[v8.3] New Shortcuts Feature, More Variables and Workflows Conditions, and tons of tweaks!

This time around we have a fast release with several valuable improvements. You’re going to be thrilled about our headlining feature: Shortcuts!

So, what is a Shortcut and what can you do with one?

A Shortcut is a Workflow that has been created with the newly-introduced Shortcut trigger. It can be initiated in the Messages Modules, allowing platform users to launch Workflows during conversations with Contacts without leaving the module.

When creating a Workflow with ‘Shortcut’ set as a trigger, provide a name and description for each Shortcut, as well as personalize them with icons. All the provided information will be displayed in the Shortcut menu so you can quickly distinguish between Shortcuts and their purposes to select your desired Workflow.

Sounds cool? That’s just a fraction of what you can do with this feature. For instance, you can create customizable Shortcut forms that are prompted whenever the Shortcut is triggered. Users can input data or comments that will be reflected in the Workflow. Use custom fields in the forms to obtain everything from Order IDs to reasons for refunds or product exchanges.

Can you imagine how powerful and flexible Shortcuts is? You can build an escalation process for agents, a refund process for customers, and so much more.

As it’s such an advanced feature, perhaps you want Shortcuts access to be restricted only for use by Managers and Owners. We’ve got you covered with advanced restriction settings in the Workspace User Settings that allow you to disable the Shortcuts button for Agents.

Let’s look at another new feature.

Say you want to regularly send Conversation data to your own data warehouse. Exporting data manually from Reports module is awfully time-consuming. To ease your workload, you can now use trigger variables!

Trigger variables are variables that are tied to a specific trigger. In this case, we’ve added them to the Conversation Closed trigger.

Here is a list of trigger variables that are now available for the Closed Conversation trigger. They reflect data related to the conversation that has been closed.

$conversation.opened_time

$conversation.opened_by_source

$conversation.closed_time

$conversation.closed_by

$conversation.closed_by_source

$conversation.first_response_time

$conversation.resolution_time

$conversation.incoming_messages_count

$conversation.outgoing_messages_count

$conversation.category

$conversation.summary

$conversation.assignee

$conversation.assignee_team

Read more about trigger variables here.

When you log in feature requests, you aren’t just sending out wishes into a void. We hear you, and we act on them! You wanted more branch conditions and we are delivering.

Similar to the Time Since Last Incoming Message condition, we now have a Time Since Last Outgoing Message option. You can incorporate this into a Workflow to create an action based on the time since you last sent a message to a Contact.

Another request was for an Assignee Status branch condition, so you can create different actions for Contacts depending on the status of the agents they have been assigned to (Online, Busy or Offline). Talk about fine attention to detail for customer care.

We’ve made a major improvement to our Website Chat that’s going to make customer conversations on the channel more seamless than ever.

Users who are logged in to your platform and message you on the embedded Website Chat will no longer have to fill up a pre-chat form. Instead, they can be instantly identified by their user details. Read more about this here.

Good news for Vonage users! Vonage has finally released a new version of WhatsApp API, which means it will support WhatsApp Interactive Messages. Use interactive features like Lists and Quick Reply buttons in messages to your Vonage contacts.

New assignee variable: $assignee.team

You can now also refer to an assignee team, instead of only individual team members. The value of the $assignee.team variable is the name of the assignee’s team.

We now accept non-emails as usernames for an SMTP server. You can now connect to other email service providers such as Mailjet, Mailgun and so on.

We used to list users without grouping them by teams, with no way to know which team anyone belonged to. Identifying teams and their members is now a breeze with the new presentation.

Yes, we have worked on this! If a Contact is assigned to you manually or automatically via Workflows, you will now receive a sound notification.