Many new features in ACE Coach

Extended call flow configuration

Call flow management is more powerful with additions made in ACE Coach 23. It makes it easy to configure the IVR menus, their phrases and what action is taken at each menu exit, depending on schedule for opening hours as desired.

The user-friendly graphical interface gives full control over the call flow and end user experience. It lets you collapse or extend items to easily switch between call flow overview and drilling into details such as assigning task types or managing phrases for individual menu choices and exits. Contact data keys can also be set at the desired points in the call flow to be used for statistics follow up, for routing and for screen pop. For menus it is also possible to configure the desired behavior if the end user makes an incorrect input or fails to make any input at all.

Client settings for ACE Interact

Now it is possible in ACE Coach to manage, fine tune and push out default settings for the agent tool ACE Interact. Settings are organized in 12 different sections and for each section it is possible to choose whether to apply for all users in the organisation, overriding any current personal settings.

Manage subareas in ACE Coach

By introducing subarea management (view, search, create, delete), ACE Coach lets an administrator with the right permissions manage subareas. This can be used to make statistics more granular or to fine-tune access rights for co-workers.

Subareas are a tool to configure and set up ACE to match operational requirements by dividing organization areas into smaller bits. Subareas can be used to limit or grant access to functionality or for controlling statistics. User accounts, queues and many other objects in ACE can be affiliated to one or many subareas.

Manage skills in ACE Coach

For an administrator with the right permissions, it is now possible in ACE Coach to view, search, add, edit and remove skills used in an organization area. This is an important step on the path to make ACE Coach the main tool for daily contact [MP1] center management. Skills are applied to user accounts to control which queues and waiting lists a user can serve in ACE.

ACE Interact – Co-browsing for calls

Now the agent can initiate co-browsing not only for chats but also for all types of phone calls. The customer is instructed by the agent to browse to the company website, open the co-browsing tab and enter a code provided by the agent. This way, the agent will be able to talk to the customer on the phone and help them navigate the company’s web site at the same time.

A new button for starting co-browsing is available in the “Call” card,

National holidays for opening hours in ACE Admin

ACE Admin now offers the same possibility to add national holiday exceptions for Opening hours that previously has been released for Schedules and Callback appointment schedules. The system provides all dates for national holidays, so there is no need for the administrator to look them up separately. Just choose your country and year(s) ahead to add national holidays to your list of exception days. Then it is an easy task to choose whether the entrance or menu choice should be closed all day or just have non-regular opening hours. Holidays are available for Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Finland.

New admin languages and manage stop words in ACE Knowledge

Manage stop words for improved search

Stop Words are words that occur frequently in everyday speech and writing. ACE Knowledge excludes stop words from search phrases so that the significant words get increased weight. Now it is possible to manage your list of stop words in the admin interface for better search accuracy.

Stop words are presented in a searchable list.

Norwegian and Danish in ACE Knowledge Admin

The administration interface for ACE Knowledge has previously been offered in Swedish and English. We are now expanding the language accessibility of the administration interface with Norwegian and Danish. As before, the interface language is controlled by the browser’s language setting. English is used for settings other than Swedish, Norwegian and Danish.

Enhancements to ACE Chat

Send chat messages while in queue

This feature lets an end user write chat messages while waiting in queue for their chat to be handled by an agent. This saves time as the user may use the queue time to elaborate on their issue. It may also make it easier for the agent to quickly provide the correct service as more information can be available when answering the chat.

The end user has written a chat message, typically to add detail to their issue, while waiting in queue.

Reduce number of queue messages to the end user

The ACE main server sends out a queue notification every 30 seconds as long a chat is placed in queue. To avoid overwhelming the end user with these messages it is now possible to configure how often they should be displayed. For example, you may pass on one in four to display a new queue message every second minute or only display one single queue notification (the first notification is always displayed).
This factor is also available for developers when building applications using the ACE Conversational API.

Virtual Agent Premium – Deep voice integration

New telephony integration with Google Dialogflow CX Edition, powered by ACE Conversational Hub and Google Contact Center AI.

The new integration, based on state-of-the-art technology, enables building advanced Conversational IVR solutions and telephony based self-service applications using Dialogflow CX Edition. Fully integrated with Telia ACE for routing calls to live agents when necessary.

The updated Virtual Agent Premium offers advanced functionality like:

• Control of barge in and DTMF settings in the same GUI as building your virtual agent
• Automatic speech adaptation, improving speech recognition accuracy by automatically using context and training data for bias (but not limit) towards likely phrases
• Partial response streaming that lets the voice bot provide a partial answer while working in the background to retrieve information to complete the request. It shortens silent periods and effectively improves the end user experience

Next level contact center statistics with ACE Business Intelligence

ACE Business Intelligence is the next generation analysis and reporting tool for the modern contact center. It is based on market leading cloud based technology from Qlik and makes data and insights driven work easy.

• ACE Business Intelligence comes with a number of turnkey sheets and dashboards to get you started. Create and customize in minutes to suit the exact needs of your organisation
• Combine data sources like surveys, IVR data, WFM data and more to create insights and find root causes
• Drill down into ACE raw data, all the way to individual interactions
• Export reports and dashboards to all popular formats (PDF, Excel etc.)
• 15-minute interval for high resolution when analyzing the workweek
• Your own sheets and dashboards can be created for personal use or for sharing with colleagues
• Support for single sign-on for Microsoft Azure AD

Custom direct link to specific ACE Monitor wallboard

This feature makes it possible to display a specific wallboard screen from ACE Monitor by calling a custom link from any browser. Following the link performs a direct-login based on the ACE single sign on-framework and then fetches the desired wallboard.
It’s useful for displaying wallboards on big screens for digital signage without having to make a manual login. It makes it easier to set up realtime monitoring for all staff in the contact center, including scenarios when cycling through screens from several different systems.

Agent Interface JSAPI improvements

The ACE Agent Interface JSAPI makes it easy to integrate web-based supporting systems with our client tool ACE Interact. In this release a number of features have been added to the interface to extend functionality even further. For example, possibility to refuse a callback call, terminate wrapup and get the value of a specific contact data key.

In addition, there are several robustness and performance tweaks in this release.

Refined encryption key management for ACE Recording G2

To meet high requirements for security, integrity and compliance, encryption key management for AWS based services has been updated. Clients get their own unique encryption key in AWS. Telia stores this key via AWS Key Management Service “KMS”.

Extension of ACE Web API for server applications

This REST based API replaces available custom functionality (CGRI) and simplifies integrations between online-related server applications and ACE Core. It makes it possible to fetch information like detailed real time status or opening hours for specific queues and entrances, or create callbacks with detailed control. The interface is protected against misuse by several mechanisms. The Web API for clients, providing less detail and control, is still available in parallel with the extension for server applications.

Interface for export of ACE audit trail

The ACE Audit trail and Change log keep track of events and changes in the system, when they are made and by whom. This information is stored across a number of tables in the ACE database.

To meet ever increasing demands for security and compliance we now launch an open interface for exporting this data. This feature is part of the existing “Web API for server applications” and enables IT/Security managers to export the information to other systems for further analysis and/or long-term storage.

Version requirements for the individual clients

To use the new functionality in Telia ACE 23.0 you need latest version of each respective sub product.

The following versions of ACE clients are compatible with ACE 23.0:

• ACE Admin versions 22 or newer are supported
• ACE Coach must be upgraded, only version 23 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
• ACE Interact versions 12.0.0 or newer are supported
• ACE Monitor versions 12.0.0 or newer are supported
• ACE Chat Engine 23 requires ACE Main Server 23 or newer
• ACE Reference Chat Client 23 requires ACE Web SDK 23 or newer
• When upgrading ACE Database to 23.0.0, 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 23.0.0
  • the system parameter governing the primary version of ACE Interact will automatically be changed to 23.0.0 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 23.0.0 and the system parameter governing the secondary version of ACE Monitor will automatically be changed to the primary version used before the upgrade
• ACE Core must be upgraded to version 23.0 immediately when ServiceNode Tenant G2 has been upgraded to version 23.0

New major functions in ACE Interact

Personal and broadcast internal messages

The possibility to send internal messages within ACE is an appreciated way to communicate easily and quickly with colleagues in the contact center. Agents who previously have used the desktop client ACE Agent will already be familiar with this functionality which now has been made available in ACE Interact. Conversations are viewed in the “Messages” card and agents may initiate new conversations from both the Messages card and the Search/call card. Conversations are saved during a session.

A new feature allows agents with permission (access function execute send message to all) to broadcast messages to all logged in colleagues in the agent’s own organization area. This way, important and urgent information can be shared efficiently in the organization.

Visual cues highlight if there are unread messages and also distinguish clearly between broadcast and personal messages.

Send SMS directly from Search/Call card

Sometimes a short text is the best way to get your message through. Now it’s possible for agents to send an SMS directly from the Search/Call card in ACE Interact. The feature is available when the expanded contact record has a mobile phone number, and the agent has the right permission (access function execute send sms).

Powerful catalog search for Mitel CMG

The search function just got better. To make it easier to find just the right contact in large organizations that use Mitel CMG, it is now possible to filter and refine your search by adding specific data fields to the Search/Call card.

Combine name and number with information like city or department to quickly find the contact you’re looking for.

Automatic catalog search for incoming redirected calls

Operators in a large organization can receive a lot of redirected calls, when colleagues are busy or unable to answer their phones. Manually looking up the extension that was called originally is a tedious task. ACE Interact 22.2 makes an automatic catalog search for the requested number and the result is presented to the operator before picking up. This way a time-consuming search step can be skipped and the operator can help the caller faster and more efficiently.

Compatible version of other components

• ACE ClusterWare 21.0.0 or newer
• ACE Database 22.2.0 or newer
• ACE Edge Node 21.0.0 with Patch-458 applied (or newer Edge Node versions)
• ACE ScreenPop 12.0.0 or newer
• ACE Main Server 22.2.0 or newer

Extended functionality for scheduled callback

Web interface for online appointment booking in callback schedule

Available time slots can be selected by the end user in an embeddable and configurable web page. Responsive design to work on all devices.

Book callback appointment up to 29 days in advance

Callback administration GUI in ACE Admin is improved to create better overview.

Reschedule or cancel a previously booked callback appointment by phone in self-service IVR

Highly configurable service regarding, audit trail and when end users are allowed to make changes to a previously booked appointment. E.g disallow rescheduling from hidden number, send confirmation SMS to appointed number etc.

Beta release of ACE Virtual Agent Premium

Powered by ACE Conversational Hub and Google CCAI.

Premium adds a number of features over the standard ACE Virtual Agent:

• Based on Google Dialogflow CX Edition
  • Reusable intents/functions and loopback functionality
  • More advanced NLU
  • Better for complex projects and apps
  • Sentiment analysis (language dependent)
• Full EU regionalization

Together, these extra features make ACE Virtual Agent Premium is the preferred solution for agent assist.

New features in ACE Knowledge for workflow and ownership

Further facilitating production and maintenance of quality assured content.

Multiple information owners

Greater flexibility in information ownership. Several individual persons or a user group can be assigned as owners and all will be notified about expired content or edits that need approval. Group ownership greatly streamlines administration, for example a new employee can be added to a group and instantly get the correct access rights. Different groups or groups and individual users can be combined as needed.

Ownership can now be applied for categories.

Ownership is then automatically assigned to any guides added to the category. Greatly simplifies administration compared to having to assign ownership for each individual guide. If preferred by the organization, category owners can be suggested as guide owners instead of automatically assigned.

A new interface for ownership transfer.

It works for users as well as for groups and makes reorganizing ownership easy.

Aggregation of results in ACE Interact user search

Improved presentation of results when searching across ACE and other UC source systems such as Touch Point Plus or CMG. Search hits for the same person in different systems are aggregated into a single row. This makes interpreting search results much easier, less time consuming and less error prone for anyone working in ACE Interact.

Extended functionality in ACE Recording G2 and Interaction View

• Support for recording callback calls and preview campaign calls for organizations using Touchpoint Plus, VIP, TPX and ACE Voice
• It is now possible to export recordings to AWS S3 bucket cloud storage managed by the customer to simplify further analysis or processing. Using a standard interface makes it easy for any application to retrieve the data.
• ACE Recording G2 support for incoming IVR calls for organizations using Mitel MX-ONE or Cisco HCS on a Telia Entry network connection.
• Enhanced control over storage rules for the agent. For example, if a call turns out to be a threat, the agent can tag it for extended storage so it can be saved and retrieved as evidence for a longer period than the default configured storage time. It is now also possible for the agent to classify and tag the content of the call in addition to the automatic IVR classification. This makes it easier to find it later in ACE Interaction View.
• Interaction metadata may be stored and retrieved for a longer period than the actual recording is stored. This separation of metadata from content is possible for all types of interactions (e-mails, chat conversations etc.), not only recordings. A feature that makes it easier for organizations to comply with privacy regulations and policies such as GDPR.

In case you missed it – New flexible work area in ACE Interact 20 and later

NOTE! This new functionality was introduced in ACE Interact 20. However, it was made available at a later date than the main release and was not covered in release news at the time (it has been added now). To make sure that you don’t miss it, we choose to repeat it below, although technically not a new feature in ACE 22.

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

Usability improvements in ACE Coach

• Tables now show total and filtered row count and have resizable column width that is remembered between sessions
• When trying to save a form that is not complete, the fields that need fixing are highlighted

Flexible provisioning of ACE One Widget Chat

Configuration locally in ACE Web SDK by using a JSON configuration file rather than the ACE Knowledge administration interface. This makes it possible to distribute ACE OneWidget chat without any connection to ACE Knowledge

Robustness and UX improvements to ACE Video Chat

• Stability and better auto-recovery from network problems. Sessions that are unexpectedly interrupted will either be auto-recovered or terminated in a controlled way with a human-friendly error message and possible next action for the end user(s)
• Easier to toggle between device cameras to choose the best for the conversation. For example, if you want to switch between front and back camera to show something in front of you to for the agent

Callthrough to agent in pause or wrapup

A special feature that lets you call another agent that even if they are not in status “Ready” (but not in a call). It is made available as an access function that may be authorized to specific users, typically an operator.

Visible Line state for MX-One in ACE Interact

Real time line state for catalogue search results in ACE Interact makes it easy to avoid forwarding a contact to a busy extension in organizations using Mitel MX-ONE.

This improves the end user customer experience.

Line state is fetched via CT-connect.

Continued development of ACE Admin

Built in calendar with national public holidays for Sweden, Finland, Norway and Denmark makes it easier to add exception dates for Schedules and Callback appointment schedules.

Version requirements for the individual clients

To use the new functionality in Telia ACE 22.0 you need latest version of each respective sub product.

The following versions of ACE clients are compatible with ACE 22.0:

• ACE Admin must be upgraded, only version 22 is supported.
• ACE Coach must be upgraded, only version 22 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.
• ACE Interact versions 12.0.0 or newer are supported.
• ACE Monitor versions 12.0.0 or newer are supported.
• ACE Reference Chat Client 22 requires ACE Web SDK 22 or newer.
• ACE Main Server 22 requires ACE Cobrowsing Engine 20.0.0 or newer. ACE Cobrowsing Engine 20.0.0 is also compatible with ACE Main Server 20 or 21 if Patch 450 is installed.
• ACE Main Server 22 requires ACE Proactive Web Engine 20.0.0 or newer.
• When upgrading CallGuide Database to 22.0.0, all users of ACE Coach and ACE Interact 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 22.0.0.
  • the system parameter governing the primary version of ACE Interact will automatically be changed to 22.0.0 and the system parameter governing the secondary version of ACE Interact will automatically be changed to the primary version used before the upgrade.
• If upgrading from a version older than ACE 21, it is strongly recommended to read release notes for all intermediate versions. For instance, if upgrading from ACE 17.0 to ACE 22.0, ACE18ReleaseNotes, ACE19ReleaseNotes, ACE20ReleaseNotes and ACE21ReleaseNotes should be read.

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.

A more flexible work area in ACE Interact

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 handover from ACE Chatbot to agent

• When ACE Chatbot hands over to the agent, the initial dialogue between customer and chat bot is included and visible to the agent in ACE Interact.

• The combined dialogue is stored in ACE Interaction View for later review.

• Chat bot dialogue and live dialogue can be exported from ACE Interaction View to Interaction Analytics tool for further analysis and follow up.

Enhanced agent management and basic call flow administration in ACE Coach

ACE Coach takes another significant step towards becoming the main administration tool. Now extending user administration and incorporating functionality for call flow configuration.

• Manage agent groups and skills independently and get instant confirmation of which queues and waiting lists the agent qualifies for.
  
• View and edit “straight” call flows for an entrance. (Branched flows with menu choices will be added in upcoming releases).
• Manage voice prompts for welcome message, temporary message and closed message for an entrance where you have access rights.
  
• Possibility to add a sequence of extensions, simplifies administration.

Use Microsoft Teams as a softphone

• A new connector allows organisations that run Telia TouchPoint Plus or ACE Voice for telephony to use Microsoft Teams as a softphone together with ACE Interact.
  
• A welcome addition when Microsoft Teams is introduced or an already established application in the digital workplace.

Enhancements in ACE Knowledge administration interface

As part of an ongoing project for workflow-handling in ACE Knowledge, this release introduces the following features:

• Personal auto-save-versions of Widgets (replaces drafts).
• Concurrency alerts when multiple editors are editing a guide at the same time.
• A setting for information owners to enable content expiration dates and email reminders.
  

Customise work levels in detail with queue selection

It is now possible to fine tune work levels by selecting which specific queues and waiting lists to be included instead of just media types.

• When selecting a work level in ACE Interact the agent is logged in to queues defined in the worklevel that he/she has the right skill set for.
• Configure if agents should be allowed to log out of individual queues that are defined in the work level or not.
• Configure which work levels should be visible and selectable by the agent. Either work levels where the agent has skill for at least one queue or only work levels where the agent has skills for all queues.
  

Boost.ai adapter for ACE Conversational Hub

Integrate Boost.ai bots or virtual agents into the ACE ecosystem.

Define minimum call length in ACE Survey

• There is now an option to automatically prevent very short calls from triggering a survey.
• The new threshold time parameter surveyMinTalkTimeForSurvey is configurable in ACE Admin.

New features in ACE Admin

• Support for listing queues, agents, skills and task types in the subareas window.
• Improved disposition of user account information by hiding inapplicable or irrelevant columns.

Chat bot history available in ACE Conversational API

This enables integrations for passing historical conversations in arbitrary chat or chatbot app to agents.

Version requirements for the individual clients

To use the new functionality in Telia ACE 20.0 you need latest version of each respective sub product.

The following versions of ACE clients are compatible with ACE 20.0:

• Older versions of ACE Admin are not supported. ACE 20 thus requires Admin 20.
• Older versions of ACE Coach are not supported. ACE 20 thus requires Coach 20.
• CallGuide Agent / ACE Agent from version 9.0.0
• CallGuide Pulse / ACE Pulse from version 9.0.0
• CallGuide Report / ACE Report from version 11.0.0
• CallGuide Edge Agent / ACE Interact from version 12.0.0
• CallGuide Edge Pulse / ACE Monitor from version 12.0.0

Functionality and limitations in Telia ACE open interfaces is described in Release Notes Open Interfaces and the Interface specification document for each interface.

Dependencies and version support is described in:

• Overall release notes for Telia ACE 20.0.
• Release notes for the various sub products.
• Site Environment Requirements documents.

Updates to ACE Interact

• Mitel CMG catalogue integration – letting agents easily search for persons and skills across several sources, now including the CMG catalogue, in one powerful interface.
  
  • Real time name search displaying results for partial matches of first and last name. “An An” matches Anna Anderson and Anthony Andrews in the CMG catalogue.
  • The choice of which CMG catalogue data fields that should be searchable (up to 10 extra in addition to the default) in the agent interface is configured in ACE Admin.
  • Which data fields in the CMG and Touchpoint catalogues that are visible and their display order in the agent interface are configured in ACE Admin.
  • If no one answers the call when transferred to a CMG catalogue contact, the call will bounce back to the operator as a recall. (That is, the same behaviour as for Telia Touchpoint+ and ACE Voice catalogues.)
  • If the contact is busy when a call is transferred, it will bounce back to the operator as a recall.
  • The reason for recall is displayed to the operator in case of recall. Call data follows the recall which helps the operator to provide a consistent service.
• Support for campaigns and dialer
  • Enables ACE Predictive Dialer in ACE Interact for outbound calls using self-tuning algorithms.
  • The agent can choose a campaign for which he/she has the right skills and start taking calls made by the dialer.
  • Dialer statistics for the campaign the agent is working on is presented in a new card Dialer.
  • The card Statistics today is updated with the agent’s campaign statistics.
    
  • Dialer campaigns are part of media blending to dynamically balance the number of agents that are assigned to incoming calls, callbacks, chats etc. and dialer calls. This way ACE keeps inbound queues from exceeding business rules by “borrowing” dialer workforce to handle non-dialer interactions. Rules are configured in ACE Admin.
    When the agent is returned to Dialer he/she accepts what campaign to be reassigned to.
• German language support.

News in ACE Agent

• Improvements for visually impaired users.
  • Optimised presentation of search results in Unifinder for use with screen reader, e.g. JAWS.
  • Screen reader can now read out the content of entire rows in search results.​
  • Allowing users to select which column to sort search results on without having to use a mouse.​
• Set and change diversion number in Mitel CMG/MX-ONE.
  • Allowing the operator to enter a number to (temporarily) forward calls on behalf of a colleague. Useful, for example, if the colleague’s regular phone is out of order or left at home by mistake.
  • Select forwarding when busy, no answer or all calls.
• Call forwarding available when using Mitel MX-ONE.
  

News in ACE Coach

• Copy exception days to easily create new, single or series of consecutive exception days using an existing day as a template.
  
• The coach can now view, add and delete extensions for the organisation area(s) he/she has access to in ACE Coach. Useful for getting staff up and running quickly in new locations, for example when working from home.
  

Improvements bring ACE Knowledge SEO to version 2.1

• A new option makes it possible to exclude specific guides from SEO if you don’t want them to be indexed by Google or other search engines.
  All guides now have an option in the management interface to disallow search engine indexing. By default, indexing is allowed.
• Enhanced crawler and service logic.
• Added 404-page for Widgets.

MS Edge Chromium support

• Our web based tools ACE Interact, ACE Coach and ACE Monitor all work with the Chromium based Edge browser (Edge version number 79 and above).

A number of updates to ACE APIs

• Support in API AgentInterface for building “Barge In” functionality.
• AgentInterface JSAPI “getQueues” introduced for use with SalesForce adapter.
• Owing to a change introduced by Facebook we are required to replace our so-called “Scope ID” for the integration between Telia ACE and Facebook. This maintains Facebook/Messenger-ACE integration without any need for action from users.

Minor update to ACE Interact

• Continued accessibility improvements towards WCAG AA compliance. Including updating browser tab

Overview description

To use the new functionality in Telia ACE 19.0 you need latest version of each respective sub product.

The following versions of ACE clients are compatible with ACE 19.0:

• ACE Admin from version 13.0.0
• ACE Coach from version 16.0.0
• CallGuide Agent / ACE Agent from version 9.0.0
• CallGuide Pulse / ACE Pulse from version 9.0.0
• CallGuide Report / ACE Report from version 11.0.0
• CallGuide Edge Agent / ACE Interact from version 12.0.0
• CallGuide Edge Pulse / ACE Monitor from version 12.0.0

Functionality and limitations in Telia ACE open interfaces is described in Release Notes Open Interfaces and the Interface specification document for each interface.

Dependencies and version support is described in:

• Overall release notes for Telia ACE 19.0.
• Release notes for the various sub products.
• Site Environment Requirements documents.

News in ACE Coach

• Manage opening hours for entrances and menu choices in IVR
• Manage opening hours for chat, calls, callbacks and email
• Manage opening hours for exception days
• Emergency overrides of opening hours
  
• Opening hours automatically updated and presented on web in ACE One Widget, ACE Online Widgets, ACE Web SDK and ACE Conversational API
• Powerful and easy-to-use filtering and search make navigating complex setups a breeze
• Visual comparison of exception days and regular opening hours
  

Launch of ACE Recording G2

ACE Recording G2 is fully integrated into ACE and incorporates many usability improvements compared to the current version. ACE Recording and ACE Recording G2 contains a slightly different set of features and it’s optional which solution to use.

• Manage all archived interactions – including recorded calls, chats, SMS and emails etc. – in ACEInteract
  • Search for all medias in one easy-to-use graphical interface
  • Listen to recordings in ACE Interact​
  • Manage storage rules in ACE Admin​
  • Manage access control in ACE Admin and ACE Coach
  • All business data for all medias
    ​
• Configure which agents to be recorded
• Supports recording of incoming calls to the contact center via Touchpoint Plus/ACE Voice
• A standard opt in/opt out mechanism for handling Customer consent for call recordings . Set via parameter recordingConsentDefault in System parameter tab Other.​
• Rules for storage times and automatic deletion of recordings based on IVR selection errand or free speech errand classification
• Storage in AWS on three redundant sites in Sweden
  • Encrypted storage of recorded calls​
  • Encryption in transfer
• Stereo recording for easier separation of agent and caller

Introducing ACE One Widget for the online contact center and ACE Knowledge

One Widget builds on a new technology stack and replaces current floating and inline widgets in ACE Knowledge. It gets easier to build sleek online customer journeys and build “visual IVRs” to accomplish powerful contact deflection. The customer specifies her query through a visual menu tree and context is used to present relevant, actionable information or self-service. Done right, many simple issues may be resolved without the need of an agent.

• Fully integrated real time queue time status for contact channels in ACE to help the user choose the best path
• Fully integrated with opening hours for contact channels in ACE
  
• The following contact channels are available in ACE One Widget
  • Email form
  • Chat
  • Phone
  • Callback
  • Web service – possible to submit form in three MIME formats
  • Free text – present text information to the user
  • Adapter – for custom Javascript
  • Link – present URL to user
• Modular mobile first design
• Improved responsivity with Media Queries resulting in perfect adjustment to different devices and screen sizes
• Templates based on best practice
  
• Powerful customisation using JSON Config for controlling position and behaviour of different widget elements. For example control when and where you want the search field to appear.
• CSS is separated from widget configuration for easier styling and adjustment of look and feel
• One Widget is WCAG 2.1 AA compliant (Web Accessibility Content Guidelines) to make sure that Knowledge content is accessible for users with disabilities
• Includes ACE Knowledge Component API – base for how widget components are rendered​
• Includes ACE Knowledge Widget Orchestration API – interface for the orchestration framework that manages widgets, plugins and configuration​

Facebook and Messenger communication in ACE Interact

New card in ACE Interact for managing Facebook and Messenger communication. Full message routing including media blending, queueing and parking.

Perform actions on queued or archived interactions in ACE Interact

Perform operations on all types of archived or queued interactions

• Place a call
• Send SMS
• Send email
• Forward email
• Close email
• Delete interaction (requires special access permission)

Storage of outbound SMS in ACE Interaction View

• Storage of interaction data with SMS
• Configure storage rules in ACE Admin
• Export of outbound SMS via ACE InteractionView interface

Automatic anonymisation of data in ACE Survey (17)

This update makes it easier to comply to GDPR and other privacy regulations and policies.

• The system can be configured to automatically delete personal information, i.e. phone numbers and IP addresses, from the database after a configurable number of days. Anonymisation can also be applied to free text fields if required
• Security improvements to further protect forms and admin interface against malicious code
• Updated visuals and naming aligned to the current ACE portfolio

Extended telephony switch compatibility

Server based CTI support for Avaya Aura switch.

Camera toggle in ACE Video Chat

The user can now toggle between cameras on their device, e.g. front and back cameras on a smartphone. Useful for switching between conversation face to face and showing the agent something of interest.

Minor update in ACE Interact

Beta support for running ACE Interact in Chromium based Microsoft Edge Browser (version number 79 and above).

Video chat support for Edge Chromium based browser

Users connecting using the Chromium based Microsoft Edge browser (version number 79 and above) are able to user the video chat functionality. The platform auto detects browser and decides if this feature is available.

Extended global reach

Assuring service quality and availability in Netherlands, Belgium and Austria.

Minor news in ACE Admin

See short names for all contact data keys, in case the names are in a foreign language.

Stability, performance and robustness improvements

• Enhanced load balancing feature in Telia ACE cloud environment
• Automatic connection redistribution when reaching node limits to prevent unexpected overload of nodes
• Connect ACE Core to redundant sites – possible to upgrade a cluster without service downtime or blocking the system for user access

Overview description

To use the new functionality in Telia ACE 18.0 you need latest version of each respective sub product.

The following versions of ACE clients are compatible with ACE 18.0:

• ACE Adminfrom version 13.0.0
• ACE Coach from version 16.0.0
• CallGuide Agent / ACE Agent from version 9.0.0
• CallGuide Pulse / ACE Pulse from version 9.0.0
• CallGuide Report / ACE Report from version 11.0.0
• CallGuide Edge Agent / ACE Interact from version 10.1.7
• CallGuide Edge Pulse / ACE Monitor from version 11.0.0

Functionality and limitations in Telia ACE open interfaces is described in Release Notes Open Interfaces and the Interface specification document for each interface.

Dependencies and version support is described in:

• Overall release notes for Telia ACE 18.0.
• Release notes for the various sub products.
• Site Environment Requirements documents.