What’s New

2Ring Dashboards & Wallboards Release 8.6

2Ring Dashboards & Wallboards v8.6 is available as of today. Unrestricted access to a demo environment can be requested here, and as always, you can request a live demo / walk-through at www.2Ring.com/Webex.  

What’s New in DW 8.6.0 (incl. 8.5.4 and 8.5.3)?

• Widgets / Talking Heads – a widget is a new type of a segment that displays multiple related child segments that correspond to a single row of a grid calculation.

Some refer to this type of a segment as “talking heads,” but with 2Ring Dashboards & Wallboards, widgets do not only have to show agent metrics, but they can also be used to show data about queues, campaigns, etc. Every grid can be displayed in the form of widgets, and such widgets are often used to build floor plans or create visual representation of specific groups entities – filtered using available grid parameters (display a widget for all agents belonging to a specific queue). Once you define what your widget should look like and what metrics it should display, then your layout will display such widget for every entity belonging to the group of agents, queues, campaigns, ..

• Flexible Value Ranges – a Good/Neutral/Bad ranges on KPI and Grid Columns have been replaced with unlimited number of conditional styles. Each style has its own condition and can modify almost all aspects of the appearance of a KPI/Grid Column:

The style conditions are evaluated in a sequence. The first condition that evaluates to True sets the style and the evaluation sequence stops.

• Values as Images – introducing Image Presentation Type, and thus KPI and Grid columns can now display their values as images. They can either compute image names based on the value or display different images based on conditional styles. This can be used to deliver various gamification views:

• Custom User Attributes and Personalized Layouts – 2Ring DW user accounts can have custom attributes (Team, Photo, Queues). A single layout can provide different data to different users based on their profile attributes. This is very handy for use with 2Ring Power-Tool (one layout showing personalized data to every agent).

• Many Additional Usability Improvements in the Layout Editor
  • Hide Grid option added in editor
  • Shortcut Keys in editor – CTRL+C, CTRL+V, DEL, CTRL-A, CTRL+click
  • Drag to select multiple items
  • Drag & Drop multiple items
  • Multiply items while copying
  • Autofocus segment type picker on segment creation
  • Autofocus banner message when opening message editor
  • Performance improvements to handle hundreds of segments in a layout
  • More intelligent segment name auto generation
  • More intelligent column header auto generation
  • Removed minimum segment size configuration setting
  • Layout is centered in full screen if unlocked
  • Layout borders do not spill in editor from the editable area
  • A single error indicator is shown when an error affects multiple segments
  • All dropdowns are clearable in editor
  • Open list of layouts in a new window

• Bug Fixes
  • Security updates to 3rd party libraries
  • Imprecise positions calculated when snapping to grid on move or resize action
  • Legend in Bar/Line chart does not respect series order

2Ring Dashboards & Wallboards Release 8.5

2Ring Dashboards & Wallboards v8.5 is available as of today and we think that you are going to love all the new usability enhancements that it has to offer. Unrestricted access to a demo environment can be requested here, and as always, you can request a live demo / walk-through at www.2Ring.com/Webex.

What’s New in DW 8.5?

Besides many usability and security improvements, 8.5 release also comes with the following new features and existing feature enhancements:

• Word Cloud – a new visual representation of trending terms/words based on any information available in 2Ring Dashboards & Wallboards. You can use this to highlight the most active agents, the busiest queues/teams/channels, the most often used wrap-up codes, etc.:

• Banners have been significantly enhanced and BU admins now can:
  • Create multiline banners / tickers,

• Display a temporary message in one or in multiple banners at once. In other words, a temporary auto-expiring text can be displayed and after expiration, the previously displayed message will display in each banner again:

• Update messages displayed in multiple banners (layouts) at once via a new messaging tool that’s available right there in the layout list (viewer client – top right corner):

• Bar and Line Charts – support for table valued sources of data with non-time-based label axis has been added. Previous Bar and Line charts always had a timeline axis. Similarly to the Word Cloud feature, you can use this to highlight the load distribution among agents, queues, teams, channels, or show the use of wrap-up codes. Here is an example showing number of calls handled for multiple teams:

• Color Picker – all color values now have a color picker control. However, you can still type in color’s name such as “blue” if that’s what you prefer. It should also be noted that the strict color validation available in previous versions has been dropped (users found it to be too strict as it was blocking some meaningful color values). A color indicator showing how the value would be interpreted in current browser is shown alongside all color values in editor:

• Font Styles – all font style properties now have a compact font control. On a side note, please notice here the new *padding* setting that is now available for most segment types – title is just one of many where you can use it to optimize the feel of your layout):

• Grids – now come with:
  • Column Presets – when you add a new grid, it will automatically come with a set of handpicked columns by 2Ring. Each of grid’s columns will already have a name and all the other setting already set. This speeds-up a creation of new layouts and makes the entire process even more business user friendly. If you don’t like the default columns that 2Ring picked, your Admin can change the defaults for future use.
  • Total Row – grids display a total row – with aggregate values for grid calculations.
  • Alternating Row Styles – it is not possible to set unique text and background colors for alternate rows:

• Borders can be set for headers, values, alternate row values, totals, and conditional styles:

• Additional items that you might want to be aware of:
  • The viewer client now remembers the most recently used Business Unit, and thus after signing in, you will be shown the recently used business unit instead of the BU that you belong to
  • All dialogs must be explicitly closed by clicking the cancel or close button.
  • Some *Inheritable Settings* have been moved directly to the *Business Unit*.
  • The admin tool supports RTL languages and Arabic translations.
  • A new concept of *Warnings* has been introduced – a *warning* means that an entity is not fully configured and is marked with orange color. These can now be saved and/or published and are mostly ignored by the viewer. Entities with errors(marked with red color) are never saved to the server nor created by the server anymore. If an entity on the client has an error, it blocks the publishing of the layout.
  • A new concept of non renderable segments has been introduced. Such a segment cannot be rendered until its type and some other specifics are known (such as the image name for an image or a KPI calculation function for a KPI). These segments are displayed in a form of an icon representing their type. After becoming renderable these segments display a pending indicator until data to be displayed is available.

Connector Updates

• All connectors have been rewritten to use 2Ring DW Connector SDK Cisco® UCCE/PCCE Connector comes with a new set of additional columns in the Agent Grid:
  • CallsAutoOut
  • CallsAutoOutOnHold
  • SumAutoOutCallsHandleTime
  • SumAutoOutCallsOnHoldTime
  • SumAutoOutCallsTalkTime
  • SumAutoOutTalkTime
• Cisco UCCX Connector now better handles various non-standard situations with the UCCX data.
• ServiceNow Connector has been significantly enhanced:
  • Parameters values are loaded from Aggregation API by default.
  • Rewrote the following settings:
    • Added settings
    • Enable Aggregate API for calculation parameters
    • Enable Aggregate API for calculations
    • Scorecards per Request
    • Record Inactivity
    • Records per Request
  • Renamed various connector settings and calculation parameters to use names that SNOW Admins are used to.
  • Added “Task Fields” calculation parameter
  • Added new KPIs:
    • NumberOfLicenses
    • Tasks – State
    • Incident – Count – an example of KPI from a custom ServiceNow table
    • Incident – Longest Waiting – an example of KPI using data from a custom ServiceNow table
  • Added new grid:
    • Incident – an example of a grid based on a custom ServiceNow table
  • Updated Assignment Group Statistics Grid
    • Uses Aggregation API by default
  • Updated Assignment Group States Grid
    • Uses Aggregation API by default
    • Now comes with a new column – State
    • Now offers a new parameter – State
    • Does not contain these columns anymore
      • New
      • OnHold
      • InProgress
      • Resolved
      • Closed
      • Canceled
  • Updated Task List Grid
    • Removed its default filtering
    • Added parameters
      • Active
      • Empty Fields
      • Exclude State
      • Minimum Priority
      • Not Empty Fields
      • State
    • Added new columns for
      • Priority ID
      • State ID
      • Table
      • Ticket ID
  • Updated Task States Grid
    • Uses Aggregation API by default
    • Now comes with a new column – State
    • Now offers new parameters – Assignment Group, Company Name, Priority, and State
    • Does not contain these columns anymore
      • New
      • OnHold
      • InProgress
      • Resolved
      • Closed
      • Canceled
  • Updated Task Statistics Grid
    • Uses Aggregation API by default
    • Added parameters
      • Assignment Group
      • Company Name
      • Priority
      • State

2Ring Dashboards & Wallboards Release 8.3.1

2Ring Dashboards & Wallboards v8.3.1 is available as of today.

• All 2Ring customers are highly encouraged to contact 2Ring support and proactively request upgrade to 8.x release to benefit from the significantly improved admin user experience. Most 2Ring customers can get their wallboards upgraded under their existing support coverage without any additional charges. All existing customers can ask for their wallboards to get upgraded by opening a ticket requesting an upgrade here.
• If you haven’t had a look at 2Ring Gadgets for Cisco Finesse®, we kindly invite you to schedule a demo. DW8 is included with enhanced and premium bundles, and our Gadgets noticeably enhance agent and supervisor experiences with Cisco Finesse. To schedule a demo of 2Ring DW8 with 2Ring Gadgets 5, visit 2Ring.com/Demo.
• Unrestricted access to our public demo environment with DW 8.2 can be requested here. Test drive the user experience as an admin of the “Demo Business Unit.” To test with our demo data, you will not have to install anything anywhere. To use your own data, feel free to contact us to inquire about a proof-of-concept deployment.

What’s New in DW 8.3? 

• Added support to the connector for the Genesys Cloud CX™ platform. Our Genesys™ AppFoundry listings are available here:
  • Cloud CX: Genesys AppFoundry – 2Ring Dashboards & Wallboards 
  • Engage: Genesys AppFoundry – 2Ring Dashboards & Wallboards
• We are introducing “Peak Licenses Consumed” KPIs. Administrators can be alerted when they are approaching their license count – alerts can be delivered via email or directly to their IM clients (Discord, Microsoft Teams, Slack, Webex). This also means that this information is no longer available on the diagnostics tab of each connector.
• Layout Editor can display descriptions of KPI and Grid calculation functions as well as grid calculation function columns.
• KPI calculation function parameters can declare dependency on grid calculation function parameter and grid calculation function column.
• Grid calculation function parameters can have metadata.
• Minimum supported Windows and SQL server versions have been changed to 2016.
• Data encryption now uses AES256 keys, protected by RSA.
• DP API is now only used for cookie encryption.
• Various security fixes.
• Login session length can be configured by the admin (previous versions came a fixed length of XY minutes/days).

What’s New with the Cisco UCCX (Express) Connector?

• The connector now enables for a customer to choose if Agent State Detail table or Agent State Detail Snapshot table with ‘Use ASD Snapshot’ parameter should be used. This is available for deployments with UCCX 11.6 and above.
• Added a new KPI: “Calls – Offered With a Call Variable for Applications”
• Added a new column for the CSQsCurrentCalls grid called “DurationInQueue”
• Added support for collecting wrap-up data for UCCX 12.5+
• Bug fixes

What’s New with the Cisco CUCM (CallManager) Connector?

• ExtensionsStatistics Grids and Extension KPIs (i.e. “for Ext”) can now also include calls that are currently in progress in addition to calls that already concluded
• Added two new KPIs, Calls – “Ringing Outbound for Ext” and “Calls – Ringing Inbound for Ext”
• Added two new grid columns to the ExtensionsStatistic grid, “CallsRingingOutbound” and “CallsRingingInbound”

What’s New with the Cisco PCCE (Package) and UCCE (Enterprise) Connector?

• Added a new license filter – it is also nowpossible to work with calltypes (on top of excluding skillgroups and precision queues)
• The connector now calculates Agent state KPIs (e.g. Agents – Ready) in memory when ‘Enable In-Memory Calculations’ parameter is enabled. The connector now pre-processes parameters for Agents Grids in memory when ‘Enable In-Memory Calculations’ parameter is enabled
• Removed CallHistory Grid
• Added new Grids
  • CallVariables
  • WrapupWordCloud
• Added new KPIs
  • Calls – Abandoned In Ringing for Precision Queues
  • Calls – Abandoned On Hold for Precision Queues
  • Calls – Abandoned In Ringing for Teams
  • Calls – Abandoned On Hold for Teams
  • Calls – Abandoned In Ringing for Skill Groups
  • Calls – Abandoned On Hold for Skill Groups
  • Calls – Answer Wait Time for Call Types
  • Agents – Active
  • Agents – Average Inbound Hold Time
  • Agents – Not Active
  • Agents – Unknown
  • Calls – Longest Wait Time for Call Types
  • Diag – Iteration Duration
  • Diag – Licenses Consumed
  • Agents – Dialer Average Handle Time
  • Agents – Dialer Average Reservation Time
  • Agents – Dialer Calls Connected
  • Calls – Average Hold Time for Call Types
  • Calls – Service Level Half for Call Types
• Added new columns to PrecisionQueues, Teams and Skillgroup grids
  • CallsAbandonedInRinging
  • CallsAbandonedOnHold
• Added a new column to Agents grid
  • CallsAbandonedOnHold
  • CallsIncomingOnHold
  • SumIncomingCallsOnHoldTime
  • DialerAverageHandleTime
  • DialerAverageReservationTime
  • DialerCallsConnected
  • DialerSumHandleTime
  • DialerSumReservationTime
• Added new columns to CallTypes grid (plus added a new grid parameter – “Agents”)
  • UniqueAgents
  • AverageHoldTime
  • ServiceLevelHalf
  • ServiceLevelTo5
  • Removed “AverageAnswerWaitTime”
• Added CallTypes, Precision Queues, SkillGroups and Teams paramaters to many of the existing KPIs

2Ring Dashboards & Wallboards Release 8.2

2Ring Dashboards & Wallboards v8.2 (DW) is available as of today.

• All 2Ring customers are highly encouraged to contact 2Ring support and proactively request an upgrade to the 8.2 release to benefit from a highly improved admin user experience.
• Our Gadgets significantly enhance the agent and supervisor experience with Cisco Finesse®. If you haven’t lately had a look, check out our recently refreshed product page: 2Ring Gadgets for Cisco Finesse. DW is included with enhanced and premium bundles, (DW customers adding our Gadgets get a full credit for their previous DW purchase). To schedule a demo, visit 2Ring.com/Demo. Now, Cisco® resellers can also check out 2Ring Gadgets and 2Ring Wallboards in Cisco dCloud UCCX 12.5 (v2). DW8 is also available on Cisco dCloud in a form of an instant demo (CCO Login required for both).
• Unrestricted access to our public demo environment with DW 8.2 can be requested here. Test drive the user experience as an admin of the “Demo Business Unit.” To test with our demo data, you will not have to install anything anywhere. To use your own data, feel free to contact us to request a proof-of-concept deployment.

What’s New in DW 8.2? 

• Webex® Contact Center Connector (WXCC) – Introducing a brand-new connector for this new cloud-based contact center platform from Cisco. Check out a sample WXCC layout. There are 273 KPIs (agent service level, agent state, agent stats, queue service level, queue stats, team agent availability, and team stats). There are also 7 different grids, each with many various columns (metrics), and all supporting various filtering options. To learn more and to receive access to a detailed documentation listing all the available metrics and filters, please contact us.
  • IMPORTANT NOTE: Existing 2Ring customers moving to WXCC can request a free transfer of existing 2Ring licenses for use with WXCC by contacting 2Ring support.

• Historical Grids – Grid calculation functions can provide historical interval data (must be supported by the connector and source platform). From a business perspective, this allows you to show the agent their performance on the current day vs. a previous day or compare a queue’s performance today vs. last a queue’s last week stats.
• Historical Values for Custom KPIs – Custom KPI calculations can now use historical values of its variables (past intervals). This simplifies trend calculations and enables for creation of YTD rates and of similar calculations, e.g., CallsHandledWithinSL_YTD divided by CallsOffered_YTD.
• Licensing Alerts – New 2Ring connectors (WXCC, the Genesys Cloud CX™ platform) now provide consumed license count and iteration duration as a KPI. This can be used for monitoring of the consumed license count and iteration duration in real time as well as to track the history of these KPIs. Since the consumed license count is a KPI, notification rules can be defined to send alerts (via email, or text, or to a wallboard banner/ticker) if it approaches its limit. Support for licensing alerts will be added to all the existing connectors in the coming weeks.

• Delayed License Check – Licensing check no longer causes the connector to stop working if consumed licenses count goes over limit immediately. Instead, 2Ring now waits for an hour before it stops functioning. This extra hour helps overcome short-lived license overflows during shift changes.
• Minor Usability Improvements – These are a small step for 2Ring, but a huge improvement for users:
  • The current Business Unit as well as the Business unit of the Current User is always displayed in title bar of the client app.
  • The client now remembers its scroll position in the layout list within a Business Unit. This is very helpful when user is going through the layout list and searching for a particular layout. Once done checking out a layout, upon return to the layout list, the user is automatically returned to the place where the last viewed layout is listed (and doesn’t have to start at the top/beginning again).
• New Connector Architecture – It is now easier than ever to implement new custom connectors. 2Ring DW provides a Windows service, UI for s connector’s management, UI for a connector’s settings, and data encryption. None of that needs be implemented on the connector’s side anymore:
  • A new connector API has been introduced that enables connectors to retrieve calculation requirements and to supply calculation results.
  • A new connector hosting service has been introduced that uses the connector API to talk to DW and hosts connector DLL instances.
  • Custom connectors can be implemented in .net core and hosted in the connector hosting service.
  • Connectors built using the new infrastructure can be installed/upgraded using a new, simplified mechanism.
  • New/updated calculation functions can be added without the need to upgrade a connector. These can be either manually registered or bulk imported from a definition file in the admin tool. Connectors can use metadata stored in DW to describe and execute calculation functions not known at connector build time.
  • Legacy connectors can still use previous communication mechanisms.
  • Connectors can share API keys.
• Some other minor yet useful enhancements:
  • Enumerable parameter values can be manually refreshed in admin tool – in other words, if you are in a hurry, after a new queue or agent was created, these can be synced manually to DW configuration with a click of a button (no need to wait until automatic synchronization brings these in at the scheduled interval).
  • The time zone resolution mechanism has been updated to only consider the time zone set at the business unit level or at the calculation level. Time zone set at the connector level is not considered for calculations anymore.
  • Timespan-based KPIs can now emit sub-second values (useful for performance troubleshooting.)
  • Enumerable parameter types can define a separator character/string to define how the values are joined/split (we previously used “,” – and so that can be now changed to any other character). These separators are used for both importing the enumerable parameter values from the source system as well as for passing multiple values in a parameter to its calculation.
  • The import of enumerable parameter values has been drastically optimized resulting in more than 100 times faster import execution.
  • Evaluation of custom calculations has been optimized, resulting in up to 8 times shorter execution times.

2Ring Dashboards & Wallboards Release 8.0

2Ring Dashboards & Wallboards v8.0 is available as of today.

• All 2Ring customers are highly encouraged to contact 2Ring support and proactively request upgrade to 8.0 release to benefit from the significantly improved admin user experience. Most 2Ring customers can get their wallboards upgraded under their existing support coverage without any additional charges. All existing customers can request their wallboards to get upgraded by opening a ticket requesting an upgrade here.
• If you haven’t had a look at 2Ring Gadgets for Cisco Finesse, please schedule a demo. DW8 is included with enhanced and premium bundles, and our Gadgets markedly enhance agent and supervisor experience with Cisco Finesse. To schedul®e a demo of 2Ring DW8 with 2Ring Gadgets 5.1, visit 2Ring.com/Demo.

What’s New in DW 8.0? 

• A Brand-New Admin Client
  • Replaces the previous Silverlight based configuration tool. The tool served us well for many years, but since Microsoft announced end of support for Silverlight, we decided to take it to the next level, and leverage the most modern technologies to build a brand new admin tool. As a result, Basic Users, Business Unit Admins, and even Global Admins are now all able to use their preferred web browser to work with DW8:
    • Microsoft Edge (Chromium),
    • Google Chrome, and
    • Firefox

• Adds localization to additional languages. Besides English that has been always supported, the admin tool now also comes with localization to the following languages:
  • German
  • Canadian French
  • French
  • Portuguese
  • Slovak
  • Spanish

• Adds a Log Browser – another help to administrators and support teams. The web-based UI of DW8 now comes with a list of available logs, and org admins can download those without having to login to the 2Ring server/VM.
  • Texting (SMS) and IM Notifications/Alerts – DW has been able to send out email alerts for some time, but with DW8, real-time alerts can be delivered via many new channels and these alerts are also highly configurable:

• Cisco Webex® – here is an example using our DW notification space:
  • Microsoft Teams
  • Discord
  • DW Layout Banner – yes, alert can automatically pop to a marquee/ticker in DW8
  • Email
  • MMS – EZ Texting
  • Slack
  • Texting – SMS Gateways from:
    • Bandwidth.com
    • Red Oxygen
    • Trumpia
    • Twilio
    • WebText

 

• Power Tool We have recently introduced the 2Ring Power Tool, which allows users to place a small (and even personalized) wallboard layout anywhere on their desktop. It always resides on top of all windows, keeping your agents and supervisors continuously informed. Check out a short demo of the 2Ring Power Tool below and see for yourself how highly customizable this newly introduced application really is.

• Some other minor yet useful enhancements:
  • A single user can now be a manager of multiple BUs.
  • The scrolled position in the layout list is now remembered.
  • Users can now use self-service to change password.
  • Using .net core 3.1 in all APIs.