This sprint we added new features across Bots, Knowledge, and Communications as well enhancing performance and stability throughout the platform. Here’s what’s going live next Thursday:

Virtual Assistant (Beta)

We are excited to introduce our brand new Virtual Assistant (“VA”) with this release. This is the culmination of many months of work and will ultimately replace all the various bot types that we have today (Concierge, FAQ, Scheduling, etc.). This will be your one bot to rule them all.

The Virtual Assistant is easier to build and maintain, more conversational, and has more functionality than our previous bots. Your teams will enjoy building it and your customers will love the experience.

We will set up individual sessions and provide you with documentation about how to build new Virtual Assistants, but in the meantime, here is a preview of what’s coming.

Building Experience

We completely overhauled the building experience and have made it faster and more intuitive to build, update, and maintain your Virtual Assistant. Our goal was to make the building accessible to everyone. We replaced lists with a drag-and-drop interface and reorganized how we capture and display data, making it easier to design and follow conversation flows.

Flows & Conversation Nodes

We reorganized all of our bot topics into what we call, “Flows”. Flows are micro conversations that are related to a single topic. Flows make it easy to build and track what your VA knows. They also allow customers to easily navigate between topics and return to previous parts of the conversation seamlessly.

We summarized all of our bot functionality into six core “Nodes.” Nodes are the building blocks of your VA and they allow you to quickly construct robust and dynamic conversations as well as trigger actions both inside and outside of the platform. A builder can drag and drop a node onto the canvas, connect it to another node with a click and have a conversation flow ready to go. It’s that easy.

Q&A Pairs

Generally organizations have a list of common FAQs that they get asked over and over. Your new VA has a dedicated place to quickly capture these questions and answers and can deliver them to your customers at any time. This makes it easy to add new knowledge to your VA.

Intelligence

We built the VA with machine learning at its core. Your VA can better understand your customer’s intent when they ask questions and route them to the proper Flow, Node, or Q&A Pair based on what they asked. The more your customers use your VA, the better it will get at delivering the right answers.

Knowledge Templates

This release we are introducing Content Templates for Knowledge Articles. Content Templates allow teams to create and save common Article frameworks (content + settings) to use as a base when creating new Articles. This allows you to quickly populate a new Article with the right settings, access controls, and content layout with a single click.

For users that have the correct permission, there is a new Templates button in the top navigation of the Knowledge workspace:

From here you can create new Templates and edit existing Templates:

When you create a new Article, you will be able to select from your existing list of saved Templates or create a blank Article:

We also made a number of additional small enhancements to Knowledge:

• Added a “Last Published” and “Last Edited” Date fields on Knowledge Reports
• Fixed an issue with sorting Knowledge Articles by Highest Rated
• Added scroll bars when a user zoom in on the Article editor
• Added a scroll bar in Articles so the Comment button doesn’t get cut off when you have a long list of Related Articles or Comments
• Fixed search queries not appearing on KB Activity report
• Fixed display of emoticons on published Articles
• Fixed an issue preventing videos from autoplaying on Articles when ‘Autoplay’ is turned on
• Fixed some bugs related to creating and editing Tabs in Articles
• Fixed a bug preventing users from decreasing the indent of text after it has been increased
• Updated the ability to download an Article to PDF when there are embedded videos
• Updated the bullet styling to match between the Article edit and view states
• Fixed a bug where the Lower Greek style ordered lists didn’t work
• Fixed a bug where increasing the indent of text added dots above the text

Communication Templates

We are releasing an update to our email Communication Templates for automated emails sent from Boomtown.

The update includes a simplified design to enable faster and easier updates to your automated communications. We added a new WYSIWYG editor and provided a larger layout for streamlined editing.

We also added the ability to create ad-hoc templates that you will be able to trigger with the Automation Engine that is coming with the next release.

We are launching a number of enhancements for our Support SDK with this release as well as strengthening core workflows, increasing performance, and fixing bugs. Here's what's going live on Thursday:

Support SDK Enhancements

Configurator

• Added Title fields to each Support Option block to give menu name control to non-developers to customize the user experience of the SDK
• Added an option to turn off Chat in your Support SDK where previously it was always on

Forms

• Updated spacing, colors, weights and overall form styling across iOS and Android
• Updated long field descriptions to wrap instead of limit to 1 line
• Updated the routing to take a user back to the home screen after a form submission

Knowledge

• Updated alignment, spacing, and overall styling for Knowledge Article lists
• Updated Sub Labels to properly indent throughout a Library to add more visible hierarchy
• Added a loading spinner to the Knowledge screen when it’s first accessed

Event notifications

We added event notifications to provide status updates to the calling application to give developers increased control over their customer experience. These events cover status changes to chats, history, knowledge, and forms. Developers can now take additional action in their applications based on these events triggering.

Bug fixes

• Fixed images not always showing in chat
• Fixed a crash when screen sharing on Android 10
• Fixed a bug where the keyboard could get stuck up on certain OS versions

Seismic Integration

The latest in Boomtown’s line of integrations, Seismic is a document management system most often used for sales enablement. Seismic allows organizations to orchestrate engaging buying experiences at scale by organizing and delivering documents when internal teams or customers need them.

Seismic’s document management system aggregates documents from multiple systems and we can now display that content inside Boomtown on the Integrations tab, making it simple to browse, search, and share documents with prospects and customers from the same place where you communicate with customers in Boomtown.

With the Seismic integration, teams can:

• Search
• Browse
• LiveSend Link Generation (public links that track when documents are viewed)
• Document Preview
• Omnichannel document access across workspaces
• View Favorites and recently accessed documents

Performance Updates

This sprint we optimized a number of queries and API endpoints across Cases, Knowledge, Communications, Search, lists, and other areas of our platform. We are focused on reducing load times and potential timeouts across the system to create a more seamless experience for our users. We are going to continue to release performance enhancements during our Tuesday night maintenance windows each week to further improve the user experience.

General Bugs & Updates

• Updated the kanban display to default to 25 results (instead of 10) and added pagination to view more
• Updated the screen share model to start in an expanded state
• The 'Qualified for' and 'Specialist in' fields no longer timeout when opened
• Updated search in Team Chat to only return Team chat rooms instead of all chat rooms
• Prevented New cases from being set to Waiting
• Added loading spinners to additional surfaces such as Case Assign and Customer search 
• Made Owner Team a required field on all Cases
• Newly created Views are now automatically added to your Views list without having to refresh
• Updated the display settings for users without edit or create permissions on various objects to ensure they only see the edit and create buttons when they have the appropriate permissions  
• Fixed an error that was displaying when saving the Special Notes field with no data
• Fixed a bug where highlighted fields (from search) would sometimes display HTML on related objects
• Fixed a bug where the Owner User wasn’t being cleared out when you changed a Owner Team on the escalate modal 
• Added a notification on the login screen for when a user enters an incorrect password
• Added the Collaborator Teams and Collaborator Users as Layout options for the Case Details tab
• Updated the Collaborator Team and Collaborator Users when escalating a Case to ensure the previous owners become collaborators automatically
• Updated Case cards so they no longer display deleted Contacts
• Updated Troubleshooting Steps updates in Events to display the proper change log
• Added ‘Last Published’ and ‘Last Edited’ Date fields into Knowledge Reports
• Fixed a bug where Related Articles were sometimes not showing on Articles
• Updated our Knowledge Article editor to allow images copied from Outlook to display properly
• Wrapped text and added horizontal scroll bars on Article Events when large content is included in the event
• Fixed a bug where a Customer’s email sometimes got associated with the incorrect name
• Updated webchat to prevent users from chatting after the availability period has passed if they had chat open prior to the end of the availability period
• Fixed a bug where attachments would not always show from users added to a thread after the case was created
• Fixed a bug preventing teams from updating their notification alerts in Settings
• Fixed a bug preventing users from accessing some cases across their Organization when they lacked certain permissions
• Updated Group By counts in lists that are grouped 
• Fixed a bug where claiming a Case from the card did not load the Case
• Fixed a bug preventing case view export data when Status was in the filter
• Added type-ahead searching when selecting a field to filter on
• Fixed filter-related bugs related to the Is Empty operator, filtering by tags, and filtering by created date
• Added filter options for Collaborator Teams and Collaborating Users
• Fixed a bug that cleared out your filters when switching from Card to Table display

We are launching a number of new features with this release as well as updating core workflows and fixing bugs. Here's what's going live next Thursday:

New General Form Type

Up until today, all of our forms served a specific purpose and tied into specific workflows and interfaces in the platform. For example, creating a Case, collecting customer feedback, diagnosis issues, etc. With this release we have added a new “General” form type that can be used anywhere. This form comes with a public URL so you can capture information from anyone on the web. It is also accessible inside webchat and the SDK and will be able to trigger automations from the Automation Engine that’s coming soon.

This new form type creates new use cases for our forms, such as empowering teams to send bulk emails to run NPS surveys, collect non-transactional feedback, display micro-forms inside chat conversations, and more.

In the near future we will be able to trigger custom automations and actions on the submission of these forms, which will unlock new possibilities for automated workflows.

New Form Design

We also updated the styling of our public forms to improve the design for colors, text size, weights, spacing and more. This updated styling now also allows you to include custom titles, descriptions, and Help Links (tool tips that link directly to Knowledge Articles) on each form field.

WebChat 

We are launching a major update to WebChat with this release that brings more knowledge, flexibility, and support options into the chat experience.

Webchat will now be similar to our in-app support SDK where you can provide more targeted and personalized experiences for customers from a single interface. 

We have added the ability to include new support options on your webchat home screen. Instead of just chat, you can now add six different support options based on your needs, each with the flexibility to customize the titles and descriptions. These are the options:

• Welcome message - set your own personalized welcome message
• Chat - turn on and off the ability to chat
• Knowledge - bring your knowledge base search inline on your webchat home screen
• Email - quickly give your customers access to your support email if you prefer that channel
• Phone - Display your phone number for a quick click-to-call option
• Forms - Allow users to submit forms from your home screen or send forms via conversations to capture structured data 
• Web - A flexible module that you can use for announcements, product launches, link to new promotions, or anything else you can think of

Over time we will add additional options for the home screen of your WebChat widget, including third party apps, so you can customize it to deliver the exact experience you want based on who the customer is.

New WebChat Customization Capabilities

We also added a few additional customization options to ensure your chat experience is a natural extension of your overall brand experience. These updates include:

1. Configurable chat widget icon. You can now upload your own icon or images to WebChat to display your brand mark in addition to your colors 
2. Configure the avatar that appears on your authentication screen directly from the webchat configurator page to simplify the setup process

WebChat Configurator Updates

These new support options can be updated and activated with a single click from the cloud-based configurator. No code changes necessary. These are all new additional options so if you don’t make any changes, your chat will continue working as it does today.

Support SDK Updates

We made a number of updates to our Support SDK across iOS, Android, Clover, Pax, and Cordova:

• Updated Owner Team and Sponsor Team mapping for chats created from the SDK (as defined in the SDK configurator)
• Updated our Case Creation Forms to create Cases on form submission from SDK even if no SSO is configured
• Added native dark mode support
• Surfaced Help Links on Forms in the SDK to link to integrated Knowledge Articles
• Enhanced our SSO functionality for the SDK on Clover and Cordova 
• Removed the Initial navigation controller requirements on Cordova iOS
• Fixed a bug in the Case History module that was preventing certain data from displaying
• Updated all documentation to reflect the new color and styling customization options via JSON

Knowledge Updates 

We continued to update our Knowledge product to create a better experience for teams that create and edit content:

• Updated the CSS to allow tables to display as less than 100% width
• Removed the ‘Deleted’ option from the Status filter for users that don’t have delete article permissions
• Updated the copy/cut + paste image functionality inside an Article so it retains the original file type instead of converting the image to a .bin file.
• Updated the styling and formatting of Embedded Articles to remove special characters that sometimes get added
• Updated the Sort options at the top of the screen to show ‘Recently Updated’ instead of ‘Sort’ when that option is selected.
• Fixed a bug where updating an Article to Partner Ecosystem and Published would add a VIP tag onto the Shared list.
• Fixed a bug where removing the ‘Nest Label Under’ option would result in a runtime error
• Fixed an issue where sorting search results could result in showing no records
• Fixed a bug where creating an Article while having a sub-label selected set the default visibility for that Article to Public instead of starting as Internal
• Fixed a bug where certain articles would give an error when accessed from search results

Search Updates

We updated our search functionality across the system with the following updates:

• Enhanced partial search matching logic across all objects 
• Improved search results response time within Knowledge
• Added escalated icon to escalated cases on global search results
• Updated knowledge search so removing your query returns you to the All Results list
• Fixed an issue where ‘Resolved’ Cases were showing as ‘New’ in search results
• Hid all deleted cases from global search results
• Fixed an issue where users would see results for objects they didn’t have access to (previously would get an error on open, now they don’t display)
• Fixed an issue where Article search results would sometimes show an incorrect query highlighted
  
  

Communications Panel

We updated the core of the messaging panel for increased speed, responsiveness, and stability. This includes the speed that new chat notifications appear in your chat bar and the consistency in load times for messages across threads on each Case. We also made a few updates that include:

1. CC recipients now always remain on email threads
2. Preventing emails from adding more than one “Re:’ to the beginning of long email threads
3. Fixed periodic ‘Join’ errors and ‘Failure to Send’ errors
4. Updated the +Email threads to not show ‘loading new messages’ when there are no messages
   
   

RingCentral Integration

We are launching our RingCentral integration that will allow Organizations that use RingCentral to automatically create Cases from inbound phone calls, route them to the correct team, and pop the Case on the screen assigned to the agent that answered the call.

Security & Performance 

Both security and performance are incredibly important and we will continue to work to improve both with every release. This sprint we did the following:

• Updated error messages with more granular request IDs to allow us to better track and resolve performance-related issues
• Optimized a number of endpoints to reduce periodic timeouts errors. These include Article list views, Article cards, Case views, Case Insights, search results
• Made a small security policy update related to cross-site-scripting attacks
  
  

General Bugs & Updates

• Fixed an issue with cloning Form fields where they would show at the bottom of the list instead of immediately following the cloned field
• Updated outbound email templates from the Customer room to retain subject line prefixes set in the email template
• Updated the link of the logo at the top of email templates to now point to each Organization’s website rather than boomtown’s website
• Added a missing Create button on Customer Locations to create new Locations, Contacts, Products, and Cases.
• Fixed a bug where completing a Journey Stage would sometimes throw an error
• Updated the View Customers permission to allow users to view customers across teams in global search results
• Updated the View Cases permission to allow all users to view Cases for Teams they are not on (still requires edit access to make any changes)
• Updated our copy/paste functionality to allow copy/pasting from additional sources (OneNote, Gmail, Yahoo, Outlook, etc.) and have it paste as text instead of an image.
• Added a scroll bar to the Views filters for when you have more than 8 filters and they go beyond the viewport
• Updated the Case history in the first column of the Case screen to now display the creation date and escalation flags
• Updated the total Case count on the Case history to show all Cases and not just the visible Cases
• Fixed an issue where users with the proper permission were not able to delete Contacts or Products from a Customer Location
• Removed the 32 Team limit on fields where Teams are added to other objects (e.g. Alert Templates, Linked Teams)
• Fixed a bug preventing date/time adjustments on forms
• Fixed a bug preventing the ‘Is Between’ operator from working on date filters