Update 2 Final: Search Across Contacts and Team Members

[Gummies]

500+ users using chrome Plugin... V16 PBX.

why you said this today??? : Note: The Click2Call extension is not compatible with v16, you will have to upgrade to v18 to be able to use it. Also note that Google will retire the old extension by June 2022.

thanks 3cx..

 

[N_G]

500+ users using chrome Plugin... V16 PBX.

why you said this today??? : Note: The Click2Call extension is not compatible with v16, you will have to upgrade to v18 to be able to use it. Also note that Google will retire the old extension by June 2022.

thanks 3cx..

We said it 2 months ago, not today. That said I understand that its inconvenient these changes.

 

[merk3cx]

explain the purpose of this extension:
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/3cx/dijllljhgnommpcoogbfcnadmnleeook/related
From its installation, nothing changes. Why is it needed?
P.S. i am testing on the latest version v18

 

[simsyn]

3CX adding great features to 3CX Desktop App & Web Client.

We have started to migrate all our customers from V16 to V18.

Can we expect to merge 2 calls into a conference feature in Desktop App soon? Because we have many customers who are using the conference feature and they need to speak with a new participant privately before adding him to the ongoing conference call. This is supported in the Windows app but not in the new WebClient/Desktop App

 

[NickD_3CX]

explain the purpose of this extension:
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/3cx/dijllljhgnommpcoogbfcnadmnleeook/related
From its installation, nothing changes. Why is it needed?
P.S. i am testing on the latest version v18

Assuming that with "latest version v18" you mean V18 Update 2, then you can install this plugin on Chrome for non-Windows users (MacOS, Chromebox, Chromebook, etc...).
After you do this, if you log into your WebClient, you will get the option to configure this plugin, and a Dialer will be visible:



For Windows users, the option above the "People" node in the WebClient will give the option to install and provision the Desktop App.

Note that we plan on releasing a Desktop App for MacOS, so when that happens, we recommend swithcing to that.

 

[Chris Waldie]

Return of the search is welcomed!

Is it possible to however get it to put internal extensions at the top of the list before contacts? We have to type the full name almost of the internet user to get them to show.

@Nick Galea think my query got lost in the messages earlier.

 

[Mercuris]

Absolutely, our online product blog. Of course its the best way. We communicated, you just didn't read.

Hi All, I don't know of any other brand that does this as well. It must admit that with 3cx there is a post on the blog every 2 or 3 days with always interesting content. procedures, tutorials, always professional print screens. There is no brand so close to their partner. And with each blog post, you have the possibility to react on the community as you do at the moment. You can't blame 3CX. It's your fault for not having anticipated.

And thanks for 3CX to respect the deadline, roadmap, every year you keeps in mind to finalize your update before your vacation. I talked about it this morning, to our customer, keep calm, they will release soon. And here it is !
Good job

 

[slt]

We are missing the chrome button, on the latest 3cx, on chrome, on mac. The extension was previsouly working, and registered, now it's acting like it doesn't have a login. Removed and readded the extension, set it to web client, etc.

 

[NickD_3CX]

We are missing the chrome button, on the latest 3cx, on chrome, on mac. The extension was previsouly working, and registered, now it's acting like it doesn't have a login. Removed and readded the extension, set it to web client, etc.View attachment 26431
View attachment 26432

If you read the blog post, you will see that for V18 Update 2, you need to install a new plugin.

For Chrome, it is this one:
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/3cx/dijllljhgnommpcoogbfcnadmnleeook

Once you install it and refresh the WebClient page, the option will appear.

 

[Sprockwell]

so we're supposed to sift through your flooded blog every day to receive system-critical update information?

 

[Benoit C.]

Hi,
Our company is also having troubles with the removal of the v16 Chrome extension today.
I am not going to blame 3CX, our partner nor us but I am looking for solutions now.
Is there a way to hide the notification on v16 webclient which asks for the installation of the 3CX extension? (At the top left in the menu?
I guess editing the webclient page on the server or changing a css file like with a display:none on the css class "ng-star-inserted" or css id "googleStoreId" should make it, right?
This would minimize the impact, the confusion to our users that still see this notification and give us an additional delay to move to v18.
If that is possible, please communicate in this thread the procedure.
Of course, we will plan the upgrade to v18 but having hundreds of Call Flow Apps and thousands of users isn't just a one-click action and requires a lot of testing.
Please also communicate a deadline for such big changes in the future.
Regards.
Benoit.

 

[NickD_3CX]

Hi,
Our company is also having troubles with the removal of the v16 Chrome extension today.
I am not going to blame 3CX, our partner nor us but I am looking for solutions now.
Is there a way to hide the notification on v16 webclient which asks for the installation of the 3CX extension? (At the top left in the menu?
I guess editing the webclient page on the server or changing a css file like with a display:none on the css class "ng-star-inserted" or css id "googleStoreId" should make it, right?
This would minimize the impact, the confusion to our users that still see this notification and give us an additional delay to move to v18.
If that is possible, please communicate in this thread the procedure.
Of course, we will plan the upgrade to v18 but having hundreds of Call Flow Apps and thousands of users isn't just a one-click action and requires a lot of testing.
Please also communicate a deadline for such big changes in the future.
Regards.
Benoit.

Unfortunately there isn't any one-click way to remove the notification. While editing the page I suppose is possible, I can't possibly suggest that as we don't know what else will 'break'.

A timeframe was given in a blog post weeks ago which stated that it would be deprecated in "a few weeks", but we've already gone over that so onto solutions.

The only real suggested solution is to go to V18.
For your Call Flow Apps, if you have the original project files (which you should ALWAYS keep), downlad the latest CFD from within your Customer Portal and start re-compiling them, fix any minor issues that may appear, upgrade to V18 U2, then just re-load the outputs to update the existing entries and you are good to go.

 

[Colorian92]

1. The extension and the apps work with the latest version of 3CX. Has always been that way. It would be madness that if you keep current and move to the new version you have to re install the apps and the extension. For a while its possible to keep it downwards compatible but in many cases its simply not possible. Case in point is this update because we had to create a new extension and app because Google has removed some APIs.
2. The old extension still works up until june 2022. You just have to re-install it because you are staying on the old version. The new version of the extension works with the new version of 3CX. The new version was uploaded to the 3CX extension today.
3. We can price 3CX at the way we do because we maintain a single version. If we had to maintain apps and extensions and security updates for many versions, then the price would double if not more. So we need customers to stay current within a reasonable time frame or increase prices.
4. @ENCOM-GEFFRAY yes we know how it is to manage hundreds of servers. Actually we manage tens of thousands of servers and we upgrade them for customers using automation. At the same time i appreciate some bigger users need to move slower and for these you can use the old extension - but using v18.
5. Important product updates are published to our blog. Please dont tell us about email. We have heard the "I did not receive that email" enough times. If you are a partner or want to manage 3CX yourself, please check the 3CX product blog now and then.
6. @Willemsbrug Yes on v18 you can keep using the old extension until June 2022
7. Now i have your attention be forewarned that the apps will have a warning dialog to go to the new version in the coming weeks.

Granted, to keep using the old extension you need to go to v18. However to keep using the old extension you would need to re-install the extension on each of your desktops regardless whether we update v16 or not. This sucks a bit i agree but there is no way around it. Rather than stay on v16 and re install the extension everywhere - update to v18, use the new windows app for windows users and use the "old" extension for mac users until the mac client arrives? You are going to have to do this before June 2022 anyway!

Software these days needs to stay up to date. 3CX is just like any software. Even my TV asks for an update every day (very irritating) but its just the way it is.

Also, its nice to see that the extension is finally liked Everyone wanted to keep the Windows app until this morning

Now this might be ill timed but i am going to say it anyway: We understand that not everyone wants to track 3CX and keep it up to date. This is why we are now offering hosted by 3CX - pretty much at cost. The first year we will pay the hosting for you, see our offer.

And finally I want to thank all those partners and admins that put in the hours and go and upgrade or update the extensions to satisfy their users / customers. I understand its a pain in the ass. Merry Xmas to you all.

I think that @pmterp made a good point.

The biggest issue is that it wasn't clearly enough stated that the current extension would be unfunctional with V16. Deprecated is a different choice of words and means it will "get old", not that it will not function anymore. Not to mention, technically it wasn't deprecated but updated...

Combine this with the fact that the browser extension as it was didn't always function out-of-the-box when upgrading to V18, and you must certainly get why partners like us didn't upgrade our users just like that. To be truthful, the extension didn't work that well under V16 but that was mostly due to browser-related issues.

I don't want to turn this into a semantic discussion, but if it would have been more clearly communicated that the extension would stop to function for its intended purposes under V16 and would simply become a click-to-dial towards the webclient and would be only supported on V18, I would of course have contacted the customers I knew were using the extension and upgraded them swiftly. A target date would also have been the least to do, especially in such a case of a function becoming unfunctional.

All of this is not taking into account that we have other things to do than being a 3CX partner and performing upgrades of all our PBX's is simply something we cannot plan in a scope of 2 months. We're not the only ones. Especially when configuration changes for the end-user are concerned. A manual just simpy won't cut it. You must know how it goes, some end-users simply don't know better and need literal assistance for their hand/cursor to be moved to perform 1 click for things to continue working as before.

Long story short: while I understand the reasoning behind the move you did, admitting that the communication could have been more clear is the least you can do at this point. I'll leave aside all the remarks concerning "we want an e-mail" and "blog posts are enough". I do believe a specific partner communication channel is a good idea somehow, but regardless of that the communication content as it was published wasn't clear enough.

Edit: we have one customer who uses "Voiptools", a set of functions that work with both V16 and V18 but were installed for the customer at V16. This specific customer used the extension only for click-to-dial, but that doesn't work anymore. Now we have to migrate the customer to V18, which means an entire update of the PBX (on Windows) as well as all the secondary software from Voiptools which needs to be updated. This is a day's work at least, let's pray it all works by the end of that day. Now imagine having 20 customers like that (20 working days = 1 month), having other things to do, and only 2 months to migrate the customers. Even with good communication, for some partners this is a major loss of time.

 

[charly]

Was surprised seeing the browser extension stopped working out-of-the-blue today. It considerably impacted our customer support workflow since our employees were trained with the extension and need the functionality to stopping/restarting recording during each call.

I am a regular business owner and not a full time VOIP tech, I read about v18 announcement a few weeks ago in a newsletter, but I didn't realize that the deadline to upgrade was today, and some functionality would stop working in the middle of the week. A more clear heads-up would have been appreciated...

 

[JeremyH]

I too was somewhat surprised to discover that all our chrome based users would suddenly no longer be able to make/receive calls as of 1pm GMT today. . Admittedly I wasn't aware of the need to view a blog for such announcements relating to changes to functionality, , but even if I was I would expect something as significant as that to at least have it's own blog entry, not be buried within an announcement relating to a test version (beta) of the new chrome extension for v18. Alas lesson learned.
P..S although I may appear on this forum as a free user, we do actually pay a partner to maintain our companies system, seems they missed it too.

 

[SteveITS]

forcing people back to monolithic apps

The web client still works. The Desktop App is an encapsulated version of the web client.

I understand all points made, and the high frustration levels. I'd just suggest that more and/or multiple types of communication would be better if something will be, essentially, turned off worldwide. Fortunately all our clients were on v18 already.

 

[JeremyH]

The web client still works. The Desktop App is an encapsulated version of the web client

Unfortunately for us under v16 the web client didn't work, whatever state it left the client in meant it no longer was able to respond to incoming calls, even after a reboot.. Under the management page of 3cx - phones - the phones affected disappeared off the list. We had to install the windows based client to regain control and allow people to receive incoming calls. It was only later that I found this thread and discovered we might have been able to re-install the original chrome extension (I'll call it a plugin to differentiate it from a telephone extension). Thankfully we had some users already on the windows client or with yealink handsets to see us through.

 

[Gummies]

Microsoft Edge is going to be updated anytime Soon >? Currently plugin V16 is Working there. Thanks god!!

 

[Andrewjf]

I gotta say, as a small MSP owner the idea that putting it on your blog is an acceptable method of communication that you're going to break an extension for my users is insane. No other vendor I have pushes breaking updates like this without emailing me over and over again leading up to the change. The idea that I should follow your blog to be notified about critical changes is asinine and my disappointment in 3CX is only compounded by @Nick Galea 's cavalier attitude about what this did to his partners who expected an adult level of communication from them.

 

[samuellay]

I'd like to add my voice to this list of growing complaints, 3CX needs to have more consideration for their partners and their customers that these changes affect, don't just shrug them off. There needs to be better communication and more notice from 3CX. You can't just make new releases and then declare the old one dead shortly after, there needs to be an overlap period especially for us with large customers that have more complex requirements and integrations etc.

We are slowly upgrading our many customers to V18 now that we consider it somewhat stable, it's a manual process that takes a lot of time as it creates downtime and also we need to make customers aware because there are a lot of changes and the web client looks completely different with different functionality. We do it slowly to not blindside our customers with sudden radical changes and 3CX should be taking the same approach.

You have a new click to call chrome extension? Great! Release it as a new chrome extension and start promoting it. Don't just replace the existing chrome extension with a new extension that has totally different functionality and THEN have to release another extension that does the same thing for Mac and Linux users that only works with the update that just got released TODAY.

If you are releasing something new, you should always make sure that it doesn't break customers that haven't upgraded yet. Eventually you might have to do something that breaks things, but you should give as much time as possible for us to complete our manual work that requires a lot of communication with customers and scheduling.