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What’s new in Unblu 7

Unblu 7 is packed with new features that make connecting with your customers online easier, safer, and more convenient. The sections below give you a brief overview of the major improvements we’ve made to Unblu.

Audit log

The audit log provides a record of changes to entities in Unblu. It contains the information required to establish who made which changes when.

The audit log is accessible from the standard Unblu UIs (Account Configuration interface and Global Server Configuration interface) and via the Unblu web API.

Access to an account’s audit log is limited to administrators. Superadministrators can only access the audit logs of GLOBAL entities.

Check out our article on the audit log and the description of the audit log overview in the Account Configuration interface guide for more information.

Bot threads

Messages exchanged between bots and participants during the onboarding, reboarding, and offboarding processes are now distinguished from other messages. The beginning and the end of the process are marked by icons with a system message. The icons are connected by a line.

The conversation also displays an icon with a system message if the onboarding is still active.

Conversation recording

In addition to keeping a history of the text messages and files exchanged between participants during a conversation, Unblu 7 allows you to record conversations. The recordings can include audiovisual content, that is:

  • Audio and video calls

  • Collaboration layers

Once conversation recording has been enabled for an account, you can configure it in your conversation templates. The configuration options include:

  • Whether conversation recording should be enabled for conversations based on the template in question

  • Which content should be included in the recording:

    • Chat messages

    • Data from audio and video calls

    • The content of collaboration layers

  • The sources that trigger conversation recording

  • The pattern used for the file name of the recording

  • Which participant types should see system messages related to conversation recording. By default, these messages are only visible to ghost participants.

Conversation recordings are stored as MP4 files. Once a recording is complete, it is available to authorized users in the conversation history. The conversation’s information fly-in page includes information about the recording and a link to download the file. The recording is also embedded in the log of the conversation’s chat and can be viewed and downloaded there.

Embedded Visitor UI

We have added a new version of the visitor UI that can be embedded within a page of your website or single-page application (SPA).

Embedded Visitor UI in split view mode

This new version of the visitor UI is called the Embedded Visitor UI. The Visitor Individual UI familiar from earlier versions of Unblu is now called the Floating Visitor UI. Together, they are referred to as the integrated visitor UIs.

To add the Embedded Visitor UI to a page, we provide a custom HTML element, <unblu-embedded-app>. The custom element has attributes for various configuration properties, such as the API key or the named area. It can be placed anywhere on a page and can be sized any way you like to integrate seamlessly with your UI.

The Embedded Visitor UI offers two different view modes, split view mode and single view mode:

  • In split view mode, the Embedded Visitor UI displays a sidebar on the left of the UI. The sidebar contains a list of the visitor’s conversations and a button to start or join conversations.

  • In single view mode, the Embedded Visitor UI looks more like the Floating Visitor UI. The conversation list and the button to start a new conversation are displayed in a separate view from the current conversation, accessible via the back button Back arrow in the action bar.

Unblu can be configured to switch between split view mode and single view mode automatically based on the width of the embedded UI element.

The Embedded Visitor UI is best suited to situations where the focus is on messaging. To provide in-context assistance, we recommend that you use the Floating Visitor UI. The Floating Visitor UI can also be more easily added to any page.

You can use both the Floating Visitor UI and the Embedded Visitor UI on your website. You can even opt to make both visitor UIs available in the same location. Switching between the two visitor UIs, however, will deinitialize and reinitialize Unblu, resulting in an interruption of any ongoing calls or collaboration sessions.

For more information on how to integrate the Embedded Visitor UI into your website or SPA, see the Embedded JS API reference.

Improved canned responses

Canned responses in Unblu 7 are more powerful than in previous versions:

  • To select a canned response, you can now open the canned response dialog with a custom keyboard shortcut or the dedicated button adjacent to the text input field.

  • The canned response dialog has been expanded to display not only the titles but also the beginning of the canned text itself. It also includes a filter, allowing you to search through canned responses by title.

  • You can define up to 16 placeholders in a canned response, making a canned response useful in more contexts.

    A placeholder can be either a text field with a hint regarding what kind of input agents should add, or a multiple-choice placeholder with a predefined set of values.

  • Canned responses now have a language associated with them. The canned response dialog in a chat conversation only shows canned responses with the same language as the conversation.

  • You can add a canned response anywhere in the message you are writing, not just at the beginning of the message. You can also add multiple canned responses to a single message.

  • Canned responses can now include Markdown formatting. (You must have enabled Markdown for chat messages for it to be displayed correctly.)

See the sections on creating and using canned responses in the Agent Desk guide for further details.

Improved control of client-side integration

The new deinitialize() method in the Visitor JS API provides more flexibility for integrating Unblu’s visitor UIs into your website or single-page application (SPA).

  • If some user interaction with your website or SPA requires changes to the configuration of the Unblu visitor UI, you can now deinitialize Unblu and then reinitialize it with the new configuration parameters.

  • You can now remove Unblu’s functionality from pages that no longer require it. For example, you could deinitialize Unblu when a conversation has ended.

For more information, refer to our article on SPA integration.

Keyboard shortcuts for Agent Desk actions

The Agent Desk now supports keyboard shortcuts for many common actions. Once agents have learned the shortcuts, they make working with the Agent Desk much more efficient.

We have included predefined shortcuts, but agents can customize the shortcuts to suit their own preferences. To allow agents to customize keyboard shortcuts, you must add the role REGISTERED_USER to the configuration property com.unblu.permission.roleAllowed.modifyConfigurations.

The section on keyboard shortcuts in the Agent Desk guide provides further details.

In Unblu 6, invitations to conversations were only redeemable once. With Unblu 7, you can configure conversation templates so that a public link is generated. This link may be used more than once, making it easier to engage with more than one participant in a conversation.

When someone enters a public link, they are directed to a page where they can enter their name and request admission to the conversation. By default, all requests for admission via a public link must be approved by the assigned agent. You can, however, turn this feature off.

For more information, check out the descriptions of com.unblu.conversation.invitation.allowPublicLinkAccess and com.unblu.conversation.invitation.requireAgentApprovalBeforeJoin.

Scheduled conversations

Agents can schedule conversations to start at a specific time.

Scheduled conversations don’t appear in an agent’s inbox or queue. Instead, they are displayed in their own overview which is accessible via a separate entry in the navigation bar:

Overview of scheduled conversations

In the overview, upcoming and ongoing conversations are shown in separate tabs.

Scheduled conversations only become accessible to other participants when the creator starts the conversation. Until then, the agent can prepare the conversation. They can, for example, upload files to the chat conversation, or prepare a collaboration layer. This allows them to focus on actually engaging with the other participants once they join.

Participants who attempt to join a conversation that hasn’t started are shown a "waiting room" page which is automatically replaced by the visitor UI once the agent starts conversation.

Access to scheduled conversations is highly configurable.

For further information, read the article on configuring scheduled conversations and the relevant sections of the Agent Desk and Visitor UI guides.

UI improvements

We have tweaked Unblu’s UIs and made them more configurable.

Action bar theming

The action bar can now be styled individually for the following Unblu UIs:

  • Agent Desk and single conversation desk

  • Visitor Desk

  • Floating Visitor UI and popout UI

  • Embedded Visitor UI

  • Agent mobile SDK

  • Visitor mobile SDK

Agent Desk

We have made a number of adjustments to make better use of the available screen space and to help users work with the Agent Desk more effectively:

  • The Agent Desk bleeds to the edges of the browser window.

  • The active conversation tab now bleeds into the content of the conversation. This makes it easier for an agent to determine which conversation they are looking at without having to review the contents of the conversation.

  • We’ve changed the colors of some UI elements to reduce the focus on the controls and direct it towards the content instead.

  • You can now configure conversation tabs to display an icon. The icon may represent one of the following:

  • The initial engagement type

  • The most relevant other participant. This will display the same icon as used for the conversation in the inbox.

  • The Agent Desk navigation bar is now collapsed by default. This gives over more screen space to the area that agents actually work.

    Agents can still expand the navigation bar if they need to.

Finally, the Unblu logo has been moved to the top of the navigation bar and doubles as "Home" button. The account logo has been moved to the bottom of the navigation bar.

Visitor UIs

  • The integrated visitor UIs now behave like the Agent Desk when a collaboration is started.

  • The Visitor Desk no longer has a launcher button.