3CX V18 U5 Adds WhatsApp Integration & Improved Live Chat
Your 3CX v18 U5 is nearly hear. There are some new features and some EOL products
Source: https://www.3cx.com/blog/releases/v18-update-5/
Two heads are better than one, let alone an entire team! No need to rely on a single person to respond to messages. Update 5 integrates seamlessly with WhatsApp & SMS* making it possible for your entire team to collaborate and respond to incoming client messages. We’ve also added predefined message templates to shorten response times even further. Also, don’t forget to check out our exciting new Live chat features!
* To enable SMS & Whatapp you need a SMS/Whatsapp provider. Mear Technology have this feature available and can add this to your package for as little as £6.30 per month
Answer WhatsApp & SMS messages as a team
Group messaging alleviates delayed responses and removes the reliance on specific users to answer messages. Unlike with WhatsApp Business, you can route incoming WhatsApp messages to all users or selected groups of agents to respond. The agent can take ownership or transfer to other more skilled agents, allowing for quicker and better resolution of customer queries.
Set up the integration easily using our WhatsApp integration guide.
SMS gets a complete overhaul
Particularly important for our US customers, SMS integration has received an overhaul with Update 5, drastically improving reliability and ease of use. Now configuration is done directly in the SIP Trunk config. You do not need to configure numbers twice and SMS will be auto-configured for all DIDs.
Important: Previous SMS configurations in the Management Console must be deleted and re-created after installing V18 Update 5. See the simplified method in our SMS configuration guide or check out the guides for our SMS providers that were supported on our old messaging proxy: Bandwidth, Flowroute, Telnyx, Twilio.
Supercharged live chat features and styling
3CX Live Chat has taken another leap forward with more options, customization, and styling. Included with this release:
- Additional styles: Choose from 3 bubble icons and chat box animation (Slide up, slide from the side & fade in)
- Greeting customizations: Set up your own intro greeting and online/offline greetings. Automated responses at the beginning, first message, and end of the conversation.
- Agent options: Choose if you want to show your agent’s name and avatar or select a default ‘generic’ team agent name and image.
Pre-defined message responses
Users with ‘Manager’ permissions can now create and modify as many quick response templates for their group as needed. All agents in the user group will have full visibility of the templates making responding to any type of chat message simple and fast. Navigation is easy using the categories and language filters.
Easy system management from the Web Client
Users with ‘System Administration’ access to the Management Console can now quickly and easily edit users in their group or all system users directly from the Web Client. The new ‘Admin’ option in the menu bar also allows access to creating and editing live chat configurations. Read more on user rights in our extension management guide.
Important! Some EOL IP Phones need to be reconfigured
Some End of Life (EOL) Fanvil, Yealink and Snom phones can no longer be provisioned securely via 3CX and need to be manually reconfigured. Fanvil and Yealink phones will continue to work even when rebooted, however using the last known configuration file, without receiving further updates. Snom too will continue to work but you will get an error message when powering the phone off and back on. To change the configuration of an existing EOL phone, follow our guides to provision manually:
- Fanvil EOL series: C400, C600, iW30
- Yealink EOL series: T29G, T41P, T42G, T46G, T48G, W52P (DECT), W56P (DECT)
- Snom EOL series: 320,370, 821, PA1, M700 (DECT)
To get a cost to replace any EOL phones please contact your helpdesk and they will discuss your needs and provide a quotation.
Other features and improvements
- Android and iOS Apps now ONLY connect to V18
- Instance Manager has been deprecated. All previous release builds will no longer communicate with it
How to get V18 Update 5
Our clients need to take no action. We will be rolling out these update out of hours at various time over the up coming month.
