Version 5.9.3
Bright Pattern Contact Center version 5.9.3 is a release that includes features and bug fixes.
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.
Changes in System Behavior
This section describes changes in system behavior for this release.
"Handle Email" Privilege Renamed
Starting from Bright Pattern Contact Center version 5.9.3, the privilege Handle email has been changed to Handle email and cases. Note that renaming this privilege does not change any current behavior; it is only to clarify the current privilege.
Email Editor Bar Is Now Always Visible
The Agent Desktop application’s email editing bar is now pinned at the bottom of the email draft pane. This makes it possible for agents to scroll through extensive email chains without losing the reply editing taskbar.
Hide or Show Trimmed Email Content
Email threads within the Agent Desktop application are now trimmed so that by default only the text of the current email is viewable. The rest of the thread is hidden behind a three-dot icon. The user may view the entire thread by clicking this icon or choosing to view the original email content.
This allows for easier readability and content examination. Note that this is not only a change in system behavior but also a new feature for the Agent Desktop application. For more information, see the Agent Guide, section How to Review an Incoming Email.
Email Service Selector Has Been Removed From "Reply" and "Forward" Email Drafts
Previously, when replying to or forwarding an original email, agents were able to select a new service. This created some confusion about the accounts used for replies/forwards.
In this new release:
- The service selector will continue to be available for new outbound emails originated by agents; emails will be sent from the outbound email account configured for the selected service
- The service selector will not be displayed for replies/forwards at all. Replies and forwards will always be made from the account that received the original email.
NOTE: Please check with your service provider if you would like to keep the pre-upgrade behavior of the service selector.
Transferring Cases to Agents in Any State Now Allowed
Starting from this release, a case can be transferred to agents in any state, including when they are logged out. Transferred cases are placed directly in the recipient's personal queue. Previously, cases could be transferred only to agents who were logged in and who accepted them explicitly.
Users in "Reviewer" Roles May No Longer See the Content of Some Emails
New email access restrictions have been introduced in this release; please see the Email Access Restrictions below for more details. Generally, upon upgrade, all of your existing users in all roles will continue to have the same level of access to emails as they did before the upgrade. One exception is if an existing user has the privilege Listening to call recordings and view chat transcripts on services in reviewer role. This privilege is reserved for BPO client access. Upon upgrade, these users will only be able to view the content of emails associated with services specifically assigned to them. Access to the content of any other emails will be restricted for such users.
Added/Updated Features
The following features have been added or updated for this release.
New "View" Button for Cases Does Not Alter Work State
Using the View button from the email Team Queue, Personal Queue, or the Case View panel allows Agent Desktop users to preview emails without doing the following:
- Changing their work state
- Taking control of the case
- Assigning the case elsewhere
- Creating an interaction
Previously, when a supervisor opened an email to review it, she would have to switch to the Agent/Busy mode and become the owner of that email automatically. For more information, see the Agent Guide, section My Cases Interface.
New "Transfer Cases" Privilege
Any user in the Agent Desktop application with the Transfer cases privilege enabled can search for configured agents by first and last name and select agents for case transfer. Privileges are configured in the Contact Center Administrator application.
Transferring Cases to an Agent Is Allowed in Any State
Starting from this release, a case can be transferred to agents in any state, including when they are logged out. Transferred cases are placed directly in the recipient's personal queue. Previously, cases could be transferred only to agents who were logged in and who accepted them explicitly.
When transferring emails, the user has the option to enter a case note accompanying the transfer—if so, an activity record for the case note will be created. Once the email is moved to the new agent, the case is highlighted in their personal queue. The My Cases icon will indicate the transfer as well.
Unopened Assigned Emails Are Highlighted in Agent’s Personal Queue
Unopened case emails that have been assigned or transferred to an agent remain highlighted until the agent opens the case, pins the case, or changes the case state. At that point, the email is no longer highlighted.
Case Note Additions Are Allowed Without Opening Email/Case
When assigning a case, authorized users can add an accompanying note without opening the case or changing their current state.
Support for High-Importance Emails With Priority Routing and Indicators
Bright Pattern Contact Center software now lets you configure the queue placement of incoming, priority-labeled emails by configuring new queueing priority settings. These settings allow you to route high-importance emails to the top of the queue, low-importance emails to the bottom of the queue or have equal priority for all emails. When viewing emails in the Agent Desktop application, priority indicators will be present. For more information, see Tutorials for Administrators, section Configuring High-Importance Email Routing.
Updated Cases Highlighted in Team or Personal Queues
If a case has been updated since it was last opened or placed in the Agent Desktop application’s Team Queue or Personal Queue, then the case name will be bolded for easier identification. In both team and personal queues, the highlight is set when a customer sends an additional email about a case already in the queue. The emphasis returns to normal when a previously highlighted case is opened, pinned, dispositioned, or its state is updated.
Case State Transitions Are Part of Activity History
Manual case state transitions are now added to a case’s activity history in the Agent Desktop application. Specifically, the activity history will display when the case’s state changed and what the state was changed to. For more information, see the Agent Guide, section My Cases Interface.
Indicator That Contact Has Other Cases with Updates
The Agent Desktop customer contact badge shows if a customer has other cases beyond the current case awaiting dispositions, allowing agents to see if a customer has sent multiple separate emails that have resulted in separate cases. The indicator is a small orange badge in the lower right corner of the icon; the number of other cases with updates is marked within the circle. These cases can be located in various agents’ queues, both team and personal.
Option to Hide Case Processing Details
The Agent Desktop application now has an option to hide the details of a case’s activity history, including routing, assignment, transfers, and state changes. The capability to hide these details allows agents to focus on internal case notes and the primary content of emails. In all views where the case content is shown, users are able to view either Conversations or Events.
The Conversations view includes the content and metadata of customer interactions as well as the internal case notes and dispositions, recordings, transcripts, and email bodies and attachments. The Events view can include all content from Conversations as well as all case routing, assignment, transfer history, and all case state transitions. For more information, see the Agent Guide, section Filtering Case History Content.
Powerful Controls for Email Editing
The Agent Desktop application’s email editing tools are extended to add powerful new controls that let you do the following:
- Add a number of items directly into templates and drafts, including:
- Images
- Tables
- Anchor text
- Special characters
- Etc.
- Preview email drafts
- Copy-paste, resize, move, and rotate images, which may be used as links
- Add links to published/hosted videos from third-party websites (e.g., YouTube, etc.)
- For YouTube videos, a clickable youtu.be image will be inserted automatically
- For other services, images will have to be inserted and made clickable manually
- Use a larger range of font types and sizes
The new editor tools are available for email drafts, Knowledge Base articles, EMail block in scenarios and workflows, as well as email headers and footers. For more information about email, see the Agent Guide, section Cases and Email Tutorials.
Select Multiple Services With the Team Queue Filter
In the Agent Desktop application’s Team Queue, a user may now use a filter to select and view email from all services, one specific service, or multiple services assigned to the team; the checkbox is located at the top left of the Team Queue list, beneath the Grab button Unchecking the All option clears all the services selected and multiple selection is displayed with the number of services selected.
Show Number of Emails for Selected Service
The Agent Desktop’s Team Queue (TQ) can display the number of emails for specifically selected services. When multiple services are selected, the TQ email indicator shows the total number of emails for all selected services.
Service and Teams Filters in Case Search
The Agent Desktop application’s section Search & Preview Records now has additional filters that allow users to search cases by service; the two available filter options are Team’s Services and All. The Team’s Services filter restricts the cases found to those that belong to the user’s team only, including all cases where the logged-in user participated. For supervisors, a teams selector is included, which allows them to limit the search to cases assigned to a specific team (i.e., as opposed to all teams that they are assigned to supervise).
Note that the privilege See other agents’ cases is required in order for these filters to be available. If the user does not have this privilege, neither selectors are displayed and the search results only include the cases where the logged-in user participated.
Delete Email Attachments
Agents can now delete individual email attachments without deleting the email itself. The capability to delete images inserted directly into the body of an email is also supported. Note that the agent must have the privilege of Mask original email content in order to delete email attachments or in-text images. For more information, see the Agent Guide, section How to Remove Sensitive Data from Emails.
Email Access Restrictions
In order to support contact center compliance with tightening privacy and security regulations, the following privileges are added to the Contact Center Administrator application, section Users > Teams > Roles: View content of all emails and View content of emails on assigned services
When deploying or upgrading to this version of Bright Pattern Contact Center, all roles (i.e., except those with the Listen to call recordings and view chat transcripts on services in reviewer role privilege) will be assigned the View content of all emails privilege, which reflects the current system behavior.
If the View content of emails on assigned services privilege is allowed and the View content of all emails privilege is revoked, the user will not be allowed to view the content of email interactions that are not associated with services they are skilled to handle. For more information, see the Contact Center Administrator Guide, section Privileges. Note that the restriction applies only to the email body and attachments. The user will still be able to view all the metadata.
Automated Text Masking for Incoming Email
It is now possible to mask sensitive text (e.g., credit card numbers) automatically on incoming text or HTML emails. This feature is made possible by enabling the Contact Center Administrator setting Mask sensitive data in incoming emails and defining the desired masks using regex patterns. For more information, see the Contact Center Administrator Guide.
Search Cases by Disposition
The Agent Desktop application’s Search feature is extended to include options to search cases by disposition. Including the keyword disposition will return cases containing the specified disposition in any of their activities. Use of the keyword phrase last_disposition will return cases containing the specified disposition in their last activity. For more information, see the Agent Guide.
All To: and Cc: Recipients Are Now Displayed in Email Activity Records
It is now possible to view all the To: and Cc: recipients for emails in email activity records. If the email was not sent straight to the contact center’s service via the To: field (i.e., if it appears on the Cc: list), the service email address will be displayed in bold.
Support for International Address Format in Contacts
The Agent Desktop application’s contact address form now includes a country selector; the options are as follows: USA and International
The USA option includes the states as a drop-down menu choice with ZIP Codes as a numeric entry. The International option accepts a text string in the State field (e.g., New South Wales, Alberta, etc.) and an alphanumeric text entry in the Post Code field (e.g., V5C 3KP).
"Country" Field Added to Contact Imports
The contact import/export template is extended to include the following fields: address.<n>.country
This field matches the country from a corresponding saved contact’s address. If the field is missing, the contact center’s tenant default country is used. If the field is present but the value does not match any countries, an error will occur and the contact is not imported/updated (i.e., this field is mandatory). Note that a contact is allowed four addresses at maximum.
Hyperlinks Editor
Long URLs pasted into the body of an email message are now highlighted as hyperlinks automatically. Double-clicking a word within an email’s body and choosing the link icon adds that word as anchor text, which lets agents convert long URLs into simple and concise text.
Other Enhancements
Forwarding via "Reply" Retains the Original Sender’s Email Address
When using Bright Pattern Contact Center software to forward emails using the Reply button, the body of the forwarded email retains the original sender’s email address in the sent information as well as the original email’s timestamp.
Email Address Autocomplete Function
When typing an email address in the Agent Desktop application, users are now presented with a list of matching email addresses from the internal contact database.
Timestamps in Forwarded Microsoft Exchange Account Emails are Present
Timestamps indicating the arrival of original emails are present when an email is forwarded via a Microsoft Exchange account.
HTML Tags Removed from Email Management
Prior iterations of Bright Pattern’s email management would allow specific HTML tags within case activity history. The tags have been disabled for future use, but cases and messages that implemented the sanitized tags can still be viewed within the original message in the Agent Desktop application.
Various Other Enhancements
- The Team Queue’s default sort order now sorts cases/emails by SLA % and places the oldest cases/emails (i.e., those that breach SLA or are close to breaching SLA) at the top of the Team Queue. The default applies to new agents who have not logged in to Agent Desktop before.
- Microsoft Graph API-configured email accounts will no longer allow deletion of email accounts without first reassigning the email address.
- The Agent Desktop application now allows agents to drag and drop commonly used file extensions into emails (e.g., .PDF, .TXT, .LOG, .DOC, etc.). Image formats are pasted into the email body and other file types are saved as email attachments. If there are multiple files dragged and at least one of them is not an image, then all files are added as attachments, otherwise, they are pasted into the email body. Please note the following browser-based restrictions:
- Chrome - Images are pasted inline; files are attached
- Firefox - Images are pasted inline; files are attached
- Internet Explorer (IE) - Allows attachments only
- Safari - Images are pasted inline; files are attached. Note that the "Drop files here" window is shown in both cases.
Known Issues
For more information about known issues for Bright Pattern Contact Center, please see Known Issues and Workarounds.