Top 5 updates in the Unify Office 2021 Spring Release

Lighter evenings, warmer weather and a breath of fresh air are what spring brings to us. This year we can all agree that the change in seasons is needed more than ever. A new season brings new opportunities which include new enhancements from the Unify Office by RingCentral product releases. If you are new to Unify Office or have never looked at release notes before, we recommend taking a quick look at the Unify blog for further details. This blog aims to highlight the top 5 updates in the 2021 spring release.

Update 1: Personal folders

Personal folders allow you to organize your conversations the way you want. You can now add colleagues, teams, and groups into folders where they’re easily visible on the sidebar. What makes this feature so important? The three standard sections (direct messages, teams, and favorites) are great to start with, but you might want extra flexibility and control over your information. With folders, you can prioritize your conversations based on projects, importance, or any criteria you set. Users can have a maximum of 30 folders and up to 50 conversations per folder, so you’ll never lose an important thread again.

How can you customize:

Give your folder a name, drag and drop conversations inside, and rearrange it in any order you see fit. To top it off, you can also color-code your folders to quickly identify them.

How to set up a folder:

1. Locate the “New folder” button at the bottom of your conversation list in the “Message” tab.
2. Choose a folder name to organize your conversations into meaningful categories.
3. Search for any existing conversations that belong in your new folder.
4. Assign a color by which to tag your folder.

Update 2: Call queue

You might be thinking what is a call queue and why might I use it. A call queue distributes calls to employees in your organization who can help resolve an issue or answer a question.

For example, when a customer service call is received, the caller is typically greeted by a welcome message and connected to an available employee (agent). If no agents are available, the caller is “queued,” hearing music and/or a message.

Call queues can:

1. Reduce the amount of times calls are waiting: Call queues help route callers to the appropriate agent. That means fewer transfers between agents and more time resolving issues.
2. Flexible call flows: Call queues allow you to route calls to call center agents, extensions, or external numbers based on a schedule (open, closed, or holiday) or when certain conditions occur (such as wait time is greater than one minute, more than 10 callers are waiting in the queue, no agents are available, etc.).
3. Improve the customer experience with data: Call queues capture data that gives managers deep insights into the customer experience such as wait time, talk time, hold time, and more.
4. Improve agent performance: Call queues also provide reports on agent productivity (e.g., number of calls answered, which agents placed calls on hold, etc.). Call queue reports can help determine when additional staff or schedule changes are needed during busy times.

With this seasons’  update, display settings visualize the call queue information on an inbound call notification and active call page. This will be useful for customers who answer different types of calls using a common call queue. These businesses typically receive incoming calls on unique numbers, each number corresponding to a specific type of issue/caller. The calls are either routed directly to a queue or through an IVR, then to a queue. To correctly identify the type of incoming call and salute the customer properly, users can assign names to these unique numbers and configure how the call queue information is displayed.

Update 3: In app calling for Salesforce (via Web RTC)

As a continued promise to make our integrations for customers as seamless as possible, we now use WebRTC (Web Real-Time Communications) technology to leverage RingCentral calling capabilities—like call controls and inbound and outbound calls—without ever navigating away from Salesforce.

With in-app calling, sales associates can easily control and manage all customer calls without ever leaving their Salesforce browser. Users can select their preferred caller ID number from the Dialer page, organize multiple calls as separate tabs on the browser, and manage incoming and outgoing calls across devices without having to download any additional software.

The new addition to our Salesforce integration enables sales agents to make or transfer phone calls and access call controls directly from within Salesforce on a web browser, thereby increasing productivity and efficiency while empowering sales agents to drive improved customer satisfaction and loyalty.

Benefits of leveraging WebRTC

Previously, when using the Salesforce integration, reps were forced to download the Unify Office  App in order to be able to access call controls. Now, with WebRTC—the web standard for real-time communication—it is no longer necessary to rely on desktop apps or browser plugins just to enable click-to-call in a web application. Voice calls happen natively in supported browsers (i.e., Safari and Chrome) with WebRTC.

Update 4: Headset Call Controls

Previously softphone users with Jabra and Poly headsets could only have controls activated via the Unify Office desktop app. Now Unify Office headset users are now able to:

• Answer and end a call
• Mute/unmute
• Adjust volume

Using the headset buttons. With the ease of a few clicks have the controls at your fingertips. This update will be particularly beneficial to those who work in call centers as you’re free to multitask with your desktop without the need to switch back and forth when wanting to activate the call. Or maybe you prefer to move about when taking calls, users are no longer restricted to being at a desk.

Update 5: Multi-party Conferencing

During a live call if you needed to add additional people to the discussion, in the past you could only add them one by one by merging calls. This was time-consuming and put a pause on conversations. Unify Office users are now able to easily share and invite others to join a live call via email or message.

How to add:

Locate the invite link within your call by selecting the plus symbol which will bring up options to invite by email or message. Quickly users can include participants within seconds using an easy link.

If you are looking for a more detailed view of the 100+ feature enhancements included in our 2021 spring release, please reach out to your Customer Success Manager or Account Executive for a full breakdown. Expect hundreds of updates every quarter from Unify Office by RingCentral, as we continue to lead cloud communications innovation globally.