On Tuesday 24th October, we hosted our iPECS Insights forum. These sessions provide the opportunity for our global partner community to come together to share important information with each other. Designed to be informative, inspirational, and interactive, iPECS Insights webinars allow us to share the most up to date news with our partners so we can all achieve success.

This month’s session was led by Hangsuk Cho and covered iPECS Unified updates focusing on iPECS Unified 6.1 and iPECS Unified 6.1+, iPECS IPCR 3.4, iPECS CCX 1.2 and IP DECT 120dh updates.

iPECS Unified 6.1 updates

Hangsuk began the session by concentrating on the new features of iPECS Unified 6.1 and 6.1+. iPECS Unified 6.1, available since Q1, 2023, has an array of new features available which are detailed below.

iPECS vUCP

The iPECS vUCP OS has changed to Rocky Linux, has had the grace period extended for the online license manager, and now supports alarm notifications.

Starting with the online license manager, the grace period has been extended from 15 days to 60 days to allow for sufficient time to solve issues from the internet connection or authentication recovery. It should be noted that if a connection to the online license manager is not possible, it is still suitable to use Unified 5.x.

Alarm notifications are now available for iPECS vUCP gateway and phone disconnection. Powerful and varied features include five types of alarm notifications, which can be configured to 32 different alarm sources, including emergency calls, doorbells, and SIP faults. Alarms can be configured to individual settings, connected to external devices, paging, email, and 3rd party devices.

iPECS IPCR

Hangsuk shared details of iPECS IPCR recording for paging and how trunk recording takes priority over agent recording for iPECS IPCR recording. However, when iPECS IPCR co-priority is set to “on”, calls are always recorded to a trunk agent regardless of setting priorities.

DND

Paging-only block mode is now an option for the DND function. As an example, when DND is off, the first press of the DND softkey will block calls and paging, a second press will go to a Paging-only block, and a third press will revert back to DND being off.

iPECS Unified 6.1+ updates

Unified 6.1+ new features have been available since June 23 and include updates to whisper coaching, agent statuses, and ring identification for executives.

Whisper coaching

Whisper coaching support for UCP and vUCP with 1000i allows supervisors to listen in to an agent’s call with a customer and provide feedback to the agent without the customer hearing. IPCR recording is also supported between the agent and the customer with MCIM.

Duty display

Supervisors and admins can easily see the status of all agents at just a glance. The agent on/off duty is displayed on the web interface in Station Group Overview. Simple colors allow supervisors and admins to quickly see an agent’s status. Off duty agents are in red, on duty remains the normal color, and orange represents a wrap-up. Reason codes also indicate why an agent is off duty. An example would be reason code “0” indicating returning to duty after a break.

Distinctive rings for executives

Making communications more effective and saving time, secretaries can quickly identify which executive is receiving a call by the distinctive ring from an incoming call. There are 16 different ring tones supported by iPECS phones.

Another feature covered in the iPECS Unified 6.1+ update was easier operation of the one touch forced forward on a flex button, with it now supporting assigning a forced forward button to a destination.

iPECS IPCR 3.4

The license policy for iPECS IPCR 3.4 has been finalized and detailed guides on policy and the maintenance process have been shared. The main updates to the maintenance policy covered included a default MNT 14 months free on the initial product installation. After the default MNT period expires, a new MNT license order must be placed. If an order was placed before expiration, then the default MNT residual period will be cancelled. In iPECS IPCR 3.4 there are currently no warning messages for the maintenance license but there is one when trying to upgrade out of warranty.

Security enhancements

Partners can benefit from security enhancements and stronger security is guaranteed with the latest version of REDIS. Previous well know vulnerabilities have been solved.

Enhancements include: remote code execution (CVE-2015-4335), out of bounds write (CVE-2018-11218), integer overflow or wraparound (CVE-2018-112219), and Redis Server unprotected by password authentication.

Announcements

Announcements can be listened to on iPECS IPCR. To do so, users click on the play button on the announcement list and directly check the contents of uploaded announcements on the web.

Deleting a recording

Additional steps have been added to confirm the deleting of a recording. This helps prevent users from making a mistake by adding a warning and final confirm pop up step before deletion.

iPECS CCX v1.2

New and enhanced features for CCX and R+ include a new reporting system which can generate user reports and public reports. Powerful filtering allows users to conduct tailored analysis and dramatically improve customer satisfaction.

The enhanced reporting features cover: call journey reports, tracking of calls transferred to voice mail group, unanswered call reports and dashboards, and multiple IPCR recording files with hold and park in a linkage.

iPECS CCX Pulse

iPECS CCX Pulse monitors services & triggers alerts if not working correctly, sends alerts to multiple destinations with the option to send them to CCX Care for the charged monitoring service.  Users will have a real time response in Australia times, or outside of this, the next day.

Part of the monitoring in iPECS CCX pulse is: CTI connection to PBX, SMDR connection, CCX record service and IPCR connection.

Activity tracker

In the iPECS CCX v1.2 update users will find improved productivity and security. The updated tracker enables users to monitor time spent on approved websites, apps, files, and folders. The dashboard can display a list of agents, showing the present application being used and a red alert when an application is not approved.

Users can set idle thresholds and provide an alert on the dashboard if agents are idle longer than their allotted time. Alerts can be customized to change colors on the dashboard, sounds, emails, or SMSs to assigned parties.

Other notable features of iPECS CCX V1.2 included auto pause for call recording, additional browser support, iPECS CCX desk web taskbar integration, and a software assurance license check.

The basic package of iPECS CCX V1.2 has had the webchat removed and iPECS CCX survey added without an additional cost.

IP DECT 120dh

120dh is an enhanced entry DECT handset, supporting basic technology needs with improved UX and voice quality for on-premises and cloud mobile users. A premium feature of the handset is ambient noise reduction providing clearer communication.

To round off the sessions Hangsuk addressed questions from partners.

We hope that attendees have found the latest updates and information helpful. Thank you to all for joining this month’s Insights webinar. We look forward to next month’s session and hope to have more face-to-face meetings in the future at events like the GPC and technical training sessions.

iPECS insights is a forum where we can collaborate, share ideas and learn best practices to drive success and growth of the iPECS brand and portfolio globally. We will invite subject matter experts to lead each of the iPECS insights sessions which will last for approximately an hour and cover a range of technical and marketing focus areas.