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RingCentral Updates Phone System and Platform; Vyopta Adds Further Zoom Support

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A phone icon
Image: Cagkan Sayin - Alamy Stock Vector
Welcome to the No Jitter Roll, the regular round-up of news about collaboration and communication. In today's edition, we cover the latest updates on RingCentral’s platform and phone service, further Zoom support for Vyopta’s monitoring and analytics service, and several Teams features added to Microsoft’s government cloud offerings.
 
RingCentral Adds Host of Features Designed to Add Functionality, Reduce App Switching
Cloud communications provider RingCentral announced updates to its cloud phone system and platform.
 
RingCentral’s updated phone capabilities include:
  • Personal call forwarding: Users can have calls sent to an extension, voicemail, or shared line when they are on vacation or taking a break.
  • Auto-dialer: Enterprises can pre-program phone numbers, allowing users to quickly dial a number when they pick up the phone. This can be used for quick access to security offices, emergency response teams, or front desks.
  • Line seizure for emergency services: Enterprise can lock down lines within particular sites for the purpose of only making and receiving calls to and from a phone number designated by emergency services.
  • Insight from call behavior: RingCentral's call analytics APIs are now available in public beta.
  • New information in the Resource Center: RingCentral has updated the Resource Center in the RingCentral app with instructional videos, documentation, and feature overviews.
RingCentral also introduced several add-ins meant to reduce app switching, including:
  • Google Drive and Forms add-in: Users can now be notified of new shared Google drive files and provide access to other team members in the RingCentral messaging group. Additionally, users can now instantly view Google Forms responses as they come in.
  • Trello add-in: Users can receive Trello board activity notifications and update Trello boards with new comments and completed tasks.
  • Zendesk add-in: Within the RingCentral app, users can create Zendesk tickets, respond to them, and be notified of new ones.
  • Text bot SMS add-in: Users can send and receive text messages to mobile phones using RingCentral's Team messaging feature.
  • Auto-reply assistants: Auto-reply bots can respond to questions in team messages, based on pre-determined replies based on keywords, or when someone is out of the office.
  • Poll add-in: Users can create ad-hoc polls in chat, thereby allowing team members to weigh in on a topic in real time.
Additionally, RingCentral said it updated its Salesforce and HubSpot integrations. For Salesforce, agents can click a phone number to send an SMS message and perform a warm transfer, which allows agents to talk to the transferred party before connecting with the caller. For Hubspot, agents can now send and view SMS messages, access voicemail and fax capabilities, and confirm and remind customers of appointments by sending a text. With an add-in, users can also access HubSpot contact details and share them with team members via messaging. The SMS capabilities for Salesforce and HubSpot are now available in the U.S. and Canada.
 
Vyopta Adds Zoom Phone and Rooms Support
UC analytics provider Vyopta has added Zoom Phone and Room Rooms support to its multi-vendor monitoring and analytics service. With Vyopta, IT admins will have a dashboard for monitoring Zoom services (Zoom Meetings, Phone, Rooms, and Webinars) and other collaboration technologies like Microsoft Teams, Cisco Webex, and others. With the dashboard, IT admins can monitor system and disconnect issues, concurrent call usage, and dial-outs to emergency, toll-free, and international numbers.
 
Microsoft Adds Teams Features for Government Cloud Customers
In a blog post, Microsoft shared that several Microsoft Teams features will be rolling out to its US Government Community Cloud (GCC), US Government Community Cloud High (GCC-High), and United States Department of Defense (DoD) customers. These features include:
  • Customizable security options for DoD customers: Meeting organizers can customize the safety and security settings for Teams Meeting using the meetings options feature. Meeting options include enabling meeting participants to bypass the lobby, designating who can present, opting to have Teams announce join or leave calls, and more.
  • Large Gallery for virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) in government clouds: Available for GCC and GCCH customers, the Large Gallery feature allows users to view up to 49 videos at once in Meetings on VDI.
  • Together Mode on VDI in government clouds: Together Mode, which allows meeting participants to be displayed in the same shared background, is now available for meetings on VDI for GCC and GCCH customers.