Introducing: Customer-Facing Journey Timelines

We recently launched a powerful enhancement to our Customer Journey Orchestration tool: shareable, customer-facing journey timelines.

You already rely on our platform to design and manage complex customer experiences across your internal teams and systems. You meticulously map out every step, ensuring smooth transitions and coordinated efforts. But until now, sharing that journey overview with your customer often involved manual summaries or static documents.

Bring Your Customers Into the Journey

With this update, you can now generate a dedicated, customer-friendly view of the journey timeline directly from the internal timeline. This dynamic timeline provides transparency and keeps your customers informed about their progress, key milestones, and what to expect next.

Key Features & Benefits:

1. One-Click Sharing: Generate a unique, shareable link for a specific customer journey timeline with just a single click. Easily paste this link into emails, support cases, or customer portals.
2. Controlled Visibility: You have complete control over what the customer sees. Use the familiar journey builder interface to select which Stages, Steps, and Actions are included in the customer-facing view. Keep internal actions internal while sharing relevant progress updates.
3. Customizable Language: Tailor the terminology used in the customer timeline. Adjust Stage, Step, and Action names within the journey builder to ensure they are clear, concise, and speak your customer's language, avoiding internal jargon.
4. Enhanced Transparency & Trust: Proactively share progress and upcoming steps, building trust and managing expectations effectively.
5. Improved Alignment: Ensure both your internal teams and your customers are perfectly aligned on the journey status and next actions.
6. Streamlined Communication: Reduce back-and-forth questions by providing customers with a self-serve way to check their journey status.

How it Works:

1. Navigate to the Journey in the builder where you want to enable customer-facing timelines
2. Update the Public Name for all Stages and Steps that you want to share with your customers
3. Optionally toggle the Visibility on Steps and Actions to ensure you share exactly what you want.
4. Set the Journey Visibility to ‘Customer’ under Options > Edit Journey
5. Once the Journey is published and added to a Case, navigate to the Journeys tab on the Case and click the menu in the top right and select “Copy Public URL”
6. The URL will be copied to your clipboard so you can easily share it directly with your customer for them to follow along or take action as needed

We believe this feature will significantly enhance collaboration and communication between you and your customers, leading to stronger relationships and improved overall experiences.

Dive in and start sharing your journey timelines today! As always, we welcome your feedback. Please don't hesitate to reach out to our team with any questions.

The latest update to our Customer Journey Orchestration product is designed to give you more control and flexibility: Multi-Level Nested Paths.

Until now, creating branches within your journeys was limited to a single layer per decision point. With today's release, you can now nest multiple paths within existing paths.

This enhancement allows you to:

• Create more sophisticated and granular journey logic.
• Build highly personalized routes based on multiple sequential conditions.
• Map complex customer scenarios more accurately and efficiently within a single journey.

How it works: Simply click on the Path icon on a blank Step within a Path and confirm you want to convert that Step to a Path. It will then transform your Step into a Path and you will be able to define the next level of logic for the Journey.

This update will be rolling out to all organizations in the coming days. Once you have a chance to test it out, please let us know your feedback and we will continue to improve the workflow.

Release Date: April 8, 10, 2025

CX Manager

• We updated the font across our application to make the text easier to read at all sizes.
• We updated our Merge Case functionality so now communication threads that have 0 messages will not be merged to the new primary Case. Blank communication threads will now be discarded to avoid clutter on the new primary Case.
• We fixed an issue where Cases were periodically returning from Waiting to Ready before they were supposed to. 
• We fixed an issue where the 'Required to Resolved' toggle on custom Case Layouts was not being enforced on Custom Multi-Select Picklist fields. Now When this toggle is active the Case cannot be resolved until that field has at least one option selected.
• We fixed an issue where filtering a Case by Sponsor Organization would not retain the set filters.
• We fixed an issue with users logging in with SSO periodically needing to log in twice.
• Case Summaries: We fixed a bug where a user sometimes was presented the case summary from the previous case when creating a new case.

Knowledge

• We enhanced the code block styling in Knowledge Articles to make it easier to document, share and use code in Articles. There is a new Insert Code item in the menu, which will add a code block to your Article.
• We fixed an issue where pasting content into a Tab Body could break the tab layout. Now pasting into a Tab Body will retain the structure of a Tab.
• We fixed an issue where pressing Enter in a Tab or Accordion body would create a separate body rather than staying in the same body and going to the next line. Now pressing enter in a Tab or Accordion body will move the cursor to the next line within the same body.
• We fixed an issue where rows in tables alternated colors even when you have the Alternate Rows setting off.
• We fixed an issue where the layout would break when adding an Accordion or Tabs to a List or a List to an Accordion or Tab body. Now both will work as expected.
• We fixed an issue with the vertical spacing of bullets in the Article editor where the first indented item in a list would have less spacing than the other items.
• We made it easier to select and edit the Accordion Name without breaking the layout.
• We removed the menu option in Articles to style links since that styling is handled in the global CSS file.
• We updated Accordions and Tabs to make it easier to select the Header and Body text.
• We updated Accordions and Tabs to show alternating colors between rows to make it easier to differentiate between them.
• We updated the structure of Tab titles so they are easier to edit without breaking the subsequent tabs.
• We updated the styling of Tabs so the Tabs on the second row don't change position when the tabs on the first row are selected.
• We upgrade our Knowledge Article editor to the latest version, which included several enhancements, including, improved pasting images, pasting from MS Word docs, formatting of pasted bullets, bullet indentation, issues with the sticky toolbar, and more.

Journeys

• We added the ability to Clone a Journey. This includes cloning all Stages, Paths, Steps, and Actions as well as all Revisions. To clone a Journey, open the Journey you want to clone and select Clone to New Journey from the Options menu. You can also clone a Journey from the menu button on the main Journey list. 
• We fixed a bug with the spacing of Action names on the timeline. Action names will now appear on the same line as the Action icon.

Integrations & APIs

• We launched our Zoho Connector and you can read out it here. 
• We improved the performance of our /issues/put endpoint

Toolbox Application

We fixed an issue with mobile notifications not sending on the Toolbox application.

Reporting & Dashboards

We fixed an issue where users sometimes received an error when trying to edit dashboards inside CXME.

Release Date: February 2025:

CX Manager

Case Management

• We added the ability to control+click and command+click on 1) Cases in the Cases list 2) Chat tiles in the top nav bar and 3) the main navigation list. Doing this will open the new screen in a new browser tab without impacting your current screen.
• We added the ability to merge cases from the Case edit screen. Click on View All on the Cases section of the Customer panel and from there you can select your Cases to merge. This will make it easier to quickly find related or duplicate Cases for a customer and merge them together without complex filters.
• We fixed a bug where some picklists were retaining hidden values after a user would enter an invalid value into a required picklist field and then delete the value. Now when a user removes a value from a picklist it will properly clear the value and the field will search as expected.
• We fixed an issue where the type ahead text in a picklist field would sometimes get stuck causing the picklist to not show all the values even after the text was removed. Now deleting the text in a picklist will reset the fitlers and show all available options.
• We fixed an issue that caused Tags and Categories to continue to show on the Tags and Category fields on a Case after a Team was deleted from the Tag in Settings. Now when you delete a Team that is related to a Tag, that Tag will no longer show as an option on the Tags picklist on the Case Edit screen for users on that Team.
• We fixed an issue where the Cases Selected count that shows at the top of the Cases list when you select multiple Cases would sometimes show an incorrect count. Now when you select multiple Cases on one or more pages it will always show the proper count both before and after merging Cases.
• We fixed an issue where some Cases would periodically fail to display Events and would have improper access controls.

Customers

• We fixed an issue where custom URL fields that were accessed from the Customer screen were not opening the links in a new tab when clicked. Now when you click on the URL in a URL field type on the Customer Location panel, it will open in a new browser tab.
• We updated the functionality of custom product fields so when you add a product from the Add Product list it is saved to that field rather than only saving to the list of available products for that Location.
• We fixed a bug where custom product picklist fields would peridodically disappear from the Location Layout when accessed from the Customer Panel on the Case edit screen.
• We fixed an error that was being thrown when pressing the Add Product button on Product fields on a Location. 

Communications

We fixed an issue where sending an email to an email integration inbox with multiple email addresses in the To: field would only show the the email integration inbox email address and all other email addresses in the To: field would not be displayed. Now all email addresses in the email’s To: field will show on the Communication Panel To: field. 

Journeys

• We added the ability to cancel any open Action in a Journey from the timeline view so you can close out any Action that is stuck or no longer needs to be completed. Canceling a Task will also now post an event to the events timeline to show the date and time that the Task was canceled. 
• We added the ability to force complete an Action in a Journey from the timeline view so you can mark any Action as Complete if it was completed out of order.
• We added functionality to automatically close out any outstanding actions on a Journey when the Journey Closed Out function is used from the timeline. This ensures that that there will be no orphaned Tasks after a Journey is manually closed.
• We updated the icons in the timeline for Steps and Stages that contain Actions that are skipped. Previously it would show the Stage and Step as skipped when they contained a skipped action. Now they will continue to show as In Progress or Completed.

Knowledge

We fixed a bug where the Load More Events button was not showing at the bottom of the Events tab on Knowledge Articles.

Connectors & APIs

• We added Zoho and IRIS CRM to our list of connectors. We will discuss the details of each one in a future post.
• We fixed an issue where changing the name of a Connector was not properly saving.

Messenger (Web & SDK)

• We added rich text formatting for AI agent responses in Messenger to make long responses easier to read (line breaks, lists, clickable links).
• We disabled in-app surveys for canceled cases to prevent incorrect or accidental ratings.
• We added additional retry logic when opening Messenger in case chat ever gets stuck loading messages.
• We added a configuration option to Messenger to show or hide a button that allows customers to immediately route a conversation to a human while they are chatting with an AI agent.
• We fixed an issue where timestamps were showing an incorrect time. Now all timestamps in Messenger will show based on the user's computer timezone.

AI Agents

• We enabled auto case creation and team assignment when routing from an AI agent to a human.
• We added multilingual capabilities with auto language detection to our conversational AI agents.

If you are interested in testing our the beta of our conversational AI agents, please let us know! We would be happy to set one up for you, trained on your knowledge.

Reporting & Dashboards

We updated the default timezone for dashboards to display date/times in PST. If you want the default timezone updated for your organization's dashboard, please reach out to the Customer Success team.

Admin & Settings

• We added a Teams field to restrict Tag and Category acess to the add and edit screens for Tags and Categories in Settings. Leaving this field blank will make the Tag or Category available to all users.
• We added a new Manage Tokens permission to break Tokens access apart from the Edit Organization Settings Permission. This new permission will automatically be given to all users with an Admin Role and can be manually added to your custom packages from Settings > Roles & Permissions > Select Role > Edit Permissions > Administration Settings.

We updated the Edit Organization Settings Permission to control fewer options in Settings. The details are described below:

1. The Manage Teams permission now controls showing/hiding the Teams navigation item in Settings (even with Edit Organization Settings off) 
2. The Manage Users permission now controls showing/hiding the Users navigation item in Settings (even with Edit Organization Settings off). Note that you will need to disable both "Manage Users Passwords" and "Manage Users" to have "Users" nav completely removed from Settings.
3. The View Reports permission controls showing/hiding the Reports nav item on the main Nav list (even with Edit Organization Settings off). Note that you will need to disable both "View reports" and "Manage Reports" to have "Reports" option fully removed from main navigation.
4. The Create New Knowledge Bases permission now controls showing/hiding the Knowledge nav item in Settings (even with Edit Organization Settings off). Note that you will need to disable both "Create New Knowledge Base" and "Edit Knowledge Base Settings" to have "Knowledge" item fully removed from Settings.
5. The Manage Communications Channels permission controls showing/hiding the Channels and Settings options under Communications header in the Settings navigation (even with Edit Organization Settings off) 
6. The Edit Organization Settings now only shows/hides the General Settings navigation item in Settings.

Security

• We added additional IP checks during user session validation.
• We added additional rate limiting to our login screen to prevent automated attacks.
• We improved our application defense against possible clickjacking.
• We updated application dependencies to mitigate any third party vulnerabilities.
• We improved application security by limiting the number of concurrent user sessions. Users can still work in multiple tabs at the same time.

Release Date: December 2024

CX Manager

Communications

• We added the ability to rename communication threads on Cases. This will allow you to more easily differentiate between multiple threads on a Case. To rename a thread, click on the name of the active thread, change the name, and save.
• We added additional logic when our communication services get disconnected to pull the latest message history when it reconnects to ensure that no messages or chat tiles go missing when the service is reconnecting.
• We fixed an issue where pressing Enter would not properly send a text message from the communications panel (only clicking the Send button would send the message). Now pressing the Enter key will properly send an outbound SMS message.
• We fixed an issue where including a line break in an outbound SMS messages from the Communications Panel would result in the message not being sent. Now you can include line breaks in your messages and it will properly send all parts of the message.
• We fixed an issue where sending an outbound email from the popped out composer would display the Communications Panel with the composer extending to the top of the screen after clicking Send. Now the composer will be the standard height after sending an email from the popped out composer window.
• We fixed an issue where vertically expanding the composer for chat and SMS messages would not give the user the full space to type.

Cases & Navigation

• We improved the type-ahead functionality on our picklist fields in CXME. You can now search for options with partial matching and you can match words on any order rather than needing to find results by an exact match.
• We updated the display of blank Date and Date/Time fields to not show any value when they are have no value. Previously they would display all zeros when the field data was blank.
• We updated the browser tab titles throughout the application. The tabs now follow the pattern, "{Current Screen Name} - OvationCXM". This will make it easier to identify your tabs when you have multiple tabs open.
• We added a new 404 screen in the application. Users will be directed to this screen in the future if they try to navigate to a bad URL.
• We fixed an issue where a user could be logged out of CXME due to inactivity while a report was being downloaded in the background. A user will no longer be logged out automatically while waiting for a report to download.
• We fixed an issue where clicking ‘No’ when asked to confirm the cases you selected to merge would result in an endless spinner. Now clicking ‘No’ will return you to the previous screen.
• We fixed an issue where if a user returned directly back to My Work after cloning a Case from My Work, it would result in an endless spinner. Now you can navigate back to My Work after cloning a case and it loads correctly.
• We fixed an issue where The Action > Assign modal was displaying two Owner Team fields for Work Orders.

Journeys

In addition to launching APIs and Canvas, Paths, Selection Action, Journey Close Out, Parallel Steps, Parallel Actions, we also fixed several bugs across Jourenys builder and timeline:

• We fixed an issue where adding a Journey to a Case could temporarily hide the display of the communications panel
• We fixed a bug where dragging a Step to a blank area of the canvas would add a new Step.
• We fixed a bug where Stage and Steps in the Journey Timeline would show as Completed when the first Action within them was completed.
• We fixed a small bug where clicking Cancel after adding a Parallel Steps container failed to cancel the node. 

Integrations & APIs

We launched our Hubspot Connector and you can read more about it here.

Reporting & Dashboards

• We added new date/time fields to our dashboards so now you can add a single fields on tables that show the date and time in one cell rather than needing separate fields for date and time. We will be rolling this update out to all existing dashboards.
• We are continuing with the migration to our new dashboards and expect the migration to be completed before the end of the year.

Admin & Settings

We fixed an issue where the team name wasn't appearing in the 'Route issue to Team' field on the Messenger configurator when first accessed.

In addition to being able to execute multiple Steps at the same time as described in the Parallel Steps post, we have also added the ability for journey builders to decide if they want to start Actions within a Step in a defined order (sequential) or all at the same time (parallel). We call this Parallel Actions.

Previously, all Actions within a Step had to be run in sequence where each Action would only begin after the Action before it was completed. 

Now if you have a set of Actions that all need to be complete before progressing the Journey, but it doesn't matter what order they are completed in, you can have them all start at the same time. This means that if you have three Tasks in a Step that is set to a Parallel Action Order, all three Tasks will start at the same time and can be completed in any order. Note that the next Step will not begin until all Actions within the first Step are complete.

By default, all Steps are created as Sequential (they will start the next Action only after the previous Action is complete). But you can change a Step from Sequential to Parallel by simply adjusting the Action Order toggle at the top of the Step form. With either Action Order option, the next Step will still not start until all Actions within the current Step are complete.

An example of Parallel Actions would be when you have several Tasks assigned across various teams that need to be completed before progressing the journey, but the order that they are completed doesn't matter. This allows all Tasks to be created and assigned out at the same time, which reduces the amount of time that people are waiting for their Tasks to show up in their queue. For example, three teams need to approve a legal agreement and the order of approval does not matter. The approval Tasks can be sent out to all three teams at the same time and the journey will only progress once all approvals are received.

The latest update in Journeys is the ability to execute Actions within multiple Steps at the same time. We call this Parallel Steps. 

Historically, all Steps had to be run in sequence where each Step would only begin after the Step before it was completed.

But what about when you have two teams or two work streams that need to be completed but are not dependent on each other in order to get started? This is where Parallel Steps come in.

You can now drag multiple steps into a Journey side-by-side so they can run at the same time. These Steps are placed into a Parallel Steps container so they all start at the same time and the Journey only progresses when all Steps within the container are complete. This allows teams to complete work faster while ensuring active work does not get ahead of any dependencies.

An example of Parallel Steps would be when you have two separate teams working to onboard a new customer, but in completely different capacities. For example, one team is helping the customer upload the menu for their restaurant while another team is helping to build a custom integration. This work can happen at the same time, but you can’t progress to the Go Live Stage until both of these work streams are complete and the customer has finished the software configuration.

What other capabilities would you like to see within the Journey Builder? We would love to hear your feedback.

You now have the ability to manually or programmatically close out a Journey that did not successfully reach the end.

Not every customer journey is a successful one. Sometimes processes fail, interactions go stale, applications are denied, or customers churn. In these scenarios, the journey did not reach the desired outcome and will need to be closed out.

Closing out a Journey marks the overall Journey as Closed so it will no longer show as Active in Analytics. It will also close out any active or pending Actions that are still open in the Journey so you don’t have Actions left in a limbo state.

There are two ways to close out a journey, manually and programmatically.

Manually Close Out a Journey

We added a button to the top of the journey timeline that allows users to manually close out a Journey that is still active. Selecting this action will immediately move the Journey to A Closed status and it will no longer be editable.

This is helpful when a customer is on track to complete a journey, but stops responding or churns. Something happened that was not expected and requires human intervention to resolve.

Programmatically Close a Journey

The other way a Journey can get closed out before reaching the end is when a customer hits an intentional dead end within a Journey. This can happen within a Path where one of the conditions leads to the Journey being closed out.

For example, if a customer is going through underwriting and they are rejected, that may be the end of this journey for that customer. Or if a customer does not accept your Terms and Conditions, that may remove the customer from an onboarding process. You may take additional actions before closing the Journey such as sending them an email or running an automation to close out their account. The final Close Out Action will automatically end the journey for you when it is reached.

Finding Friction Points In Your Customer Journeys

When a Journey gets closed out - either manually or programmatically - we flag that Action and can display it within your analytics dashboard so that you can identify where customers are falling out of journeys in order to focus on the areas that need the most work to improve the overall experience.

We recently introduced the Selection Action to the lineup of Actions available within the Journey Builder. 

What is the Selection Action?

The Selection Action allows teams to build manual decision points into a Journey and progress a Journey down a specific Path based on that decision.

How does it work?

In the Journey Builder

When building a Journey, you can add a Selection Action to a Step and define the possible options for the user to select. The options will appear as a single select picklist on the Journey Timeline.

In the Journey Timeline

When a Journey instance gets to a Selection Action, the Journey will pause and wait for a selection to be made before progressing to the next Action.

The selected option is saved down to the context data of the Journey and can be used later in the Journey.

Using Selection Action Data

A common use case for a Selection Action is have the Journey instance owner make a decision and then a specific Path is selected based on that decision. This can be done by adding the Selection Action output to the Condition of the Path.

If you have any questions or feedback on the Selection Action, please let us know.

We're thrilled to announce the full public launch of Paths, our new feature designed to empower you to create dynamic, personalized customer experiences like never before. With Paths, you can easily design tailored journeys that adapt to your customers' needs, behaviors, and preferences. Ready to unlock the full potential of your customer engagement? Let’s dive into the powerful features and benefits.

What are Paths?

Paths allows you to create dynamic customer journeys based on specific criteria, such as customer behavior, demographics, or anything else that you track. By using Paths, you can deliver highly relevant experiences to each user, leading to stronger relationships, improved satisfaction, and higher conversion rates. 

Paths leverage conditional logic to send customers down specific parts of a journey. Once a Path is complete, the customers return to the main track of the journey headed toward the desired outcome.

Key Features of Paths

Dynamic Journey Mapping:
With Paths, you can design multiple journey paths within the same customer experience. Customers can automatically or manually be routed down different paths based on actions they take or manual decisions that you make.

Advanced Segmentation:
Use customer attributes such as location, products, or status to trigger specific paths. This helps you deliver more targeted content, messaging, and workflows that resonates with each individual.

Real-time Decisioning:
Paths allows you to make decisions in the moment, offering customers a personalized experience based on the actions taken during the journey. Whether they just entered a journey or are near the end, you can provide specific paths for each interaction they have.

Easy-to-Use Drag-and-Drop Interface:
No coding required! With our intuitive, visual editor, you can design and refine your customer journeys without the need for technical expertise. Drag-and-drop elements and basic data field logic conditions make it easy to create powerful workflows in minutes.

A/B Testing & Optimization:
Paths can also be used to design and implement A/B testing within your Journeys. You can test different paths, analyze customer responses, and optimize the journeys to continually improve your results. Find the path that works best for your audience and refine your approach based on real-time data.

Get Started with Paths Today!

The future of customer engagement is dynamic, personalized, and data-driven. With Paths, you now have the tools to create smart customer journeys that adapt to your audience’s needs in real time. Whether you’re aiming to drive sales, boost customer loyalty, or enhance user experience, Paths will help you get there.

Ready to take your customer journeys to the next level? Start creating personalized paths today and see the difference in engagement, conversion, and overall customer satisfaction.