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

[NickD_3CX]

Thank you for your reply. Hope this will be not a misunderstanding has the company has invested in the 3CX and deployed to the field agents all over the world some mobile which are on stand by because we don't want them to hve access to company phonebook.
I hope 3CX can quickly react and just add a buton inside extension parameter "allow extension to access to company phonebook".
Thank you in advance for your quick answers.

Unfortunately this is something that is not included in Update 7.

 

[N_G]

@JMG - what we have made is that CRM contacts are no longer copied to company phonebook or you can specify them to be hidden. If the option is not shown yet it will be in the next update. I can follow up. So you can not hide the company phonebook, but you can hide CRM contacts which will be cached but 'hidden'.

 

[JMG]

Dear Nick,
Thank you for your answer. But unfortunatelly you do not consider the fact that not necessarily all companies can afford a CRM, plus it is most of the time something that will double the problems if we have 2 plateforms for basically just make calls and use for Contacts.
The solution which has been offered in several ways would be a simple box that we would tick in the extension parameters in order to Enable/Disable the extesnion to access to Company Contacts.
If this is disable, the extension would be able to access to only the Personnal Contacts.
Very easy function.
After your message saying that this function will be on update 7, I have deployed this solution but now we have a full fleet of mobile worldwide that I have to ask agents to keep locked because the company cannot allow them to have access to company phonebook that in contrary other departments have absolutelly have to have access to...
Hope a quick solution will be possible to be found.

 

[N_G]

No this feature is not in the pipeline i am afraid and never was promised.

 

[cobaltit]

Dear Nick,
Thank you for your answer. But unfortunatelly you do not consider the fact that not necessarily all companies can afford a CRM, plus it is most of the time something that will double the problems if we have 2 plateforms for basically just make calls and use for Contacts.

There are free/open source CRM products out there. And even if not, free, remember that 3CX is priced very affordably so there should be budget for a simple CRM, at an inexpensive price. At the end of the day it's the cost of doing business. Your requirements are not a common use case which is why it's not on any roadmap.

 

[StefanW]

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

Just got added.

 

[JMG]

There are free/open source CRM products out there. And even if not, free, remember that 3CX is priced very affordably so there should be budget for a simple CRM, at an inexpensive price. At the end of the day it's the cost of doing business. Your requirements are not a common use case which is why it's not on any roadmap.

Sure, was just in touch with the support, actually non of the CRM are really a solution for what is asked.
The reasons are super simple:
-CRM are mainly made to be integrated with 3CX for computer,
-CRM does not synchronize with 3CX on the mobile APP
-Only 3CX can enable the function which is required, I understand that if it is not possible in the next releease, it is not in the pipeline yet, but then it would be good for 3CX to focus on developing telephony functions rather than making a lot of announcements on Facebook chat or so on...

I believe 3CX was created around phone function for companies of different sizes... Let's enhance it with a basic thing which is to be able to manage proper rights of Company/Departments/Extensions phone contacts...

Hope this will be understood and that the pipeline will get filled with this project for after version 7 update...

Thank you.

 

[cobaltit]

It would be far easier to switch providers or at least move the SMS portion of the number which has been doable for years. We've had customers using our trunks for a long time and have SMS through someone else.

 

[TPR3CX]

Telnyx is the bomb.

What makes Telnyx the bomb? I'm a Flowroute customer and I like them but always curious about other vendors just in case I ever need to make a switch.

 

[me4597me]

It would be far easier to switch providers or at least move the SMS portion of the number which has been doable for years. We've had customers using our trunks for a long time and have SMS through someone else.

That's a great point. We do split ports already for customers that want to keep their voice system with another vendor and still try out an SMS/MMS platform. What's offered here is limited but it's nice for an extension user to catch a text they would not normally get and even send a quick reply. This opens up opportunity for a more advanced platform if necessary, especially when a company witnesses some kid trying to order a pizza by messaging their business line.

We use Bandwidth and assume they will not be supported for a while due to how the API is structured. I've spent some time looking for some responses regarding if/when/never, etc. Does anyone have any info regarding timeframe. If it's going to be a while we'll pick a supported provider. Otherwise we'll wait - Very happy with Bandwidth.

 

[cobaltit]

I only run our VoIP setup as a side to my normal IT duties. Could you point me to a resource or term to use in searching to find documentation/resources on how to route SMS seperately from the main phone number, but sitll have it receivable by, and sent from the main phone number? We're in the US, and caller ID rules are a little stricter. VoIP.ms is our main provider, but we also have Twilio and can sign up for other services as needed. Thanks.

This is not something you as a customer or end-user does. This is something who ever you want to move your SMS to does for you. For example, we have some customers that use HeyMarket for SMS. Here is their article on how to do so:

How to port an existing VoIP number to Heymarket – Heymarket

Sometimes you have to work with your provider to change the ULC (underlying carrier) for your number. For example, when SMS on business/VoIP lines was fairly new I believe ZipWhip was one of the early providers and they only worked with Bandwidth I believe. So when we had customers with us and their number was with Level 3 or Verizon or someone else, we would have to do an internal port to get their number over to Bandwidth and then release the SMS portion to ZipWhip. So that should be an option for some folks if for some reason your current provider can't make things happen with the current carrier.

But at the end of the day, I think it's much ado about nothing. If SMS is really that important, then you would have already switched. So for most folks it's just a matter of being a little more patient to see if your provider gets accepted as a supported provider.

 

[hawaii]

Hello,
Perhaps it has already been discussed here (and sorry if this is the case), but is it possible to display a custom name for the sender using 3CX and Twilio ?
Of course, the recipient will not be able to reply, but I don't really care.
Thanks.

 

[StefanW]

A2P messaging is currently not supported. We opted for the P2P flow in order customers can answer to your messages and call you which offers a better #CX for the customer.

 

[FridayIT]

But at the end of the day, I think it's much ado about nothing. If SMS is really that important, then you would have already switched. So for most folks it's just a matter of being a little more patient to see if your provider gets accepted as a supported provider.

I can see both sides to this, in our case, we are in a contract with our current provider and considering their current setup, I doubt they will support SMS anytime soon. But I can also see your point of keeping it simple. In our case we will likely workaround the issue by implementing SMS for teams rather than individual users, in this case having the SMS number be different than our main line isn't ideal, but it will work in the interim.

 

[StefanW]

you can go for something called HostedSMS by keeping your numbers at provider A and only serve SMS from provider B. to my knowledge Telnyx offers this service.

 

[J.Fanning]

Trying to set up sms via flowroute. test says successful, but test messages sent from 3cx client result in 401: Authentication failed. incoming sms seems to work though

 

[malex]

SMS feedback: nice first go, improve UI, queue features and logging https://www.3cx.com/community/threads/sms-feedback-improve-ui-and-queue-features.78077/

 

[N_G]

@malex - good idea to start a new thread for sms feedback.....

 

[Jobee]

I saw several people ask but did not see any answers...

Are other 3CX supported SIP Trunk providers going to be added? I use Nexmo (now Vontage) as it is half the cost of either Twilio or Telnyx and voice and sms are both included in the price. Their sms API has been around for over a year.

 

[sdg]

Yes, something which will address in the next updates.

Tested out the improvements today with the chat notifications and it's a huge improvement !!

There is one thing i noticed tho, but i assume that it might be a browser (status) limitation on when notifications can be sent?

When the chat is still open and you open another program on top of the browser (so the browser is neither minimized or on another browser tab), no notifications are being sent on a new message in that current open chat.