V16, Update 7 Alpha Sports FB & SMS Business Messaging and Live Chat Improvements

[avsi]

Added vote for SMS/MMS support with Bandwidth Trunks

 

[JohnS_3CX]

Regarding the issue people faced with no FB user photo and name being WebVisitor, please remove and rebuild your FB integration again but this time in your Facebook Developer Dashboard, request for the following additional permission:

Business Asset User Profile Access

As description text put the following:

"App integrates with 3CX Phone System to which it delivers messages from Facebook Page. Agents on the other end can reply back. Information of visitors like First Name, Last Name and Profile Picture are shown on the chat conversation for the Agents."

The rest of the procedure remains exactly the same. Please test using the above and give us some feedback on it.

 

[SyncWave]

Making good progress with this update. Where is MMS support on the roadmap. Anyone texting expects to be able to send pictures by default if you are using texting as a communications medium. We need the option to have the image show in chat as a thumbnail or something as well without having to download. This would be great even in non-SMS system chat.

 

[Posica]

Many thanks to support the SMS and FB chat functions. More and more customers need the function of integration with text reply.

Is there any possible we could gathering all of the text request and then sent to 3cx live chat by a relay text server?
or what is a better way of solving the customers text queue requirements?

In Asia, Japan Taiwan what we use a lot is LINE
[LINE]
Japan -> 60% https://blog.btrax.com/ultimate-guide-line-app-for-business/
Taiwan -> 80% https://taiwantoday.tw/news.php?unit=10&post=21678
[WeChat]
China -> may 99% https://wx.qq.com/
and lots of customers also interesting "automatic response chat bot"

 

[cortel]

Nice, but pointless unless you have one of the 2 providers. Needs to be open pure sip messaging so all can use.

 

[Matt Hood]

This is nice to add to the sales pitch.

How are we progressing on implementing some of the core functionality that's been around for decades that is lacking in 3CX?
Basic things that get asked for constantly like...

* 3CX Night Mode Visual Indication - Marked as In Progress for over 12 months
* Limiting the abilities of standard call queue members so they cannot see the q manager data or log themselves out of queues
* ability to set time zones per inbound rule for systems with remote offices in different zones. Only reason I can see this simple request is not a thing is it forces 1-2 user satellite offices to subscribe to another 3cx instance raising sales

there's heaps more and they are all in the forum's suggestions pages.
Apologies, I know this is not really the place for a gripe post, it's just frustrating when bells and whistles get R&D priority over core functionality that's missing

 

[saint_]

Just tried the SMS with Flowroute, and it works like a charm.
Fantastic update. Will this feature be available to all, on Enterprise / Pro only ?

 

[N_G]

Just tried the SMS with Flowroute, and it works like a charm.
Fantastic update. Will this feature be available to all, on Enterprise / Pro only ?

Thank you for the heads up. SMS messaging is part of Pro / Enterprise....

@cortel - there is no open SIP for SMS. Each provider has their own API so we will only support a select few providers based on the API capabilities. We are not going to support a ton of SMS providers. If you are in the US and want to tie it to existing DID numbers, this is possible. Please read the blog post its explained quite clearly i think.

@syncwave - yes down the line MMS will also be supported.

 

[cortel]

Wow thats Funny. Both providers we use just sent the sms message in the sip message body as plain text. I dont see how an API is needed to read that. Also the blog post does not explain anything. It does not even tell you that it is limited to just the 2 providers. It just clearly states SMS is now available.

 

[BJ Smith]

Just to follow up on this in full, I finally got the original number working as well. They are using the +1xxxxxxxxxx format on the routes and the final issue ended up being that with Flowroute you can set a global callback URL, but you can also set a per-DID callback for instances where you need a specific number to use a different callback than the global callback. Way back when SMS was released with Flowroute, I remember playing with their API and evidently set a specific callback URL for that number I tried using to test with on 3CX. Talking with Flowroute support, there is no way to reset this DID to use the global callback anymore and it must be set independently from now on. While this is frustrating, it was an easy fix using a linux command prompt with this command (filling in your appropriate values where needed):

curl https://api.flowroute.com/v2/numbers/1xxxxxxxxxx/relationships/sms_callback -H "Content-Type: application/vnd.api+json" -X POST -d '{"data": {"attributes": {"callback_url":"https://messaging.3cx.com/v1/webhook/XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX/flowroute/sms/xxxxxxxxxxxx"}}}' -u access_key:secret_key

Thank you for this! it was apparently our issue as well!

 

[cobaltit]

Wow thats Funny. Both providers we use just sent the sms message in the sip message body as plain text. I dont see how an API is needed to read that. Also the blog post does not explain anything. It does not even tell you that it is limited to just the 2 providers. It just clearly states SMS is now available.

I'm not sure what part is funny? Fantastic that both providers you use do it one way. The simple fact of the matter is that not all providers do it the same way because there is no standard. And yes SMS is available. That's like saying it's funny 3CX says that calling is now available even though not every SIP provider in the world works with it. At least SIP has a standard so being that 3CX is standards compliant, you have two options. You can pick a tested/supported SIP provider and have an easy implementation or you can try any provider you want and because SIP is a standard, you generally can get 3CX to work with it. SMS has no such standard so anyone who was expecting SMS to work with every provider was being wishful or otherwise doesn't understand the technical hurdles. I've stated it in several of the ideas threads for people asking for SMS that when the 3CX implementation came out folks wouldn't be happy because they were going to have to change at least the SMS portion of their DIDs/TNs to another provider because I know how things work. We are certified provider and offer SMS and we aren't a supported provider (yet). 3CX takes their interop testing seriously (which is a good thing) and interop testing takes time and money. MMS is going to be even more of crapshoot so really, things aren't going to even become close to universal until widespread adoption of RCS.

What we are seeing now is the bane of software development and moving targets. People were complaining that 3CX doesn't do SMS and RingCentral, etc did do SMS. Now that 3CX is offering SMS people are complaining that it doesn't support XYZ provider even though you don't get provider options with RingCentral. 3CX will support providers with an established relationship and a history of being responsive. Last thing you want is 3CX supporting some provider who makes an API or infrastructure change without communicating it to 3CX and then your SMS falls down. People will complain to 3CX and 3CX will spend resources troubleshooting an issue that isn't a 3CX issue.

If you aren't happy with the current choice of providers your best bet is to reach out to your preferred provider and send them the interop email posted in this thread and ask them to reach out to 3CX.

 

[FridayIT]

Agreed with @colbaltit

I had to get 3cx working with a provider that was not on the interop list. while it did mostly "just work", I had to dig into sip packets and figure out how they wanted the information.

I'd much rather have a smaller list of providers that "just work" and not have to spend time worrying about their implementation.

 

[N_G]

@cobaltit thank you for the heads up!

@FridayIT - dont forget ongoing issues that might arise from changes the provider might make. The list we provide means they and we are testing each others product and version releases.

@cortel No. Most providers require API. Just a few work via SIP message and are not the same across the board (how it should be formatted) Also delivery information reporting was not standard or missing.

However, we will be adding twilio in future releases.

 

[fgc92210]

Thank you for the heads up. SMS messaging is part of Pro / Enterprise....

Nick, about this feature. I can see that a SMS can be sent toward a queue. If an agent answers a SMS, will it make the agent as busy (on a call)?

if not, it would be a great add-on. Some legacy system when we integrate either web chat forms, or SMS, put the agent into a virtual call, so they are not interrupted while chatting with someone.

At least if this could be an option it would be great.
Loving the feature!

 

[Eagle2469]

Any updates on when Twilio will be supported? Would love to test this out.

 

[cobaltit]

Any updates on when Twilio will be supported? Would love to test this out.

However, we will be adding twilio in future releases.

 

[Vinnied]

This is nice to add to the sales pitch.

How are we progressing on implementing some of the core functionality that's been around for decades that is lacking in 3CX?
Basic things that get asked for constantly like...

* 3CX Night Mode Visual Indication - Marked as In Progress for over 12 months
* Limiting the abilities of standard call queue members so they cannot see the q manager data or log themselves out of queues
* ability to set time zones per inbound rule for systems with remote offices in different zones. Only reason I can see this simple request is not a thing is it forces 1-2 user satellite offices to subscribe to another 3cx instance raising sales

there's heaps more and they are all in the forum's suggestions pages.
Apologies, I know this is not really the place for a gripe post, it's just frustrating when bells and whistles get R&D priority over core functionality that's missing

I agree 100% what your saying, there are tons of new features and good that 3cx is doing this, but please focus on the core functions to.
There are more then 5 or 6 ideas posted in different topics about settings custom holiday per inbound rule and not 3cx server wide. This problem need to be fixed asap.

 

[Mika Olkkonen]

Hi all wise,

Chat problem or question:
HTML code made with the new HTML Genarator and local callus.js is in web server. Chat itself works perfect. But voice call and video call from chat window to queue no longer work. A video call icon found, but nothing happens to it. The same queue from Click2Call address directly works with a voice call and video call.
Have a hint what is wrong?

 

[Jason Lloyd]

Callcentric.com provide SMS service and so far they got the cheapest rates compare to other vendors that passed the 3cx network/software interoperability.

 

[JMG]

Hi All,
3CX management confirmed to me that a function to disable an extension to have access to Company Contacts was in 7a.
I have installed a test environement with this version and I don't find how to use this new function.
Could you please help by advising which steps have to be followed?
Thank you