Product Update - July 2022

Webex Connect (formerly imiconnect) v6.0 release brings multiple new capabilities to help you continue delivering seamless customer experiences. Here’s a list of the key updates:

• Support for Instagram as a native channel on Webex Connect

• Ability to configure new WhatsApp assets using Embedded Signup

• Automated tracking and status refresh for WhatsApp template registrations with details of reason for registration failure in case of rejections

• Support for new messaging types for Live Chat and In-App Messaging – Template Message, Carousels (multiple template messages in one request), and Quick Replies

• New endpoints for accessing your Webex Connect tenant/account, and for various APIs

• Various enhancements in Usage Report section

• Support 256-bit AES encryption for AWS-hosted Webex Connect tenants

• Various UI/UX enhancements across various screens within the platform

Please refer the details below to know about all the changes and enhancements. Make sure to take a note of the new API endpoints that are being added and recommended actions to avoid any disruptions.

📘

Release Date

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

Details

Added – Support for Instagram as a native channel for Webex Connect

We’re happy to announce support for Instagram as a native channel with this release. Starting this release onwards you will be able to add your Instagram Professional accounts to Webex Connect and use the platform to automate customer interactions over Instagram. This will include the capability to configure ice-breaker questions, send text messages, attachments, quick replies, stickers, and generic templates, and the ability to receive text messages and attachments, responses to quick replies and generic templates, story replies, and story mentions by an Instagram user.

The support for this has been added across app registration, Webex Connect Instagram API v1, Start Node, Receive Node, Rule Triggers, Outbound Webhooks, Debug Logs (only available in the new Debug Console interface), and Reports. Currently, this channel is in Beta and is available in a limited number of deployment regions in this phase. Please reach out to your account manager if you'd like to enable this for your account.

Instagram requires you to have an escalation path to a customer service agent for handling conversation that require manual intervention. Please refer to Instagram documentation for additional information on guidelines and policies around the use of this channel for customer interactions.

Added – Ability to configure new WhatsApp assets using Embedded Signup

We have added support for adding new WhatsApp assets through the Embedded signup on-boarding option. Embedded signup reduces the onboarding time from days to a matter of minutes by simplifying the process and having all the steps (i.e., connecting Business Manager accounts, creating WhatsApp business accounts, verifying phone numbers) in a single flow.

Immediately after signup, you can respond to unlimited customer-initiated conversations (24-hour messaging windows) and send business-initiated conversations to 50 unique customers in a rolling 24-hour period. You would need to initiate Business Verification process when you are ready to scale business-initiated conversations beyond this limit.

Please refer to the help documentation after this release for more information on how you can benefit from embedded sign-up option.

Added – Automated tracking and status refresh for WhatsApp template registrations

With this release, we have done away with the need to manually refresh WhatsApp template registration status. The status will be refreshed automatically on the UI as soon as WhatsApp gives us an update. We have also added support for capturing the reason for rejection in case a WhatsApp template is rejected.

Changed – Push and Live Chat / In-App Messaging SDKs and other features

Changed – Updated SDKs for Push and Live Chat/In-App Messaging

We are releasing the following SDKs as part of Webex Connect v6.0 release:

• Android SDK v2.16.0

• iOS SDK 2.16.0

• Cordova SDK v2.4.0

• JavaScript SDK v1.4.0

• Android UI SDK v1.3.0

• iOS UI SDK v1.3.0

Here is a list of changes we have made since the last update.

We have introduced support for the new message types namely, quick replies and template type messages in Android, iOS, Cordova, and JavaScript messaging SDKs. This will allow app developers to render the new message types in their app and handle user interactions seamlessly.

Additionally, the following are some OS specific enhancements:

Android Core SDK Changes

There have been technical enhancements to handle app crashes for situations where HMS libraries are not included in the app.

Cordova SDK Changes

Some technical enhancements have been made to ensure there are no compile warnings for iOS apps by replacing the methods deprecated iOS 15 onwards with the updated methods. Additionally fixed a crash that could occur when GMS / HMS dependencies are not present within an Android app binary.

Android UI SDK

We’ve added the capability to limit the message attachment types for the users when using iOS UI SDK programmatically. With this, app developers can apply restrictions on the file types supported on Live Chat / In-App Messaging channels.

iOS UI SDK

In this release we’ve introduced the capability to resize the image view. We’ve added the capability to limit the message attachment types for the users when using iOS UI SDK programmatically. Also, we’ve introduced the ability to customize the styling of conversation launcher icon in the UI SDK.

Added - Support for new messaging types for Live Chat and In-App Messaging – Template Message, Carousels (multiple template messages in one request), and Quick Replies

As mentioned in the SDK updates, we are introducing two new message types in Live Chat and In-App messaging channels. These are templates and quick replies.

A template message type comprises of one or multiple cards that can each have their own title, subtitle, images, and buttons. A template message can be used to send product catalogues with call-to-action (CTAs) attached to them. These CTAs can be links or a pre-defined user response that is received back on platform as a postback event.

Quick replies provide the ability to respond to a message without having to type the message manually. Instead, a user can just tap on the desired option from the list of displayed quick replies. The user response is captured as a postback event.

As part of this enhancement, various changes have been made in the messaging API v1, Start Node, Receive Node, Live Chat/In-App Send Node, Outbound Webhooks, Debug Logs, Export Logs, and Reports.

For more information on this feature, kindly refer to our documentation.

Added – New endpoints for accessing your Webex Connect tenants/account and various APIs

We are introducing new endpoints for accessing various Webex Connect APIs including APIs for various messaging channels supported by the platform, APIs for Voice channel, Event API, Inbound Webhooks, Profile APIs, Thread APIs, Topic APIs, and Segment APIs. Here’s a summary of the new endpoints which will be available from this release onwards:

Existing APIs (these APIs will continue to work for existing tenants):

New API endpoints (we recommend you use these for new tenants and services):

For example, if your Webex Connect tenant domain is .imiconnect.ca currently, it will be .ca.webexconnect.io with the new endpoint.

Please make sure to add the new endpoints to your business allow list to ensure access is not restricted.

Changed – Callback URLs for Pre-built and Custom Integration Nodes that use OAuth 2.0 authorization with ‘Auth Code’ Grant Type

Callback URLs for all your pre-built integrations, custom integration configurations, that use OAuth 2.0 authorization with ‘Auth Code’ Grant Type will be updated with Webex Connect branded URLs. This doesn’t impact functioning of any of your existing integration configurations until the Refresh Token for that integration expires or until you decide to reauthorize. In either of these two cases, you would need to start using the new Callback URL provided on Webex Connect UI in the third-party application you have integrated with. Another example of this is OAuth 2.0 based authentication for Gmail when using SMTP for Outbound Email channel configuration which is currently available only for Webex Connect tenants used for Webex Contact Center Integration.

Please make sure your applications, firewalls, etc. do not restrict access to these new Callback URLs in case you have an internal policy/practice to add these URLs to the allow/accept/allowed list.

Here’s the list of new callback URLs. The table below is applicable for Dialogflow, Salesforce, Zendesk, and Zoho CRM integration configurations.

📘

Variable Values

The value of the variables in the URLs below changes based on whether the integration is using a tenant-level or deployment-level callback URL. For deployment-level callback URL, use "Oauth". For tenant-level callback URL, use the tenant name.

Please note that will need to be changed to for Webex Contact Centre integration nodes.

Changed – Field validations in node UI for pre-built integrations

We have added validation for all the fields of the pre-built integration nodes (such as Webex CC integration nodes) to automatically trim the extra spaces before and after the configured values. This validation will be applied only when the node is added/updated post this release.

Changed – Enhancements in Usage Reports

We have updated our ‘Usage Report’ to include additional usage information covering:

• A new field ’10 DLC enabled’ field has been added to SMS outbound, SMS inbound, and MMS usage sheets

• Count of Brands and Campaign registrations for US 10-Digit Long Codes will now be available in the XLSX usage report

• A new field ‘Features’ has been added to Numbers sheet to indicate which all channels the number can be used for such as SMS, MMS, etc.

• A new ‘Timezone’ field has been added to all sheets

• The ‘Service Name’ field has been removed from the Apple Business Chat, Twitter DM, RCS, and Facebook Messenger sheets of usage XLSX file

These changes will come into effect from the date of deployment of this release in the concerned Webex Connect cloud site.

Changed – Support 256-bit AES encryption for AWS hosted tenants

We are adding support for 256-bit AES encryption for Webex Connect tenants hosted on AWS cloud sites. This will be applied by default for any new tenants created after this release.

For existing tenants, you can place a request for getting this enabled for your tenant. The change comes into effect from the date of making the change for the concerned tenant and applies to the transactions and customer interactions done via Webex Connect thereafter.

Important Additional Notes

• Removed the option to download JavaScript SDK from Tools -> Download SDK page. The recommended path for downloading the JavaScript SDK is from within the Mobile/Web App configuration page.
• We had launched enhanced versions of Debug Console and Export Logs as part of earlier releases. The newer interfaces were available on default until now. We’re now shifting to having new versions of Debug Console and Export Logs for all new Webex Connect tenants. Additionally, for existing tenants, we will be moving to the newer Debug Console interface after this release.

Changelog