personally assigned numbers or extensions; it is available for voice channels and SMS channels. Additionally, Omni DID lets you customize built-in system scenarios for the purpose of saving activity history to CRM integrations and more.
Our Omni DID documentation covers the following:
- How Omni DID works and what it can do for your contact center
- Omni DID configuration for incoming voice calls
- Omni DID configuration for incoming SMS
- Using built-in scenarios for tracking activity history
- Omni DID tutorials for agents
For more information, see Administration Tutorials.
Embedded Agent Desktop Widget
The new Embedded Agent Desktop Widget has an upgraded user interface, streamlined and designed for superior usability and visual design. A new comprehensive API underpins this enhancement, providing flexibility and exceptional usability.
If your contact center uses a custom CRM integration or a website, with the Embedded Agent Desktop Widget, your agents can focus on their current workspace, concentrating their work on tickets and cases while Bright Pattern's Embedded Agent Desktop Widget makes communication set up easier.
For agent tutorials, see Agent Tutorials.
Agent Desktop Client-Side JavaScript API
The Agent Desktop Client-Side JavaScript API powers the Embedded Agent Desktop Widget,” allowing you to add widget functionality to your website (e.g., a custom CRM).
This API allows you to access a number of Bright Pattern Contact Center Agent Desktop application functions from the web pages or iframes loaded into this application from other domains.
Note: The Agent Desktop Client-Side JavaScript API is intended to replace the functionality of both the Desktop JavaScript API and the Embedded Agent Desktop API; both of these APIs will continue to be supported until further notice.
Outbound Messaging Campaign Enhancements
Version 5.17 includes several features that expand the functionality of Outbound Messaging (i.e., SMS) campaigns. These features allow you to:
- Have specific list records messaged from specific access numbers, including those used for DID purposes.
- Persistent notifications for incoming SMS DID calls, whereby the unread counter will show an agent the unread number of SMS calls received in the Recent ACL for DID numbers while the agent was unavailable. These numbers will persist no matter which state the user was logged in as. The unread count will be reset when the user visits the associated “Recents” entry.
- Enable dispositions and reporting for DID calls via a default system-wide service selection. This allows granular report reconciliation.
- Streamline an agent's Agent Desktop DID service selector dropdown list via assigning services for Teams as inbound-only.
- Identify list records that match with existing contacts and then post campaign-related activities to the contact's activity history.
- If campaign identification is allowed, create new contacts for list records that the system recognizes as not currently existing.
- Two new properties have been included: “Identify contact and post activity history” and “Automatically create a contact from the list record if it doesn’t exist.”
- A user can automatically identify contact identification information by choosing the checkbox Identify contact and post activity history. This allows the system to identify and note if a contact has previously interacted with the contact center.
- Choosing the Identify contact and post activity history option allows users to select the option Automatically create a contact from list record if it doesn’t exist.” This checkbox allows the system to identify new contacts and to build a contact record from the list of contacts if it is not currently in the system.
"Agent Login/Logout" Report
It may be helpful for supervisors, managers, and support teams to have granular knowledge of the technical details for a user’s login session, such as whether a specific user was logged on via mobile device or desktop computer or their operating system. These customizable options can be added to reports or report templates in the Login/Logout Report.
Other Features
Also included in this release are the following features:
- It is now possible to begin SMS communication while on a phone call after clicking on a contact record.
- The ability to use canned responses, emojis, attachments, and more when sending a text message (i.e., SMS/MMS) while on an active voice call.
- Force Mobile agents to exit the Not Ready - No Answer state after a configurable amount of seconds. It will also force agents to log out of the system if they exceed a definable number of transitions to the Not Ready - No Answer state.
- SMS Advanced Server interprocess messages have been logged.
Known Issues
For more information about known issues for Bright Pattern Contact Center, please see Known Issues and Workarounds.