Release Notes 2021

🔍This page contains a history 2021 Release Notes, Improvements and Changes made to Nimbus. Do you need the Latest Release Notes?
 

 - Custom Dashboards Launch

This is a feature release with many improvements:

  • Introduction of Custom Dashboards. This is our first installment of customizable Personal Dashboards  for Nimbus. As a Contact Center users you can explore the following features:
    • Create and edit as many personal Dashboard variants as needed.
    • Add and customize Dashboard Widgets with filters, thresholds (color formatting) to your needs.
    • Pick from 5 different widgets and 20 KPIs, more to come soon™.
  • Responsive UI implementation to the My Sessions page.
    • Many elements of the UI should now scale much better - including font size adjustments, text break points and height of widgets.
    • The widget grid now supports resolutions to a minimum 800px width while using additional space available up to 1920px width. 
    • Widgets will break over in up to 3 rows, avoiding horizontal scrolling on smaller displays.
      💡 Please note that this update does not introduce mobile and touch support. Until further notice we still recommend using the native MS Teams desktop client for the best experience in Nimbus.
  • Global (Off-)Duty Switch. In our first implementation to Duty States , Contact Center users get access to a global duty profile switcher in the main menu:
    • Allows Contact Center users to quickly set themselves "available" for skill-based routing.
    • Other Enterprise Routing and default Nimbus services remain unaffected by this. You can still toggle your active state manually within views such as Services Overview and My Overview.
    • Same as the active state, changing your duty state will not change your MS Teams presence status. You can remain online and opt-out of (Contact Center) services as needed.
  • Attendant - Consultation Call - users can now start a Consultation Call before a transfer. This allows to brief the expert before sending over or merging a call in a consultation conference.
    • Consultation Calls can be made to either an internal contact or an external PSTN Number.
    • The customer is put on hold with an audio file and kept in the UI.
    • A dial out from the same group call is made to the Consultant, with two options:
      • Transfer  : Transfer the customer to the consultant, immediately freeing the Attendant.
      • Merge : Merges the call with all three participants in the same conversation.
  • New UK Data Center. In order to improve our customer experience we added a new UK Data Center to Nimbus.
    • Portal (Frontend UI) : A new region can be selected - only visible during first service Provisioning . Future logins to https://portal.luware.cloud will automatically redirect you to the correct cluster.
    • Admin (Backend UI) : A new UK location is available in the selection view - only visible to Multi-Tenant partner administrators.
      💡 As an existing (onboarded) customer you are not affected by this change.
  • Fixes and Improvements
    • Fixed Attendant - Blind Transfer terminating immediately when the recipient has enabled voice messages. The recipients should not receive empty voice messages anymore.
    • Improved behavior when a caller hangs up directly as the conference to the Nimbus is established. Users should not get invited to empty conferences anymore and be freed up for further calls immediately.
    • Improved a rare occurrence when calls get stuck after being "Accepted" by a user.

 - Graph Improvements

This release brings some quality of life and performance improvements:

  • Various improvements related to performance and overall resource consumption to further minimize the impact of Microsoft Graph API delays.
    • Improved delay for events that mute media resources in connected conversations.
  • Backend: Reduce the potential occurrence of stuck tasks, especially in transfer scenarios.
  • Fixed a rare case in which a Contact Center user received two calls at the same time.
  • Added support for service owners of skill-based Contact Center services to get the list of services via Microsoft Power Automate Connector.

 - Custom Parameter for external CRM

This release brings Custom Parameter Support for external CRMs

You can now manage and define your own Parameters. Use them in workflows to store customer input used to retrieve external CRM data. External system outputs can also be stored back into Custom Parameters for internal validation and routing.

🔍 Read our new Use Case on how to use this feature step by step.

  • Custom Parameter-related changes in the Nimbus UI
    • Updated UI and KB Pages for Custom Parameters.
    • Custom Parameters defined by users can be selected in Workflows, e.g. in"Collect Information" and "Check ParameterWorkflow Activities and used to directly send and store retrieved data from external systems using the Microsoft Power Automate Connector .
    • Added a new "GetOnUpdatedParameters" Event to Power Automate . Allows to retrieve data directly after customer interaction within the "Collect InformationWorkflow Activity and store it in Custom Parameters.
    • Fields and Parameters table updated to include "UpdatedParameterName" and "UpdatedParameterValue" system parameters, their default and data type.
      💡 Information stored in Parameters remains persistent during a session, including call transfers.
  • Changes to Provisioning Script
    • With this change we attempt to reduce the necessary permissions to a minimum
    • Changed to "GroupMembers.Read.All" instead of "Group.Read.All"
    • Added Resource Specific Consent to Manifest.json (learn more in Microsoft Docs )
  • Fixes and Improvements
    • Improved service provisioning status polling in the Admin view.
    • Improved loading behavior on the "My Overview" page.
    • Resolved rare issue that prevented adding Exchange contacts to favorites in Attendant.
    • New Parameter "CallChainID" description added. CallChainId is an additional context parameter, which is available in MS Power Automate only. Used for Verba / Recording API purposes.

 - Improved Conference handling, Custom Parameters

Some exciting new workflow features and improvements in this release.

  • "Queue" distribution - Improved conference handling and features. As we have now a possibility to cancel a conference invite, we want to make the RONA function more readily available to our customers. In this process we want to streamline our "Distribution Type s" for the future so it's easier to pick your distribution method of choice. Within Workflow Activities > " Queue " Activity > " Distribution Settings " > "Pickup Conference" and "Direct Conference".
    • Now allow for an adjustable RONA Time (between 5 and 30s).
      🤔 Are your RONA times not adjustable?  Older workflow activities may have set a fixed / locked RONA time. To keep impact low during Nimbus updates, those activities have not been changed.
      → Simply re-add the same activity to your workflow to get the most recent variant with added adjustability.
    • "Conference" invitations now get automatically cancelled if a task was aborted (e.g. Hangup by User, Queue left, Max Wait Timeout Reached). This should prevent conference invitations from occurring after a caller has already hung up.
  • Support for Custom Parameters. Parameters allow service administrators to store CRM information or caller DTMF input in a custom variable. Parameters can then be used in Workflows , e.g. to store customer or CRM system inputs and route a call accordingly.
  • Owner assignment for Skill-based services. We added a new "Permissions " tab to our Service Permissions allowing to assign owners to "no-user" services (e.g. Contact Center services with no singular MS-Teams channel representation).
  • Other Changes and Improvements
  • Added a new "Collect Information" activity to the Workflow Activities :
    • Available to services with Enterprise Routing and Contact Center license
    • Allows to store DTMF inputs in Parameters , exiting based on whether or not an input was received.
    • The parameter can also be used in other areas and verified via the " Check Parameter " activity.
    • Updated the Features matrix accordingly to reflect the new possibilities.
  • Updated the Features matrix to reflect the new " Collect Information" workflow activity and "Custom Parameters" support.
  • Smaller changes to the Power BI descriptions in the KB, mainly focusing on first-time template setup.
  • New Use Cases and updates to the FAQ and Troubleshooting section:
  • Fixes
    • Fixed an issue in the Provisioning PowerShell script that prevented licenses to be applied automatically.
    • Fixed an issue that prevented created of a Teams Chat from Attendant Console if the contact's SIP/UPN and SMTP addresses don't match.
    • Fixed an issue where an Attendant - Safe Transfer was stuck in "Transferring" status even though the transfer was accepted.
    • Fixed an issue after that prevented re-opening of user settings after seeing the Skills and Responsibilities "unsaved changes" popup.
    • Various smaller backend improvements for stuck calls not being removed correctly.

 - Stability Update, QoL

This is a stability and quality of life update to improve the Luware Nimbus services:

  • Fixed an issue that caused loops back to the sign-in page during Service Provisioning.
  • Fixed an issue affecting some users where teams and status are not showing in Attendant Console search.
  • Fixed an issue where calls transferred via Attendant Console ended up directly in voicemail, with only silence recorded until the timeout was reached.
  • Fixed an issue where fields are copied empty from the "Caller Information" widget within My Sessions.

Improvements:

  • Decreased the general timeout on MSFT infrastructure requests from 10 to 5s to minimize call handling delays.
  • The Service Availability is now calculated based on distribution profiles (where applicable to Contact Center services). The rules are as follows:
    • DirectAvailable: Applies when in the 1st distribution profile at least one user is available and ready to take a task.
    • InTimeAvailable: Applies when in the 1st distribution profile users are not available, but in any other profile users are available.
    • NoOneAvailable: Applies when in all distribution profiles no users are online / available.

🔍 The availability is visible in Attendant Console and can be handled via Workflow Activities > "Availability-based Routing".

 - Contact Center Launch

This is a major update to introduce our new Service TypeContact Center. This update marks a new milestone for Nimbus, offering features such as skill-based routing and after-call-work (ACW) alongside many smaller improvements. Expect more exciting features to add to the Contact Center experience soon™.

✅  Many new features listed below require a Contact Center license to become available in your UI. Read the "Getting Started" section below if you want to skip the technical details and learn more about this.

  • Contact Center marks the starting point of many new Nimbus features to be released in future. With this update we introduce a few new technical concepts as groundwork for the journey ahead. → Refer to the chapters linked in the notes below to learn more on each topic.
    • The Administration main menu has been updated to accommodate new Skills and Responsibilities and Distribution Policies.
      The new options are available to tenant admins via the Configuration (Admin) .
    • The Service Administration underwent a redesign to include new Nimbus licensing options.
      • Tabs will now change content and show options based on the applied service license.
      • The service listing will now show additional information such as the " User Assignment Type " and " License " (Service Type).
    • The User Administration menu now contains additional settings on service licensing.
      • Contact Center licensed users get a Skills and Levels assignment enabled.
      • Users added manually by any administrator may now log into Nimbus portal.
    • After Call Work (ACWis now adjustable within Service Settings , visible in the "Distribution" tab for Contact Center enabled services.
      • The ACW state will show in the My Sessions view for the involved users of the service with that setting enabled.
      • The Power BI Template has been updated to reflect ACW times.
        ✅ A Luware C ustomer Success Specialist will supply you with the latest version on request.
  • Other improvements
    • Added support for Danish language. You can switch via your User Preferences (Portal) in the Nimbus portal.
    • Standardized further technical terms for language consistency in the UI. This goes alongside as we update our Nimbus Glossary with new terms (ACW, Agent, Distribution Policy, Task). Note that these system terms may appear "untranslated" in your language of choice to allow for an easier search in our knowledge base and communication with support.
    • Improved toggle to "Active" behavior in Nimbus Frontend, which was reported as occasionally stuck for some users.
    • Improved service provisioning script to support special characters in the "Service Display Name"
    • Call Session errors caused by MSFT failures are now reported as "Failed" instead of "Declined". This should also prevent falsely "Declined" invitations shown in reporting.
  • Attendant Console changes
    • Services with distribution policies in place also affect users of Attendant Console. We also introduced a few minor improvements and features to Attendant Console:
      • Added a "Call to" button to the quick actions in the contact search. Shown if contact has either Phone Number or IM Field defined.
      • Additional UPN, PhoneNumbers may be selected in a secondary (pulldown) menu.
      • The transfer feature is now less strict in checking MS Teams voice licenses of targets. In result the transfer button should appear usable (enabled) more often.

 - UX and Power BI improvements

This is a stability and quality of life update to improve the Luware Nimbus services:

  • Improved Azure user detail synchronization on large tenants (only affects Nimbus-onboarded users and services)
  • Prevent a rare case of stuck calls directly after "transfer through pickup", where the announcement wasn't played anymore.
  • Fixed display name of newly added users not appearing in Power BI.
  • UX Improvements
    • E-Mail Templates for "Missed Calls" in the Attendant Console are now translated, reflecting the language of the User's Settings.
    • Many smaller translation updates across all supported languages to unify the use of certain technical terms.
    • New " Hide User Statistics from Reporting" toggle in Service Settings, allowing to hide user names from the Service's respective Reporting view.
  • Power BI
    • Updated our Power BI section to reflect changes to our Reporting Template:
    • The Template now allows to drill through user sessions, as now described on Power BI Template Usage,
    • Added detailed instructions on how to use Power BI Paginated Reports within your own Power BI workspace. 
    • Slight visual updates to the BI Template file to be better in line with the Nimbus UX.

 - Stability Update

This is a stability update to improve the Luware Nimbus service:

  • Fixed an issue where OData API fails to return a big amount of data (> 100k Sessions)
  • Further improvements to prevent performance issues related to MS Graph API
  • Resolved issue when Music or Announcement are still played after getting connected
  • Fixed an issue when tasks got stuck due to missing accepted event
  • Fixed a problem in the administration portal to manage conversation context(s)

 - "No User" IVR Services

This release includes background changes to our Administration data structure in preparation for future features. This change also introduces new user and service types into the Nimbus administration. 

Features: 

  • Tenant Administrators can now create non-distribution / IVR/ queue services within the Service Administration . These services do not require a team and can be used for IVR / Opening Hours entry services that operate without users.
  • User Administration now shows user details to tenant and partner administrators. Allows to have users without services in the listing. Users are staying in the system until removed manually or deleted from directory.
  • Adaptive design implemented for My Sessions dashboard, now supporting smaller resolutions down to 800 pixel width.

Technical Improvements:

  • Fixed an issue where a Luware-recorded users couldn't put a Nimbus call on hold without the call being aborted.
  • Further improvements to prevent endless loops in that could cause performance issues.
  • Resolved issues when tasks got stuck when a caller hangs up in the beginning of a voice message workflow activity. 
  • Fixed an issue in Attendant Console where the customer input is is not recognized after a call transfer to a Nimbus service.
  • Fixed an issue with transferred calls not entering a queue if there was a "CancelTaskWorkflow Activity in the previous (transferring) service.
  • Fixed an issue within Administration that prevented users from changing the Organization Units of Configuration elements from service to tenant level .
  • Fixed an issue that caused external transfer to user via workflow always reported as "Transfer Failed" when placed right after "Accept Conversation".

 - Call Stability

This is a stability update to improve the reliability of the Luware Nimbus service:

  • Various improvements to communications between system components and the cluster database to improve application portal performance. This should reduce the likelihood of timeouts and slow loading pages in Nimbus.
  • Changes to how our distributed architecture deals with multiple instances of the same component handling different stages of the lifecycle of a call, reducing the possibility of tasks which don’t get ended correctly.
  • Improvements to the internal messaging between all system components to further reduce tasks that are not ended correctly.
  • Fixed an issue in permissions management that prevent some users to access their Configuration elements such as workflows.
  • Improvements to "Broadcast" type Queue distributions where the caller still heard wait music despite having reached the timeout / retry limit with no available users to accept the call. This is a partial fix and we continue to monitor the issue.

 - Hotfix

  • Fixed a "Broadcast" Queue Workflow Activity issue that caused users being blocked after a terminated call. This should alleviate most issues we've received with users not receiving further incoming calls despite being set "Active" in various views such as the Dashboard or Services Overview.

 - QoL Improvements

This release contains smaller improvements mainly on the backend side:

  • Fixed an issue that allowed to "P lay music " or " Announcements " Workflow Activities to play in the background of a call.
  • Fixed issue with "Save" Button in Service Service Settings being disabled for some tenants when user tries to change the PSTN number.
  • Fixed issue of Caller showing as "Unknown" with missing details in voice message Adaptive Cards.
  • Smaller improvements to Administration (stuck call case removal, tenant data not loading).

 - MySession Redesign, Updated TTS

Redesign of the My Sessions Dashboard

Other improvements:

  1. Updated list of TTS (Text-to-Speech) languages, now dynamically retrieved from Microsoft once per day. 
  2. Added a search that allows you to quickly browse through the list of available languages. The search field is available within all Workflow Activities where the TTS feature applies. 

    This change and/or future updates may invalidate your previous TTS-engine selection. An "invalid language" warning may be shown until you select a different TTS-engine.

    💡Your existing "outdated" TTS-activities still remain intact as a working copy on the Nimbus infrastructure until you change them.

     

Knowledge Base content revisions

 - Provisioning PSTN licensing, UI changes

Onboarding Improvements

  • Updates to our Provisioning via Microsoft PowerShell script and procedure:
    • Now allows to Apply / Remove PSTN licenses to services
    • New bulk-apply changes option
    • Script can be left open in current session window to repeat Update procedures (e.g. when testing new Service Settings)

UI and Design Changes

  • Fixed smaller UI issues introduced after the recent design changes.
  • Further translation updates and wording standardizations. 💡 Please note that we still constantly update translations to find a good balance between "Technical" terms (e.g. used in the Nimbus Reporting Model) and language-specific requirements.
  • Service Settings "Dashboard" Tab now renamed to "Extensions" to better illustrate the intent of configuring optional and (future) Nimbus Features.

Knowledge Base content revisions

 - Call handling improvements

Changes to Workflows

General Improvements

  • If a call is declined on a user side with " Busy in a call ", Nimbus now tries reach another user.
    • For Reporting: Call is marked as Failed - r eason: "User busy in a call" or empty if unknown.
      💡 These c alls are not visualized in either Reporting (Frontend and PowerBI) and should therefore not negatively affect metrics.
  • Improved ServiceSession / UserSession calculation to get quicker status results within the Nimbus Reporting Model.
  • Added further TTS (Text to Speech) languages according to the latest list provided by Microsoft
  • Nimbus prevents customer calls to get forwarded to Voicemail
  • Fixed issue that a Input Customer was not played, if the call was transferred from another Service with an Input Customer activity

UI and Design Changes

  • New languages added, now supportingEnglish, German, Dutch, Italian, French. Expect more to come in near future.
    💡 Please note that we keep certain elements in English to allow users an easier search/identification of Help topics in our Knowledge Base.
    ✅ You can switch your personal display language in the User Preferences (Portal).

 - Backend improvements

Improvements

  • Updated reporting to include Caller Information in OData Interface and the Power BI Template.
    • Add Caller Information as separate Table to the OData Interface (PhoneNumber, UPN O365UserId)
    • Added additional Tab "Caller Overview" to the PowerBI Report (Nimbus.pbit)
  • Fixed issue that certain accepted "broadcast" sessions were still showing "in Queue" in the Dashboard and the Reporting views.
  • Implemented automated Session Watchdog to prevent hanging sessions caused by missing Microsoft events. Watchdog will actively request the call status after 30s of inactivity and remove the session if needed. 

Knowledge Base content revisions

 - Attendant Console Hotfix Release

New Features

  • Attendant Console :
    • Now also shows the status of any Nimbus Service, based on team availability and Opening Hours.
    • Added a new page to explain the Attendant - Service Transfer, including PSTN licensing limitations.
    • During an ongoing call the "Send Mail" button in the Attendant Contact List now opens a template containing a default greeting text and caller parameters.

Improvements

  • Fixed an issue that prevented calls from ringing in Teams when a " Pickup " button in Attendant Console was clicked.
  • Fixed unreadable text in information popups (context) when using Dark Mode in Attendant Console.
  • Fixed a rare issue of calls getting stuck during a service transfer. Now correctly reported as " HangupInIVR"

Knowledge Base content revisions

 - Attendant Console Launch

New Features

  • Introduced Full Screen mode for workflow preview located under Service Service Settings > Workflow tab.
  • The "Availability-Based Routingworkflow activity now allows to check on other services instead of only the "current" one.
    💡 Note that this workflow activity is limited to Enterprise Routing. Refer to Nimbus Features for an overview.

Improvements

  • Redirect user to login when authentication is required for downloading voice messages within Adaptive Cards.
  • Various backend improvements for mitigating Microsoft Graph related obstacles (missing / duplicated events).
  • Fixed issue that prevented users from logging into Administration when being part of a lot of security groups.
  • Fixed Opening Hour entries being shifted by 30min if a period wasn't set to a full hour.

Knowledge Base content revisions

 - QoL Release

New Features

  • "Availability Based Routing" step (see Workflow Activities ) - Now contains a "Service" selection, allowing to check any (specified) Service within the step and exit accordingly.

Improvements

  • Removed Directory.ReadAll from Required App Permissions as they are not needed anymore for Nimbus Installation and Service provisioning.
  • We introduced various mitigations to encounter potential Microsoft infrastructure-related issues. This should prevent hanging session issues affecting "Beta" flagged Distribution Types set within the Queue step in your Workflows.
    🔍 Refer to Workflow Activities > "Queue" Step > "Distribution Type" property. Please note that the "Beta" tag still applies as we continue to improve this feature.
  • Users should not get (idle counter) logged-out of the admin automatically anymore while changing Workflows.
  • Fixed workflow connector points being misaligned on zoom levels >100%.
  • Improved UX behavior: Revert / Discard changes functionality. Buttons only enable on change.

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