Welcome to the No Jitter Roll, the regular round-up of news about the communications and collaboration industry. In today's edition, we cover a pair of announcements from Microsoft – one on new developer capabilities for Teams calling and another on Viva Engage going GA – and then recap August updates for the Zoom platform.
Microsoft Releases Teams Calling Options for Developers; Viva Engage Goes GA
In a blog post this week,
Microsoft announced the general availability of Azure Communication Services support for Teams, which extends the interoperability of Azure Communication Service with Teams. Developers can now embed the Teams' calling experience into business apps, create workflows for apps that need custom management of incoming and outgoing Teams phone calls, and add Teams calling to devices that aren't supported by the standard Teams client.
With these capabilities combined with Microsoft’s Graph API, developers can also build custom communications applications and add and manage chats, channels, Teams Meetings, and server and client-side calling bots.
In
a separate blog post, Microsoft shared that its Viva Engage application is generally available globally. Based on the Yammer Communities app, Viva Engage allows employees to join and create workplace communities for networking purposes. Microsoft has added several new features to Viva Engage. With a new Storylines tab, users can see posts from colleagues and popular posts across the organization, and users can catch up on colleagues they follow with the Following Feed. Storylines will be available in public preview in September, and Stories (which allow users to share their own short videos or photos to share work or personal moments) will be available for public preview in the coming month.
The Viva Engage App will be available to anyone with a Yammer License, and IT admins can roll out the app through the Teams Admin Center. Additionally, admins can pin Engage to the Teams app bar on the desktop and web client or the app tray for mobile Teams users.
Zoom Updates Meetings, Contact Center, and More
Zoom shared in a blog post a host of new capabilities for its various services, including Zoom Meeting, Zoom Whiteboard, Zoom Contact Center, and others.
For Zoom Meetings, the company shared:
- Translated captions are now available as an add-on: Previously only available for Zoom One Business Plus or Zoom One Enterprise Plus plans, translated captions are now available as an add-on to any paid Zoom plan. Translated captions are available for the following languages: Dutch, English, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, and Ukrainian and Chinese Mandarin (simplified), Japanese, and Korean are available in beta. Additionally, multi-language captions are available for paid and free Zoom accounts, excluding Zoom for Government customers.
- Caption controls for users: Zoom users can now enable automated captions from their side, as long as the host enabled the feature from their web settings.
- Broadcast to all Breakout Rooms: Meeting hosts can now broadcast microphone audio to all participants in Breakout Rooms in a meeting.
- Meeting host contact cards: Users that hover over a meeting host's name either on the Zoom desktop client's Home or in the Meeting tab will now see the meeting host's contact information. With the contact card, you can add the host as a contact or connect with them via video, phone, or SMS through the Chat option on the card.
For its whiteboard app, the company announced:
- Object and canvas context menus: By right-clicking on a whiteboard object, a context menu will appear that allows users to copy, paste, comment on, and adjust the layer of an object in Zoom Whiteboard.
- Localization for all support languages: Users that select a supported language from their Zoom profile will now have that language reflected when they use the Zoom Whiteboard.
- Inactive cursors update: An inactive whiteboard cursor will disappear from the screen and will reappear when they are active. Additionally, users can select whether to see everyone's cursors when viewing a whiteboard.
- Slack and Teams access options: With the "Grant Access" notification, you can share a Zoom Whiteboard to Teams and Slack chats.
The company also made several changes to its two contact center services. First, for its core contact center service, Zoom announced:
- Recording log: Contact center admins can manage recordings from a centralized location, allowing them to select and delete multiple recordings.
- Analytics enhancements: Updates to real-time analytics include: a new waterfall chart to display real-time analytics, a KPI threshold option to alert managers and supervisors if they are close to an unacceptable service level, and an omnichannel overview tab that provides a channel usage summary.
- Third-party chatbot integrations: Zoom Contact Center can now integrate with Google Dialogflow and Amazon Lex chatbots.
- Calling between Zoom Phone and Zoom Contact Center: Zoom users will have the ability to transfer calls between agents on Zoom Contact Center and employees using Zoom Phone.
- Contact center chat updates: Zoom Contact Center agents can upgrade chat engagement to a video call and preview the customer's chat history before accepting the engagement. With this update, customers and agents can share files during a web chat or video call.
- Customer voice and video changes: Customers can add an extension number when requesting a callback, and they can also join a video call from a mobile web browser.
Then, Zoom shared several updates to its AI-based conversational intelligence tool,
Zoom IQ for Sales, including:
- Topics of interest: Admins can now pull up moments from calls and meetings by selecting a topic of interest in the admin portal. By selecting the desired topic, users can jump to a section of a call where that topic appears.
- Automated next steps: This feature will identify and capture next steps that a salesperson need to take following the call, based on the conversation.
- CRM integrations with Hubspot and Monday: In addition to its Salesforce integration, Zoom IQ for Salesforce, enterprises can now integrate with Hubspot and Monday.
Additionally, the company made updates to its Chat and Phone service, which include:
- Zoom chat adds external user notice: With a new chat feature, users will be notified when an external user (a user who is outside the organization) is in a chat or channel. This message will appear above the message box in 1:1 chats, a chat channel, and group chats.
- Zoom Phone adds live call transcriptions and voicemail privacy options: Zoom Phone users can now have phone calls transcribed in real-time within the mobile or desktop client. Additionally, Zoom Phone users can now forward a voicemail to someone within your organization.
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Editor's note: This article has been updated since its original publication.
