What’s Cooking in our Remote Kitchens? The 3CX Road Map

[N_G]

Thanks for the heads up @bwitzig We will look into to making the attach feature more user friendly.

@Cascada We will have to look into that although i have not heard that feature request before
@alexdb - unfortunately this is how it is, the meeting is transferred onto our platform and it has no connection to your 3CX installation.
@MannyL - will look into these features. Re click to meet did you enable it from the extension settings?

Dont forget the architecture and technology selected makes it much easier for 3CX to make "web conferencing for everyone". The moment you have to install an app (Zoom) or create a Microsoft account (Teams), you are limiting conferencing acceptance. Yes we need to improve but we are on the right path.

 

[N_G]

@MannyL

• Ability to lock the meeting so no one else can join.
• Ability to mass enable/disable audio/video/chat for rest of participants

Both these features are on our to do list.

• When sending email out thru 3CX direct, include the open link in conference details so it can be shared if needed without going into the meeting to get it

Looking into this, its a potential bug.

• ClicktoMeet doesn't seem to work, constantly get "meeting hasn't started yet, retry later"

Click2Meet requires the owner of the room to be present in the meeting first.

 

[Severin Meyer]

currently it is possible to share files. as confusing as it is, using the "attachment clip" is only used to show pdf files.

in the meeting chat beside the "raise hand" icon, is an option to upload files.

Thank you for the hint. This is indeed very helpful.

 

[MannyL]

Dont forget the architecture and technology selected makes it much easier for 3CX to make "web conferencing for everyone". The moment you have to install an app (Zoom) or create a Microsoft account (Teams), you are limiting conferencing acceptance. Yes we need to improve but we are on the right path.

Agreed, I very much appreciate the platform agnostic approach. Extending this with API for integration into other platforms will also make this an amazing solution, Think telehealth for EMR and the like...

 

[mcsphones]

Nice. Some form of Teams integration would be rather nice, many of our 3CX customers also use Office 365 and Teams usage is growing.

 

[Evolute IT]

Nice. Some form of Teams integration would be rather nice, many of our 3CX customers also use Office 365 and Teams usage is growing.

Some already do it... @Excel Telecom

 

[luckystrikes]

Hi Nick,

First, that roadmap looks amazing! Really excited to see it and that new iOS app is REALLY REALLY GOOD. Like, I cannot believe its the same app good. The team has really outdone themselves. The new Android app has also been very well received.

Congrats on the Polycom support, looking forward to seeing the additional x50 models as well in due time.

Is there any plans to add MOS or QA monitoring for servers or extensions? We have not had any complaints but it is something we would like to see at some point in terms of being able to get ahead of any incoming tickets.

Regarding Zoom questions and discussion: we have been installing "zoom rooms" for some time. We integrate the SIP side with 3CX and Yealink CP960s so user gets best of both worlds. It's really an elegant solution and better than the Zoom Room iPad setup for those who are familiar. A lot of our customers use Zoom day-to-day.

My view is that it is perceived ease of use rather than anything else. My view is also that the "agent" running in the background allows an easy way to start, stop and adjust meetings. Zoom has moved towards an app based solutions while 3CX has moved away from it. Zoom also does have browser based but they hide the link and push their app.

Zoom is a video conference platform trying to now get into phone service (and not doing it very well since telecom must be VAR implemented otherwise it will never be good.)

3CX is the telecom product aiming to support video conference. I am happy to provide my experiences with Zoom which is extensive at this point but I'll leave here my comment because 3CX is really a great platform and Zoom keeps selling your data until they caught then they say sorry and do it again later.

That said, I've lost a lot of deals to Zoom.

Why Zoom is not good:

• It is expensive - They nickle and dime for PSTN access (for example, inbound access is one price, outbound is another price, per minute is a third price, etc... they offer 40 minutes free but all plans are quite expensive and require annual payment for the advertised rate. The Rooms function is $50/room starting. You are spending well over $1,000 a month for a 50 person company.

1. Zoom sells data to facebook (even if user does not have facebook)
   https://www.theverge.com/2020/3/28/21197967/zoom-ios-app-code-tracking-facebook
2. Zoom used to turn your computer into an open server
   https://medium.com/bugbountywriteup...t-get-them-to-visit-your-website-ac75c83f4ef5
3. Zoom stock trades way too high compared to earnings. It's very Uber so they are blowing money all day long, if it does not see massive market share increase you will become its product.
4. No one uses it for inter-office chat, only during meetings.
5. They are so entrenched in universities with whatever sales game they play that the graduates are now going to know Zoom and ask for it. This is especially true in most graduate programs.

With that said, Zoom is a great platform and beats every Video solution on the market including WebEx, Skype and (possibly) teams (I have not used Teams but I know Teams is extremely expensive when you consider all the licensing).

Why Zoom is good:

1. Brand name, literally overnight. You can't market that, and it must mean something - mainly ease of use
   1. Installation does not need super-admin
   2. Can view meeting on any browser (supposedly, I've yet to meet a client not using firefox/chrome/edge)
   3. Very very simple and easy to use. To create a meeting takes 1-2 clicks in the app and the links and everything is controlled via calendar. It knows your the meeting host because of your app.
   4. Mobile app is really good (I've had issues with webmeeting on iOS regularly (headphones issues, volume issues, disclosure: have not used it in some time)
2. Breakout rooms - separate your main room into smaller rooms and then come back together
3. UI is very nice, in fact operaters like Veriz**, RingC*** and meta***** have actually abandoned their VC platforms and are reselling Zoom directly in their product.
4. Rooms function - Allows you to setup a "room" with a "controller" (iPad, Yealink CP960, MiniPC) - I've made an idea post on this - GCal and O365 can integrate with the controller for "one click meeting starts and room booking"
5. Backgrounds and different video features like soften skin creates buzz around the product
6. Their engine is very , very good. While doing a 3CX meeting with 5 people around the country there was issues of out of sync audio & video lag. We moved to Zoom free and the quality vastly improved.
7. Screen share functionality is, really good. Screen share in 3CX is also very good and honestly I don't see any differences.
8. Content sharing is much better, (3CX can only content share PDF)
9. When using rooms, the controller's built in airplay and windows sharing you are able to share your screen in an intuitive way users enjoy.
10. Invitations to meetings can provide local tel #s (3CX does this if setup correctly but Zoom ties that dial in with their name so meeting host can identify who has joined).
11. Dedicated rooms, recurring meetings, easy to adjust the time of a meeting
12. Room admin rights can be extensive such as being able to see private chats
13. Advertised as HIPPA compliant for their top tier package
14. When joining meeting software prompts if you want to dial in by IP or Tele and gives you the information to sync user ID and dial in

Why 3CX is good:

1. Included at no cost
2. Tons of capacity, works well when you have good internet (a major issue in USA because most people have coax, even in business areas)
3. Works super easy in Chrome (firefox sometimes is buggy)
4. Can literally have video calls from Webclient without needing a meeting.
5. A full UCaaS platform, advanced calling features are native.
6. No app needed < This can be debated

I hope this is helpful and the size of the lists does not at all indicate anything except my experiences with both applications. We do not do as many 3CX webmeetings because other companies already use Zoom so they ask us can you send us a Zoom link. We always try to introduce them to 3CX and use webmeeting and it has been completely fine. It's actually kind of funny when you think about it: the reason Zoom blew up is because people were told its easy so it became easy. The same efforts are needed for Zoom and 3CX.

 

[dredd0606]

Hi Nick, is there any possibility of looking at MFA/2FA for webclient login? We have many customers requesting this, as it is becoming standard on nearly every other platform that requires logins.

 

[robert.taylor]

Continue reading the Original Blog Post.

Given the update to Version 5 will require Windows Users to also upgrade to W2016 would you consider holding off on the update ? With Covid-19 having a massive impact all around the world any unnecessary changes should surely be avoided ? Lots of end users are imposing change freezes which mean we can not go there.

 

[hwohlert]

It would be great if you could easily plan a conference with 3CX from your smartphone. And if you could then invite 3CX participants directly via the chat function would be even better. Our customers miss that.

 

[Polaris15]

Not sure if I just missed it but do we have any news on the API yet? I was told this would be available by early 2020 and it seems to have been forgotten. Would love to be able to integrate some kind of call control/presence and webmeeting functionality into our corporate site

 

[bwitzig]

Given the update to Version 5 will require Windows Users to also upgrade to W2016 would you consider holding off on the update ? With Covid-19 having a massive impact all around the world any unnecessary changes should surely be avoided ? Lots of end users are imposing change freezes which mean we can not go there.

Unfortunately, from my understanding apple's new "push" mechanism isn't compatible with W2012, it isn't that 3cx doesn't want it to work, IIS (which hosts the webpage) wasn't coded in a way where they can implement it.

at this point, honestly, unless there is a pressing need to run the PBX on windows, I'd recommend spinning up their debian ISO, it's way easier to patch, and you don't have to deal with windows.

I used to work for a bank, I know that change freezes can be...... difficult, especially with the current situation.

The only one's who would be able to "delay" this would be Apple, who have considered their old push mechanism EOL, while they haven't shutdown the servers yet, they have already considered the old system "depreciated".

 

[N_G]

@luckystrikes Thank you for your excellent analysis. Will study this in more detail.

Certainly Zoom has many good things we can potentially incorporate /learn from and we are doing so as we speak. However, now we have all spent some time looking at features Zoom has that 3CX does not, lets also look at 3 big advantages of 3CX video conferencing over Zoom:

a. 3CX is clientless. Requiring meeting participants to install a client is security madness and will be blocked by many companies. People are getting more and more resistant to it.
b. 3CX is included at no cost. Why pay big money for a meeting platform?
c. Zoom sells YOUR data to Facebook.

3CX video conferencing is open standards, built on WebRTC and VP8. Royalty free. Built on Google technology and aligned with Google. (i had to say it for those that want brand names) No we do not sell data to Google and soon you will be able to run 3CX video conferencing right from your own install, nothing will go via our servers if you don't want this.

Lets remember this and 3CX partners please explain this to potential customers!

 

[N_G]

@dredd0606 - Good point and this is on our road map... Its just we have been backed up but this will come this year for sure.
@hwohlert - Yes good point and we are working on this. Also our new iOS app will have video so quick ad hoc video conferences will be possible without using the separate video conferencing portal.
@Polaris15 - We already have API's and have a had them for a long time. CRM API to integrate a CRM/HelpDesk. Click2Meet links for quick webmeetings. Call flow designer for custom Voice Apps. Wordpress/HTML chat plugin for integrating chat and voice / video calls on your website. Ability to publish webinars/conferences to website. No public presence yet but go ahead and up vote the feature request.
@bwitzig - yes good point. Linux or else Windows 10.
@robert.taylor Its unfortunate if you are running Windows Server 16 but at the same time customers want the new iOS app for seamless remote working. We have to favour customers that stay up to date. You can keep running update 4 of course, just by end of april the default iOS app will require update 5. So users can block iOS updates for 3CX if they wish. That will give them a couple of months more. It should also be noted that we have been warning customers to upgrade to LInux or Windows 10/2020 for a long time now....
@dougkinzinger - Yes, some form of proxy support for Teams is being researched and considered.

 

[michelescapini]

@Nick Galea when the update 5 is released?

 

[Polaris15]

@Nick Galea Thanks for the response. I am aware of all the features you have listed. I was talking more about a Web based API. I was told it was in development and was available to some users for testing but would be made available to all customers at some point earlier this year. While I understand these things can take time, I would just like to know if this is still in development/on the roadmap? Thanks

 

[N_G]

@Polaris15 - all those APIs are web based..... If you have a specific functionality for an API in mind let me know or put it in the feature requests? I believe we cover 95% of the integration cases.

@michelescapini - as mentioned in the blog post we can never give exact dates. We just released the beta.

 

[cobaltit]

Given the update to Version 5 will require Windows Users to also upgrade to W2016 would you consider holding off on the update ? With Covid-19 having a massive impact all around the world any unnecessary changes should surely be avoided ? Lots of end users are imposing change freezes which mean we can not go there.

So this was announced several months ago:

https://www.3cx.com/blog/releases/apple-push-update-windows/

And if it's important to them, people will pay. They weren't budgeting for $1000's of dollars to deal with COVID but companies are spending all sorts of money on Zoom or Teams licenses, laptops, cloud resources, etc so I'm pretty sure they can spring for a new server/VM/OS license for 3CX if they really want their PUSH notifications.

 

[Polaris15]

@Nick Galea As I said. I am aware you have features for specific requirements. We are considering 3CX for our primary call centre and voip system but are also looking at a competitor who has full API coverage e.g. Initiating calls, pulling data to build custom reports, updating settings of their voip system, adding extensions, adding groups etc etc.

I only want to know if something like this is already in development?

 

[N_G]

@Polaris15 - You can initiate calls and you have access to the call data.... But settings, extension management etc has to be done via the management console. Maybe the ability to programmatically create an extension will be possible via API at some point but not full programmability as you are referring to.... I don't also see it justifying the development & testing effort on your part or the support effort on our part...... Integration with CRM apps, website, messaging etc fully understood... Of course i know there are platforms out there that can do this but its not 3CX direction....