Version 5.30.0 Release Notes
Changes in System Behavior
Manual Rescheduling Default Restrictions
Manual call rescheduling is now restricted based on dispositions, with control provided by the new Agent can reschedule the call option for each disposition. Agents are now required to fill out both the "From" and "To" fields during manual rescheduling, with autofill suggestions based on Campaign and State Calling Hours (if applicable). Additionally, the new Forbid call rescheduling out of Calling Hours and Maximum rescheduling window settings ensure that calls adhere to business rules, enhancing scheduling accuracy and reducing errors.
Important changes:
- The Maximum rescheduling window is set to a default of 30 days for both new and existing campaigns. This limit means that agents can only reschedule calls within a 30-day period, helping to maintain control over future call scheduling and prevent excessive delays. This default setting can be adjusted as needed to align with specific campaign requirements.
- For new campaigns, the Agent can reschedule the call option is now set to False by default for system dispositions. This prevents agents from manually rescheduling calls for system dispositions unless explicitly allowed. Custom dispositions will have this option set to True by default.
Updated Wait Behavior
The Wait action has been updated for outbound campaigns to block only the dialed number instead of the entire record, preventing unintended delays in dialing other available numbers within the same record.
Added/Updated Features
Scenario Builder Enhancements: Return Block
This release simplifies working with nested scenarios in the Scenario Builder by introducing the Return block. The Return block allows a child scenario to cleanly return control to its parent scenario. When a parent scenario regains control, execution continues from the point where it called the child. Used outside a child scenario, the "Return" block functions identically to an "Exit" block, terminating the current scenario.
Option to Configure a Logout URL in the Single Sign-On Integration
The Single Sign-On integration now provides greater control over the logout experience. The option to configure a logout URL lets you specify the logout link for your identity provider (IdP). Now, when a user logs out from any Bright Pattern application, they are logged out of all Bright Pattern Contact Center applications as well as from your IdP. The user will then be redirected to the logout URL configured in your IdP system or simply to the IdP's login page, depending on whether your IdP supports redirection after logout.
Training Class Attendee Visibility
You can now easily see who attended each training class in the new Attendees tab under training classes. Importing and exporting users now includes training class and supervisor details, with added checks to prevent errors. Deleting a training class clearly shows the impact and requires confirmation. Training classes are available with Bright Pattern Contact Center Omni QM.
Real-Time Stats for Tasks
We've added some new real-time statistics for agents and supervisors, providing a clearer view of performance across tasks, emails, calls, and chats. Agents and supervisors can now see metrics for daily handled tasks, tasks in their personal queues, and tasks that are exceeding their service level agreements. Average handling time for tasks is also now available. Similar statistics were added for emails and chats, including daily handled counts and average handling times. These new metrics are available in the "Add metrics..." menu in the real-time table header of the supervisor console and can be retrieved directly with the Real-Time Statistics API.
Metric descriptions can be found in the list of all real-time metrics:
- Tasks
- Calls
- Chats
- Emails
Supervisors can Move Agents into Different Not Ready Reasons
Improve the quality of agent time tracking by giving supervisors the option to directly change an agent's "Not Ready" reason. An intuitive dropdown menu within the existing Agent Desktop controls show all available reasons. As you might expect, any changes made by a supervisor are recorded in both the audit log and Agent Activity reports.
Session Tokens Removed from Application URLs
This release improves security by removing session tokens from URLs, aligning with industry best practices. This change is implemented in both the agent desktop application and administrative portal.
Watson Assistant Integration Improved to Reduce Your Costs
The Watson Assistant integration now allows you to customize the Watson user IDs associated with each assistant interaction. Previously, user IDs were randomly generated every time a scenario used the integration, artificially inflating the count of monthly active users and potentially increasing costs in your Watson account. You now have the option to specify a user ID associated with the customer being served by the chat bot scenario, improving the accuracy of the count of monthly active users.
Additionally, you can now specify a timezone and locale for each Watson Assistant interaction, which can help the assistant provide responses with more accurate time-based calculations (for example, when scheduling a call back), and better parse inputs with local-specific nuances, such as date formats.
New Option to See the Average SLA for Multiple Services
This update gives administrators the option to choose how SLAs are calculated for multiple services. Administrators can now opt to view either the average SLA across all selected services or the worst-performing SLA amongst them. The average SLA option calculates the combined performance of multiple services, providing a more balanced overview. The option is managed under reporting settings, and affects how combined SLAs for multiple services are displayed on wallboards and in supervisors' real-time service metric view of the agent desktop.
Toggle Visibility of Quoted Text in Email Replies
Currently, clicking the 
button at the bottom of an email reply displays the message history (e.g. quoted text from previous emails) for editing, but does not allow the history to be hidden after it's been displayed.
You can now modify the behavior of this button to instead toggle message history visibility, letting agents show and hide the history as many times as needed. When history is visible, an 'edit' button allows agents to change the quoted text, but disables visibility toggling.
If you would like to apply the new behavior of this button to your contact center, please contact your service provider to enable it.
MMS Support for Outbound Messaging Campaigns
Outbound Messaging campaigns now support rich media attachments, allowing you to expand your outreach capabilities beyond traditional SMS. Add image, audio, video, and other media files to enhance your messaging and boost customer engagement.
You can upload the attachments using the Media file setting of the Messaging Options in your campaign configuration.
Easier Calls to MS Teams Contacts with Multiple Phone Numbers
We've addressed a limitation of the embedded Communication Widget that affected agents trying to call Microsoft Teams contacts with multiple numbers. Previously, the widget would only offer a single number when agents initiated a call to a Teams directory contact (identified by the Teams logo in their contact icon), even if the contact had multiple numbers in their profile.
Now the Communication Widget behaves just like the Agent Desktop: Agents can select which number to call from a dropdown list when calling a Teams contact with multiple phone numbers.
Japanese and Korean Localization Updates
This release includes updates to the user interface for Japanese and Korean languages, providing a smoother and more intuitive experience for Japanese and Korean speaking users.
Outbound Dialing Improvements
This release gives you more control over your outbound campaigns, with new options for managing schedules, timezones, and fine-tuning attempt limits. Report formats have been improved to make them easier to interpret.
Calling Hours per Record/Number
You can now assign specific calling hours to each phone number in the records of an outbound campaign. A new Calling Hours field type is available when importing records, allowing calling hours to be set per record or individual overrides assigned per phone number. The calling hours are configured in the specified internal JSON format; please refer to the documentation for details. This enhancement helps you stay in compliance with customer preferences and regulations.
Timezone Support per Record Phone Number
Timezone management for outbound campaigns has been enhanced with the ability to assign a specific timezone to each record phone number. A new Timezone field type is available, allowing setting a timezone per record or individual overrides per phone number. Timezone values must follow the IANA/Olson format (e.g., 'America/New_York'). This keeps contact scheduling accurate, particularly for clients with phone numbers across multiple regions.
Timezone Support per List
You can now specify a default timezone for outbound campaign lists. A new Allow using default timezone checkbox is introduced, and when enabled, users can select a Default timezone from a dropdown list in IANA/Olson format (e.g., 'America/New_York'). This means that if no timezone is detected for a record’s phone number, the default timezone for the list is applied. These changes provide greater flexibility in managing contact schedules for numbers lacking valid timezone data.
Support for Canadian Postal Codes with Safe Calling Hours
Safe calling hours for outbound campaigns now support Canadian postal codes, improving the accuracy of timezone selection. Canadian postal codes can be recognized in both standard (e.g., V6K 1J4) and compact (e.g., V6K1J4) formats.
Contact your service provider to enable this feature.
Attempts Expansion
A new Attempt Limits tab has been added to provide greater flexibility in managing call attempts for outbound voice campaigns. This feature introduces custom settings for phone number attempts, allowing users to configure the following:
- Custom Count for Different Numbers: Specify a different number of maximum attempts for each phone number column (e.g., home, work, cell).
- Per Day Attempt Limits: Set a maximum number of attempts per day by record or by number.
- New Number Selection Option - Single First by Order: Introduces a new dialing behavior where the system prioritizes the first number in the record, making all attempts to that number before moving on to the next.
Configuring these options allows you to be sure your contact center is observing regulations related to limiting unsolicited telemarketing calls, and allows users to optimize dialing strategies based on the priority of each number type.
Important changes:
- The “Maximum attempts per record” and “Maximum attempts per number” settings are now moved to the ”Attempt Limits” tab (“Per Record” and “Per Number” accordingly).
- The “Attempt all numbers in record first” setting is now managed by the ”Single Dialable Least Attempted” and ”All Dialable Together” options of the “Select numbers within the Record” setting located on the ”Attempt Limits” tab.
Action Applied, Timezone Info, and Filtered Records in Campaign Result
To improve troubleshooting and visibility in outbound campaigns, three key improvements have been made to the Detailed and Simple Campaign Results:
- Action Applied: A new Action Applied column has been added to the Detailed Campaign Results, displaying the specific actions taken on a record or number (e.g., reschedule, stop calling, retry, daily limits or maximum attempts are applied). This feature makes it easier to understand the outcome of calls.
- Timezone Info: Timezone details are now available in the Detailed Campaign Results, with the addition of 3 columns:
- This Phone Number Timezone: Displays the timezone detected for the phone number (empty if not detected).
- Postal Code Timezone: Displays the timezone derived from the postal code, or 'Not found' if postal code data is unavailable in the database.
- Timezone(s) Selected By: Indicates how the system selected the timezone (e.g., by area code, postal code, or default list settings).
- Filtered Records: A new Filtered out column has been added to both Detailed and Simple Campaign Results. This column indicates when a record is filtered out by applied filters, displaying '1' when filtered but not yet completed, and leaving the "Completed" column empty.
These enhancements improve reporting transparency, helping you quickly identify any issues that may arise.
DNC Record Expiration Date
Internal and Record Exclusion DNC (Do Not Call) Lists now support expiration dates, allowing records to expire and be dialed again. Administrators can configure a default expiration period or set custom expiration dates for records. Once a record expires, it automatically becomes dialable. However, if a record has been already completed as a DNC match in a campaign, it will remain excluded from further dialing in that campaign.
Closest to the Dialed Area Code Enhancement
The Dialer has been enhanced to improve Caller ID selection when multiple Caller IDs share the same area code. Instead of sequentially selecting the first Caller ID for all calls to a specific area code, the Dialer will now randomly select from available Caller IDs with the same area code. This provides a more varied and efficient use of Caller IDs.
Updated Default Dial Rules
Three default dial rules settings have been updated to optimize list processing and avoid unnecessary number prioritization, which the Reschedule action previously triggered. The new settings are:
- No Answer – Wait (1h)
- Answering Machine – Wait (24h)
- Network Announcement – Wait (24h)
In most cases, these changes ensure that numbers are not prioritized unnecessarily, improving the efficiency of dialing lists and preventing other numbers from being delayed.