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As Discover 2.4 continues to roll out to users we wanted to share (with those of you we haven’t shared with directly) the official release notes. https://www.grey-space.com/feature-release-2-4 Grab a tea, it’s a long read.

For Discover 2.4, we spent a little extra time refining the mobile experience to make sure contact centre wallboards feel just as good on your phone as they do on desktop. In the video you'll see a bunch of features all crammed into a very efficient 56 seconds, including (but not limited to); playlists, our new template design, enhanced messaging, overhauled session controls, and full screen alerts. If you were REALLY paying attention, you might have noticed I didn't enter credentials to access my playlist. To cut a long story short, my mobile device has been authenticated with Discover so any time I launch, Discover knows who I am, and what I want to see. Which saves me remembering another password. www.grey-space.com/discover

The production build for Discover 2.4 is in my hands. The decision to delay release to Q1 2024 has allowed us to refine the experience massively across all devices and, with the extra time, we managed to sneak some further improvements in there so I'm beyond excited to get it out there and start hearing your feedback. The last step in the critical path for us is to update the user guides, so while that's in progress I'll be back to share some the new features coming with 2.4. For all the folks eager to get their hands on 2.4, once we have a complete user guide our support team will be in touch to schedule a change window for the upgrade. While I'm here, I'd like to say thank you in particular to the teams who have been so enthusiastic and engaged over the past few years. You have waited so patiently for some of the changes coming in Discover 2.4, and I do not think you will disappointed. Thanks, Laurie

...Discover can now integrate with more than one contact centre platform simultaneously. Control real time wallboards for all of your contact centres from a single UI. www.grey-space.com/discover

In an earlier blog we spoke about using an optional announcement in your call flow design to play messages to customers prior to queuing with the aim of encouraging abandons before they ever reach a queue. We call it a "Broadcast Announcement" and it's a great addition to any call flow design. But with a little extra work, we can supercharge it. Why? Depending on the processes in your contact centre, recording a message and having it added to a call flow can be a bureaucratic nightmare. So, when you find yourself with a specific message you need to play to your customers today and no recording handy, you’ve got a lot to get done in little time. What if you could record the message using a handset, and what if that audio file was added automatically to the broadcast announcement in your call flow? It's Actually Pretty Easy With some configuration and permission changes on your Avaya Communication Manager it’s possible to enable the handset at your desk to record announcements directly onto your phone system. It's a little less professional than a studio recorded announcement but it is the very definition of flexibility and allows the folks on the ground to respond immediately, and precisely, in the face of virtually any situation. Using your handset, follow these steps: 1. Key *10 (This can differ from system to system, speak to your IT or Telecoms team to confirm) 2. Enter the announcement number (Again, if you're not sure, speak to your IT or Telecoms team) 3. Key 1 to begin recording 4. Record message 5. Hang up…quietly, smashing the handset into the base unit is likely to give customers a shock. That’s it. If you’re using the broadcast announcement concept covered in our earlier blog, all that’s left to do is to enable the broadcast announcement and it’ll start playing to customers immediately. If not, your final task is to have your IT/Telecoms team update your call routing to use your broadcast announcement. It's a Big Time Saver The way you’re doing it now relies on a number of different people: creating a script, getting a recording, uploading the recording and updating your call flow design. There are too moving pieces that can slow or halt your progress. The recording won’t be studio quality but the purpose is to deliver an accurate message to your customers in a timely manner. What About The Dangers? In the wrong hands this could be abused, yes, but Avaya thought of this. The ability to record announcements via handset is disabled by default and requires a change to handset permissions to make it possible. The flexibility is there to give permission to a single handset which can be secured by code or through physical security but it’s common practice for Team Leaders and Managers to have the capability. The Science Bit As I mentioned, there is some back end configuration required - it’s straight forward and low-risk but a little complex for a blog. Describe the requirement to your IT or Telecoms team and they are likely to be able to make the changes quite quickly, and as always, get in touch if you have any questions.

As development continues on the many, MANY features and changes coming with Discover 2.4 we recently completed final testing on the new alert system. Our contact centre wallboard alerts contain a set of user created rules to determine when an alert will trigger - the appearance and animation style, the text content (including real time references to data!), and how long the alert will remain on screen is entirely user configurable. Coming to a wallboard near you Q3 this year.

If You're New, A Quick Introduction to Discover Discover is our real time contact centre wallboard solution for Avaya CMS, Avaya Aura Contact Center (AACC), and Avaya Contact Center Select (ACCS). Built to tackle the pain and limitations we experienced as users, Discover delivers stunning wallboards to teams in the office or at home with fast data refresh, no installs, and no need for users to login. As a living solution, our users enjoy feature updates every 6 months or so that bring new features and enhancements based, not only our long term vision, but on the suggestions and feedback we receive from users who have become an endless source of inspiration for us and continue to influence the ongoing development of Discover. So, Let's Talk About Update 2.4 The next update is expected to be in everyone's hands in Q3 this year, and it's a big one. We will talk about some of the other work that's going on as development progresses but today we want to talk about one of the core changes in the upcoming 2.4 release, one that will be experienced by every single user - "the wallboard refactor". What's Wrong With the Current Wallboards? Nothing really, however, throughout Discover's Development we have added new wallboards over time to take advantage of, and show off, new features. That's worked very well for us and for our users but, over time, has created a problem - our older wallboards no longer reflect our current design standards, nor do they all make use of the latest and greatest features. We describe these internally as "Legacy", and while generally our Legacy wallboards are 99% as good as our newer wallboards, we want them to be 100% as good. Taking Legacy to Gold "Gold" is how we describe our wallboards using the most up to date design standards and feature set. For us, Gold is a constantly evolving target as it simply defines the latest state of the ever-expanding features and enhancements used in our wallboards...but without an example, "Gold" and "Legacy" are just words, so let's start there. A Legacy Wallboard We hope what you see here is a gorgeous contact centre wallboard full of the most mission critical real time KPIs and packing some "extra mile" features in for good measure. You'd be absolutely right. However, as good as this wallboard looks, it's no longer compatible with some of Discover's newest features and lacks the design refinements we have introduced since its inception, and this is where Gold comes in. A Gold Wallboard Concept This wallboard may not appear as though it's doing anything radically different but there are a mountain of subtle, and not so subtle, things going on that together create a fundamentally better experience for our users: A lot of the changes are going on under the hood but, thankfully, there are a few things we can see: A Better Range of Contact Centre KPIs More Detailed Contact Centre KPIs The Inclusion of Company or Client Image Logos Customisable Agent Status Groups, Labels, and Formats Agent Status Icons Interactive Agent and Queue Lists A More Refined and Consistent Design Language Better Space Efficiency These enhancements in many cases have been inspired through the feedback we not only receive, but encourage from our users. They're trusting us to provide an alternative to the Avaya wallboards included in their contact centre or CCaaS solution which is why it's so important to us that everyone, no matter which wallboards they decide to use, have access to the very best of our wallboard features. A Step Further, Making Our Avaya Wallboards Even Better We didn't stop there though; the wallboard refactor has been in the planning phase for months because we see this is an opportunity rather than a necessary evil... ...well, maybe as well as a necessary evil. This second step was arguably the most important, and that was to do a deep dive into our future aspirations for Discover; short term, long term, small enhancements, and big features, all to figure out what we can now to future proof our wallboards from falling behind and receiving the Legacy moniker. The output of this (very long) planning phase is enabling us to recreate our wallboards in such a way that planned features can be integrated more quickly and robustly in future and, fingers crossed, we won't require another wallboard refactor any time soon. What's Next? Refactoring wallboards is not the most glamorous topic but it's so important for us to build a foundation that allows us to do even more with Discover and continue to turbo charge Avaya real time reporting. As we continue the process of recreating each of our wallboards, parallel work continues on the other features planned for update 2.4 which are shaping up very nicely indeed, and we'll be back to talk about those a little later. To stay up to date on what's coming next, you can check out the Discover Feature Release Timeline and if you have any questions or ideas about contact centre wallboards, don't hesitate to get in touch, we'd love to hear from you. Grey Space Out.

It's been a minute since we've talked about new developments for Adapt but recently we've been working on some changes, and some new features and wanted to share. For all the new folks, Adapt is our automation tool for the extraction and distribution of historical contact centre reporting data. In a nutshell, Adapt queries an Avaya CMS, Avaya Aura Contact Center (AACC), or Avaya Contact Center Select (ACCS) historical database directly to create a custom report output containing exactly the KPIs you need, and nothing else. That output can then be distributed to teams, MI and BI applications, or database tables for long term storage. Over the last few weeks we've been adapting our architecture (pun definitely intended) to allow us to query mulitple ACD historical databases simultaneously and generate a single, unified output. The back end work is wrapping up as we speak, so next week we're on to the fun part - hooking the new bits up the UI. It's not quite as exciting or as visual as contact centre wallboards but Adapt is helping our customers do what they need to do and this is a huge step forward for the folks our there with more than one ACD, so we're pretty excited. If you want to see more about scheduling custom reports then you can check out our contact centre solutions or just get in touch if you have a question for us.

...you can push mission critical messages to every wallboard instantly using Discover's real time messaging feature. Keeping teams up to date on every development in your contact centre. Or the lunch menu, which is also mission critical. www.grey-space.com/discover

Avaya Communication Manager is a mature contact centre solution and so gives you full controls over those first crucial seconds when an agent answers a call - does the handset ring or is the call automatically delivered to the agent's headset? Is a message played to the agent? If the agent fails to answer where does the call go and how long should we wait to reroute that call? The options are almost endless. If you're an Avaya Communication Manager user using H.323 rather than SIP you may have noticed, however, that that benefit can be demolished by something as simple as an agent using a headset nudging or lifting their phone handset. For an action so innocuous, the effect can be devastating - the agent has been logged out and there's no real feedback to let the agent know anything has gone wrong. So, now you've got: One less agent answering calls A confused agent wondering why colleagues are receiving calls and they aren’t – chances are they won’t flag this for a while either An agent that's no longer reported on – either in your contact centre or WFM reports An agent with all sorts of issues with schedule adherence and daily stats What Can I Do About It? For all the trouble this has caused in various contact centres, it turns out the solution is quite simple. Using whatever tool you, or your IT/Telecoms team, use to administer Avaya Communication Manager the answer lies in the “feature-related system parameters” form and a setting called “Block Hang-up by Logged-in Auto Answer Agents”. By default, the setting is “n” (meaning it’s disabled). All you need to do is change it to “y” and save the form. That's it, I'm not kidding. Agents are no longer logged out by a single, seemingly harmless action. The great thing about the setting is that you don’t need to restart anything. It’s entirely non-service affecting, your agents don’t need to log out and back in for it to take effect, and doesn’t require any specialist knowledge to enable. There is Always a Downside If your phones already have a “release” soft key or button configured, your agents probably won’t notice a difference. If you don’t, it may the case that they’ll be lifting and replacing the handset or pressing the headset button to end their calls. Now that we have changed the behaviour around lifting the handset, that will no longer terminate the call and you'll need to add a "release" softkey to your handsets and gently nudge your agents to use it. This is an open and shut case but if you do have any questions then don't hesitate to get in touch.

Did you know that every Discover wallboard template comes with a light, and a dark theme? We think you should be able to match your real time wallboard to the décor. "If only you knew the power of the dark theme." - Darth Vader, probably May the 4th be with you.

Our very own Craig Hunter has been dropping knowledge bombs for injixo again, this time sharing his take on Workforce Engagement Management (WEM). Click the link or image to check it out. https://blog.injixo.com/what-is-workforce-engagement-management-wem