Product Update - v6.4.0, September 2023

Webex Connect v6.4.0 release brings some new capabilities to help you continue delivering seamless customer experiences. Here’s a list of the key updates:

• Ability to restrict new user invites to specific email domains
• Character limit for callbackData field in v1 SMS API
• Support for MMS channel in Visual Flow Builder
• Preview image upload option for Apple Messages for Business Rich Link Messages
• Ability to control whether Webex Connect teams can access your tenant for support purposes
• User invite link validity increased to 7 days
• Error code descriptions for rejecting API requests originating from IP addresses not present in the IP allowlist
• Changes in incoming attachments handling on Webex Contact Center integrated digital channels powered through Webex Connect
• Ability to send messages to consent groups via Event Scheduler and other enhancements
• Push and In-App Messaging related enhancements
• Enhancements in Usage Report, Data Streams and Contact Policy modules
 
  Please refer to the details below to learn about all the changes and enhancements.

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Release Date

The date of release will be communicated separately over an email.

Details

Added - Ability to restrict new user invites to specific email domains

Webex Connect users with Owner role can now restrict user invites to specific email domains by configuring the list of allowed domains under the new “Email domain” section within Tenant Settings page. Once configured, these domain restrictions apply to new user invites. Existing users will not be impacted even if they are registered with an email id belonging to other domains.

Added – Character limit for callbackData field in v1 SMS API

We have introduced a limit of 2000 characters on the callbackData parameter in the SMS API v1. If more than 2000 characters are passed for callbackData, the API would throw an error.

Added – Support for MMS channel in Visual Flow Builder

We’re adding support for MMS channel in the Start Node and Receive Node of the Visual Flow Builder. This will allow you to trigger and/or resume a flow when an incoming MMS message is received.

Added – Preview image upload option for Apple Messages for Business Rich Link Messages

We’ve made some enhancements to improve customer experience for scenarios wherein a URL is sent to an Apple Messages for Business user as part of a text message. Earlier this year we had introduced support for conversion of such URLs to rich links by fetching images from the shared web page for generating the preview. We’re now introducing the ability to add a default preview image for up to 25 domains that may commonly be shared with end customers by your business/customer service agents. These images can be uploaded by clicking on Manage Asset option for the concerned Apple Messages for Business app asset within Webex Connect.

Added – Ability to control whether Webex Connect teams can access your tenant for support purposes

In our endeavor to provide proactive and timely support to our clients, we’re adding the ability for authorized Webex Connect team members to directly access your Webex Connect tenant for such purposes without the need to have a user invite sent out.

 This direct cross-launch Webex Connect support access will be ’enabled’ i.e., ‘on’ by default as part of v6.4.0 release.

 Such access can be revoked on the Tenant Settings page within your Webex Connect tenant. If you disable direct cross-launch Webex Connect support access, a user invite will be sent to authorize any necessary access to a tenant by a support user.

 Authorized Webex Connect support users will cross launch into Webex Connect tenants with one of following permissions depending on their role:

• Read-only
• Full access
• Full access with decrypt

When a cross-launch session is initiated, a dynamic user with the id "help_desk@" will be created. The activity of this support user on the connected tenant platform will be available in the audit trail.

Changed – User invite link validity increased to 7 days

When you send or resend a user invite from the Teammates section in Webex Connect, the invitee receives an email with an access link to complete the sign-up. Currently, these access links are only valid for 24 hours and require a fresh invite to be sent on expiry. With this release, we’re increasing the validity period of these invites to 7 days. If an invitee doesn’t sign-up within 7 days, the access link with expire and the user invite will need to be sent again.

Changed – Error code descriptions for rejecting API requests originating from IP addresses not present in the IP allowlist

The following changes have been made in the error code descriptions for rejecting API requests received from IP addresses not present in the IP allowlists. This applies to tenants where IP allowlisting has been done. 

• Descriptions for error codes 7010 and 7127 will now read “Source IP is not allowlisted”.
• Description for error code 7240 will now read “EmailId in bounce blocked list”.
• Description for error code 7241 will now read “EmailId in unsubscribe blocked list”.

Changed – Incoming attachments handling on Webex Contact Center integrated Digital Channels powered through Webex Connect

Incoming attachments on Webex Contact Center integrated Webex Connect tenants will now be passed through a malware scanning check to safeguard against such content being routed to a Contact Center agent.

It's important to note that the Malware Scan feature is initially deactivated for a tenant. Furthermore, this feature is exclusively accessible to Contact Center (Webex CC and Cisco Contact Enterprise) linked Connect tenants. Some additional variables will be available in the Start Node, in the Receive node and in Outbound Webhook payloads when Webex CC or CCE integration is enabled for a tenant. Refer documentation for more information.

Changed - Event Scheduler

We’re introducing the ability to select one or more consent groups (configured using Webex Connect Contact Policy app) as the target segment for scheduling/broadcasting messages or calls using Event Scheduler. Consent Group has been added as a destination in the Event Scheduler, for both direct SMS message scheduling as well as for flow trigger scheduling via Custom Events. This option will be available only for tenants that have Contact Policy app enabled. Only the Consent Group that falls under Allow List category can be selected. Refer to the documentation for complete information about this feature.
This apart we’ve made several enhancements to improve user experience for using Event Scheduler. These include:

• Ability to configure Execution TPS of up to 50 at a schedule level. This is subject to tenant level TPS limits and the available throughput from the overall quota at any given point.
• For Event Scheduler Logs, we have added the capability of filtering the logs based on time or date range. The last six months of the data can be filtered, giving the user the convenience to search from the historical logs when required.
• Apart from this, we have also enhanced the error logging in the Event Scheduler log file. Also, the Event Scheduler ‘Trigger Execution Summary’ email will now include additional information to make it more contextual.

Changed – Push and In-App Messaging related enhancements

We are releasing the following SDK updates as part of Webex Connect v6.4.0 release:

• Android SDK v2.20.0
• iOS SDK v2.19.0
• JavaScript SDK v1.5.5

Here’s a summary of the changes:

• We are releasing the latest versions of our iOS and Android SDKs which will be compatible with iOS 17 and Android 14 respectively.
• We have also introduced a new method in the iOS and Android SDKs that will allow you to get the data of a thread by passing its thread ID. This was already released for JavaScript SDK in a previous release.
• In the JavaScript SDK, the Firebase library version that the SDK uses internally, has been upgraded to version 19.17.2.
  This apart, a small change has been made in the Mobile/Web App Asset configuration screen. The ‘Web API Key’ field has been replaced with ‘FCM Server Key’. This applies to new app asset configurations as well as to any updates to the existing app asset configurations.

Changed – Usage Report Enhancements

We have made enhancements to the details available within the usage report that can be exported from the ‘Usage’ section of the platform UI. Here are the details: 

• Two new sheets ‘Voice (pulse)’ and ‘MMS Inbound’ have been added to the XLSX Usage Report.
• ‘Voice (pulse)’ sheet contains the Voice channel usage details like the Call Duration in various pulse intervals, Call Type (Inbound, Outbound), Country ISO Code of the destination country, and the Number Type (Mobile/Landline) of your Webex Connect tenant.
• ‘MMS Inbound’ sheet contains the stats for incoming MMS messages.

Changed – Data Streams Enhancements

We have made the following enhancements to the Data Streams feature which is currently available only for users who have access to both Webex Connect and Webex Campaign together:

• Data Streams, when enabled, will now be listed as a separate item in the Integrations listing page.
• The new feature also allows users to configure data streams at an individual asset level or at a channel level. In addition, users can add and/or remove from the available events streams (such as incoming messages and events, outbound messages, and delivery receipts).
• Also, some of the payloads have been enhanced to include some contextual metadata such as service name, service id, flow name, flow id, and more. Please refer to the documentation for more information.

Changed – Contact Policy Enhancements

We have made the following enhancements to the Contact Policy module. 

• Added timestamp to the following notifications: Consent Added, Consent Revoked, Consent Deleted.
• Added pagination to the group lists page to improve performance.
• Removed the ability to create blank metadata as well as groups with leading and trailing spaces.

Important Additional Notes

• A small change has been made in the Mobile/Web App Asset configuration screen. The ‘Web API Key’ field has been replaced with ‘FCM Server Key’. This applies to new app asset configurations as well as to any updates to the existing app asset configurations. If you update a previously configured mobile/web app asset, please provide the FCM Server Key in this field.
• With the addition of pagination in Contact Policy the search functionality needs to be updated. In the next release, we will be adding a more robust fuzzy search functionality for customers with large numbers of groups.
• As announced previously in the release note for v6.3.0, the Sender ID that was available by default for sending test SMS traffic in some of the tenants will no longer be supported starting from v6.4.0. Please start using the Sender IDs available within your Webex Connect tenants specifically only to send or receive any messages, as the default Sender ID will not work after this release.
• We’ve introduced rate limits for Thread APIs and SDK methods related to In-App and Live Chat channels in a previous release. We plan to enforce these limits in a future release. Please implement retry mechanisms for these methods to avoid application-side errors. Please refer to the chapter Rate Limits for Messaging APIs, Event API, and Inbound Webhook in the API Reference documentation for more information.

Changelog