November 21, 2024

Microsoft Teams Phone has recently seen updates and enhancements that strengthen its position as a communication platform for businesses. Here are some notable features and improvements:

Key Updates in Microsoft Teams Phone

1. Enhanced Call Management:

   • Features like auto attendants, call queues, and group call pickups have been refined. Administrators can configure call distribution based on office hours, holidays, and other custom criteria.
   • Improved presence indicators make it easier for users to see colleagues’ availability before transferring or forwarding calls.

2. Mobile and Device Integration:

   • Teams Phone now supports seamless call transfers between devices and has introduced a CarPlay app to enhance usability for mobile professionals.

3. Global Scalability:

   • Leveraging Microsoft’s Global Delivery Network, Teams Phone ensures minimal disruption when scaling across businesses of any size, making it a flexible choice for growing organizations.

4. Improved User Management:

   • A new Teams Phone Administrator role simplifies the creation and management of resource accounts for call queues and auto attendants. This feature addresses complexity issues during migration and reduces administrative overhead.

5. Security Enhancements:

   • Teams Phone includes robust security measures like SSL encryption for data at rest and in transit, as well as Secure Real-Time Transport Protocol (SRTP) for audio and video communications. Additional features like Advanced Threat Analytics are available with E3 and E5 plans.

6. Licensing and Cost Efficiency:

   • Microsoft offers various calling plans, including domestic and international options. These plans allow businesses to pool unused minutes across users, optimizing costs.

7. Limitations and Considerations:

   • Teams Phone still lacks certain advanced features needed for complex call center operations, such as sophisticated call routing and native call recording. Additionally, CRM integrations are not yet robust, which may impact businesses heavily reliant on customer relationship management platforms.

Microsoft’s continuous updates and integration capabilities make Teams Phone a competitive choice for businesses looking to enhance their communication infrastructure while benefiting from its broader Microsoft 365 ecosystem.

October 15, 2024

Microsoft Teams has introduced several updates recently, enhancing functionality and user experience. Here are the key new features:

1. Unified Chat and Channels: Chats and channels are now integrated into a single, streamlined interface, eliminating the need to switch between tabs. This improves navigation and communication efficiency

2. Customizable Sections: Users can create personalized sections to organize chats, channels, or projects based on specific workflows, making it easier to access relevant information​
3. Enhanced Filters and Favorites: New filtering options allow users to focus on unread messages or specific conversations, while a favorites section consolidates pinned chats and channels for quick access
4. Improved @Mentions View: A dedicated view for @mentions ensures users can easily track important messages directed at them, with additional filters to refine visibility
5. Threaded Conversations: Replies in channels are now grouped into threads, helping teams manage multiple topics in an organized manner
6. Onboarding and Customization: A new self-service onboarding feature allows users to set preferences, such as viewing messages and channels together or separately. This enables teams to tailor Teams to their specific needs
7. Public Preview Availability: These updates are part of a public preview, allowing users to test the new features before general release. Admins can enable or disable the preview for their teams

These updates reflect Microsoft Teams’ focus on improving collaboration and productivity by simplifying workflows and offering more customization.

MiVoice Connect Life Cycle Update. End of Design Support (Patches) extended to December 31, 2025.  Mitel will maintain the ability to deliver patches to their discretion until December 31, 2025 in case a critical new operational issue affecting a significant number of customers arise.  There will be no software updates of any kind effective January 1, 2025.

Note that previously unaddressed or newly discovered security vulnerabilities after December 31, 2024 will not necessarily qualify as a critical new operational issue.  Mitel reserves the right to make that assessment should it be necessary.  Security-conscious MiVoice Connect customers should accelerate their transition to MiVoice Business, our go-forward solution that is continually updated as new security vulnerabilities are discovered.

Please click the link to see the most current information — Migrate To MiVoice Business

September 1st, 2024 — MiVoice Connect 22.28.9700.0 Software Release

Hot Fix Release — Hot Fix Release 1 replaced the previous R20.0 release and is the primary R20.0 release going forward.

• The hot fix was released primarily to address issues with the TDIMedia driver.

Rocky Linux Support for Virtual Appliances — Beginning with Release 20.0 all virtual appliances on MiVoice Connect have migrated from CentOS to Rocky Linux.

CloudLink — Beginning with release 20.0 the CloudLink field has been added to Director.  This allows for users to authenticate using the cloud as well as enabling push notifications for mobility users.

MySQL Version Upgrade — Beginning with release 20.0 the MySQL version is now 8.0.32

Security Hardening — Release 20.0 has updates remediating several security issues.

Windows Server 2021 — All versions of Windows Server 2012 are no longer supported in 20.0

Software Compatibility — Due to the changes in 20.0 we cannot support N-1 Functionality with the softphone.  If users intend on using the softphone they need to update their Connect Client to 214.100.3231.0

6915 Phones Support — Beginning with release 20.0 MiVoice Connect natively supports 6915 phone with firmware 6.3.0.3045

6970 Phone Support — Beginning with release 20.0 MiVoice Connect natively supports 6970 phones with firmware 6.3.0.3045

MiVoice Connect Client 214.100.3231.0

Chromium Update for Connect Client — The Connect Client was updated to support the latest Chromium.  The updated Connect Client supports Mac OS 14 “Sonoma”

*Before upgrading please compare the difference between old and new as features have changed.

View Release Notes

July 18th, 2024 — Status Update on the Windows Update Issue affecting MiVoice Connect.

Mitel is still working through a formal fix to be released in a future build.

In the meantime, we have a workaround that allows an older version of the media driver to replace the current driver.  Microsoft is not blocking the media driver published before a certain date.

The following builds are affected and will require the older media driver version to be installed.

22.24.7100.0

22.24.1500.0

22.23.5600.0

22.22.6100.0

22.20.2300.0

22.20.1300.0

22.18.4600.0

22.13.4800.0

22.11.9300.0

There is no downside to running the older media driver version.

This will require downtime of the system, so we will need to schedule outside normal business hours.

We have documented each system running the affected builds and will start the process of opening a change control request and start formal communications to schedule.

Please email service@bts1981.com with any questions.

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June 3rd, 2024

MiVoice Connect 20.0 is now Available

• 6915 phone support
• 6970 native support
• SIP-DECT 700 series handsets
• Mobile Push Notifications
• Rocky Linux
• MySQL 8.0.32
• VMware 8.0
• Contact Center Update
  • TLS 1.2/SSL 1.1.1
  • MySQL 5.7.43
• Security updates
  • ISC BIND for ST voice switches
  • 28 different library updates
  • Contact Center vulnerabilities
• Defect fixes

View Release Notes

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May 24th, 2024

After Windows updates from April 9 and May 14 are applied (KB5036896 and KB5039705 Win 2019 – KB5036899 and KB5037763 Win 2016 ) Several services will not start on HQ/DVS

ShoreTel VmEmSync
Shoreware CSIS VM server
ShoreTel Soft Telephony switch
Shoreware Voicemail Message Server
Shoreware Voicemail Port manager
Shoreware WG server

NOTE: Since cumulative updates will get pushed out the 2nd Tuesday of every month, Windows updates should be disabled on all Mitel servers for the time being until this issue is resolved.

Current Workaround:
Rolling back these updates resolves the issue in 100% of the cases.  Rollback timeframe is 1 hour.

Mitel is awaiting signed driver approval from Microsoft.

Please check back periodically for additional updates.

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May 2nd, 2024

We wanted to send a reminder that we are still awaiting additional feedback from Mitel on a permanent resolution.  Please be aware that Microsoft’s May update release will also contain these April updates.

Issue

After April 9 Windows updates (KB5036896 – Win 2019, KB5036899 – Win 2016 ) are applied the following services will not start on HQ and DVS servers:

EmVmSync
CSIS VM Server
Shoretel Soft Telephony Switch
Shoreware Voicemail Message Server
Shoreware Voicemail Port Manager
Shoreware WG Server

Cause

– KB5036896: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/topic/april-9-2024-kb5036896-os-build-17763-5696-efb580f1-2ce4-4695-b76c-d2068a00fb92

– KB5036899: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/topic/april-9-2024-kb5036899-os-build-14393-6897-6a0b7cdd-dd67-4ef8-8c38-8a936b2f952c

Resolutions and Workarounds

Resolution

Rolling back this Windows updates from April 9 resolves the issue in 100% of the cases.

November 11th, 2024

Mitel Performance Analytics 3.5

Mitel Performance Analytics (MPA) 3.5 is Generally Available starting October 30, 2024. MPA 3.5 has improved network performance, more robust security, and streamlined management for Mitel solutions. Some of the available new features and functionality include:

• Seamless software updates
• Enhanced device management
• Stronger security with TLS 1.3
• Improved reporting and insights
• Efficient monitoring and alarm resolution

AI-Enhanced Channels Added to MiContact Center Business
A new video provides an overview of the Talkative add-on channels available for MiContact Center Business (MiCC Business). The available features include GenAI-enhanced virtual agent chatbot, agent assistant copilot, web chat, video chat, AI knowledge base, analytics, and reporting, all integrated into the MiCC Business Ignite agent interface.

Release of Mitel IP-DECT TDM Gateway
The new Mitel IP-DECT TDM Gateway allows customers to easily bridge legacy TDM-DECT infrastructure with IP DECT infrastructure via the Local Area Network (LAN). It mainly serves MX-ONE Integrated DECT (e.g., ELU31/x and BS33x/BS34x Base Stations). With the IP DECT Gateway, customers can continue to benefit from investments already made in DECT technology while upgrading to Mitel IP-DECT and continuing their route towards all-IP at their own pace.

NEW 6915v2 IP Phone Resources
In October, Mitel announced the general availability of the 6915v2 IP Phone. Version 2 of the device was redesigned with a new processor from the same family as the one used in the w-model phones. This update comes because the phone’s processor used in version 1 is nearing the end of its life. The 6915v2 IP phone keeps the same form and feature set as its predecessor. We added new resources about the device, now available in English, German, and French.

October 15h, 2024

Mitel Adds Critical Event Management Solution to their Portfolio. 

Critical events affect us more than ever – companies, organizations, and individuals. Therefore, risk Planning & Mitigation are key success factors to respond quickly and effectively to critical events. Together with our partner Everbridge, Critical Event Management provides answers to critical customer challenges, helps to accelerate the customers digital transformation journey, improves our customers’ operational efficiency, reduces time to resolution and enhances employee and customer experience. We offer risk planning and mitigation when it’s needed the most to keep people safe and businesses running.

December 15th, 2023

MiVoice Business 10.1 Release

• 6915 as a 6920
• EMEM Enhancements for Hospitality
• EMEM Improve Name and Number VVM/EUM/F2E display for callers with no mailbox
• MSL 12
• TLS 1.3 support
• Location support for 6900w
• Ring Group Name in Ring Group Form
• MiVBC Accessibility for Operators
• EX Controller DGW 49.1
• VMware 8.0
• Nutanix
• MSA SDK 7.2

MiVoice Solution Virtual Instance 1.0

• Single VM with MiVB, MBG and MiCollab on VMware
• 250 and 500 user versions
• Single resilient pair

December 21st 2024

RingCentral is adding AI features to their platform which will be included in your subscription.  Here is a video on a few of the features.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RqVKtZzc4Lk

Key features of RingCentral AI with EX:

• Real-time call notes:

Automatically capture key points during calls, generating summaries and action items. 

• AI message writing and translation:

Compose messages in different languages, with the AI suggesting wording and translations. 

• Meeting summaries:

Generate concise recaps of video meetings, highlighting key decisions and action items. 

• Live transcription and closed captioning:

Real-time transcription of calls and video meetings with closed captioning for accessibility. 

• Video meeting highlights:

AI automatically identifies important moments in recorded video meetings and creates highlight clips. 

Add on Feature – RingCentral RingSense — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tyejz4T6S0U

RingSense is a conversation intelligence platform that uses AI to analyze business conversations and provide insights to improve customer engagement and sales performance: 

• Transcriptions: Automatically generates transcripts of phone calls, video meetings, and emails 
• Summaries: Creates summaries of conversations 
• Sentiment analysis: Analyzes the sentiment of conversations 
• Call and deal scoring: Scores calls and deals 
• Performance metrics: Analyzes performance metrics 
• Coaching opportunities: Identifies opportunities for coaching 
• Conversation analysis: Determines which types of conversations lead to specific results 
• Data-driven insights: Provides data-driven information 
• Actionable insights: Provides actionable insights 

RingSense can be used by businesses of all sizes to improve customer engagement and sales performance. It can be integrated with CRMs like Salesforce, HubSpot, Zoho Dynamics, and Outreach. 

RingSense stores data securely and does not share it with third parties.

October 21, 2024

Vonage Enhancements

• Progressive Dialer (Connect) for Service Cloud Voice  

• Send real-time conversation events 

• Vonage Enhanced Noise Cancellation for WebRTC 

• Virtual Desktop Infrastructure support for WebRTC 

• Agent warning when local issues may affect WebRTC 

• Headset controls for WebRTC 

Salesforce Open CTI

• Support Enhanced Omni-Channel with external routing 

• Support external routing for the newer Messaging In-app/Web channel 

Conversation Analyzer

• Historical Analytics: Sentiment analysis

ContactPad

• Add notes during an interaction

Administration

• Enhanced license management

Insights

• Team Monitoring: Optional phone number column 

• Real-time Analytics: Control access to Agent state summary 

• Real-time Analytics: UX improvements 

• Real-time Analytics: Virtual Assistant reporting 

• Historical Analytics: Mark as favorite 

• Historical Analytics: Agent summary dataset — now generally available

Interaction Architect

• Selectable data types in Data Router applet

APIs

• Interaction Plan Management API

• Media Channels API

• Webhook subscriptions

Beta/Early Access

• Intelligent Workspace (NAM) (Info on Oct 21 version)

• Bring Your Own Channel for CCaaS (NAM)

Feature Retirement

• Dialed Number Router applet (deprecated)

• Retirement of VCC Native Webchat (retired)

• Unite case routing (retired)

• Salesforce managed packages

Benefits of Vonetco Cloud

• Scalability

As your business grows, you can add more lines and features without needing to invest in new equipment or hardware.

• Flexibility

Modern phone systems are designed to be adaptable and can be easily changed to suit your business’s needs.

• Reduced costs

You can save money by avoiding excessive licensing fees, traveling less, and reducing IT costs.

• Cost savings

Moving to a cloud-based phone system can be less expensive than a traditional system.

• Increased productivity

A unified communications and hosted VoIP phone system can simplify collaboration and communication management.

• Improved customer service

Advanced call routing features can reduce wait times and ensure prompt customer support.

• Enhanced collaboration

Remote and hybrid teams can more easily work together with video conferencing and screen sharing.

• Voice quality

Improved quality of service (QoS) schemes, better file compression, and fast internet speeds can improve the clarity of voice calls.

• Fully managed by BTS

A fully managed cloud phone system not only modernizes your communications but also allows your team to focus on core business goals while benefiting from cutting-edge technology and round-the-clock support.

November 18, 2024

Here are some new features for Zoom Phone:

• AI Companion

This feature uses AI to help users make calls and follow up more productively. Users can ask questions and get real-time summaries during a call, or request a post-call summary and next steps. 

• Dynamic voicemail greeting

This feature uses AI to automatically create personalized voicemail greetings based on a user’s calendar events. For example, if a user is traveling, the system can generate a greeting that reflects their travel status. 

• Voicemail prioritization

This feature moves urgent messages to the top of the voicemail queue. 

• Voicemail task extraction

This feature delivers tasks from voicemails to help users understand the next steps. 

• Feedback to Zoom

This feature allows users to provide detailed feedback on AI Companion responses. 

• Configurable caller ID

This feature lets teams customize the phone number displayed when making outbound calls. 

• Integrated directories

This feature makes it easy to call a coworker by searching for their name in an integrated directory. 

• Private call park

Account owners and admins can create private call park locations for Poly Edge E devices. 

Zoom Contact Center has many new features, including: 

• AI-powered support: AI Expert Assist provides personalized support for customers, improved productivity for agents, and better intelligence for supervisors. 
• AI Virtual Voice Agent: A new feature that will extend AI capabilities to phone calls. 
• Co-browsing with PII masking: Customers can grant agents secure view access to their screens during voice engagements. 
• Text-to-Speech (TTS) support: Zoom Contact Center supports the same set of voice actors for TTS as Zoom Phone. 
• Reporting: Account owners and admins can access messaging and email reports, logs, and data. 
• Quality assurance (QA) solution: Automatically scores 100% of customer-agent interactions and shares auto-generated comments. 
• Agent desktop: Integrates insights from custom and third-party data sources. 
• Screen Pop settings: Admins can choose whether agents see the screen pop of matching CRM records during call ringing or after the call is answered. 
• Salesforce SMS channel configuration: A new configuration UI for SMS channel settings. 
• Zoom Meetings enhancement with real-time sync: Account owners and admins can sync Zoom Meeting details to Salesforce in real-time. 
• Contact Center SDK updates: Updates every nine months to ensure optimal performance. 

https://support.zoom.com/hc/en/article?id=zm_kb&sysparm_article=KB0067626

October 1, 2024

Recent Zoom enhancements and feature updates include: improved AI Companion with multi-language support for chat summaries, a new Team Chat experience with split view, quick scheduling capabilities directly from chat, immersive view with screen sharing layouts, enhanced whiteboard features with more shapes and follow-along functionality, sign language interpretation options, “smart recordings” that automatically highlight key content, and a refined user interface with customizable button order and color themes.

Key points about recent Zoom updates:

• AI Companion improvements:

Zoom’s AI assistant now provides summaries of chats in multiple languages, helping global teams stay updated. 

• Enhanced Team Chat:

New features like split view, dedicated channel tabs for organization, and the ability to quickly schedule meetings directly from chat conversations. 

• Immersive View enhancements:

Improved screen sharing layouts within immersive view, allowing for better presentation of shared content while maintaining the virtual environment. 

• Whiteboard upgrades:

Added new shapes, rich-text options, and a “follow along with presenter” feature for collaborative whiteboarding. 

• Accessibility features:

Option to enable sign language interpretation for meetings. 

• Smart Recordings:

Automatic content highlighting and grouping within cloud recordings to easily access key parts of a meeting. 

• Visual interface updates:

Customizable button order on the toolbar, new color themes, and improved layout for multi-speaker views. 

November 20, 2024

What is Zultys?

Zultys is a unified communications system that offers IP phones, a contact center, and a variety of features, including:

• Voice: PBX functionality, SMS, text, IM, and group chat 
• Video: Face-to-face connections with file and screen sharing 
• Contact Center: High call volume handling, customer engagement, and loyalty 
• Fax: Paperless sending and receiving of faxes 
• Mobile device integration: Integrate mobile devices into the office phone system 
• Call forwarding: Forward calls to your mobile handset or re-route calls to voicemail 
• Microsoft Exchange integration: Single inbox for delivery of voicemail and faxes 
• Customer Relationship Management (CRM) applications: Integration via industry standard TAPI link 

Zultys phones are designed to be easy to use, reliable, and secure. They can be used on-premise, in the cloud, or in a hybrid configuration. Some Zultys phones include: 

• Zultys ZIP 33i SIP Phone

A business IP phone with a 3-line display, 6 programmable keys, and a dedicated headset port 

• Z 22G IP Phone

Supports wireless headsets and can be used with a compatible Bluetooth headset 

• ZIP 45G

An IP phone with a 3.7” backlit graphical display and dual Gigabit Ethernet ports 

• ZIP 47G

An IP phone with a hi-resolution color display and dual Gigabit Ethernet ports 

• ZIP 49G Smart Media Phone

A phone with a 7 inch touch screen that combines visual communications with the Android operating system