Replacement for Deprecated "Integrations" feature
Background to the Interactions Plugin Feature
The Interactions Plugin was a feature designed to provide agents with access to customer interaction history based on recognised contact details. It offered the following capabilities:
- When a customer initiated contact through a known endpoint (e.g., phone number, email), the system checked for a match and displayed the customer’s interaction history to the agent.
- If a customer contacted the organisation from an unrecognised endpoint, agents manually search for the customer’s interaction history using the Interactions Plugin.
Note:
The Interactions plugin is made up of two parts:
The customer account service - which was last updated in June 2023
The plugin which is displayed in SmartAgent - which was last updated July 2023
Limitations
Despite its utility, the Interactions Plugin has several key limitations.
- Unrestricted Access. Once enabled for a client instance, all agents could access the feature, with no option to control or restrict access.
- Lack of Agent Hierarchy Enforcement
Agents could view interactions from other departments, potentially exposing sensitive or irrelevant customer data.
Due to these limitations, a strategic decision was made to retire the Interactions Plugin in favour of a more secure and structured approach to customer interaction management.
The Replacements: Contact Search & Contact History
To address the limitations of the Interactions plugin, we have introduced Contact Search and Contact History. These new features provide a more structured and controlled way of accessing customer interactions, with key benefits including:
- Role-Based Permissions: Access can be assigned to specific roles.
- Agent Hierarchy Compliance: Ensures agents can only view interactions relevant to their department.
- Enhanced security access: Tags can be used to further limit access to customer interactions.
- Enhanced User Experience: A more visually appealing and data-rich interface compared to the Interactions plugin.
Contact Search
This feature provides agents with the ability to search for interactions related to a customer if they have used a different endpoint. For example, a customer calling from an unknown number or following up on an email.
Gap Matrix Interactions plugin vs Contact Search
| Function | Interactions Plugin | Contact History | Comments |
|---|---|---|---|
| Search by: Global |  | | Free Text Search |
| Search by: Email | | | |
| Search by: Agent Id | | | |
| Search by: Customer ID | | | |
| Social ID | | | Customers Social Handle |
| Phone Number | | | |
| Case Ref (old version of Case’s which has been deprecated) | |  | This is the old version of Case’s which has since been deprecated. |
| Unique Social ID | | | This is the unique identifier used by a social media companies to identify individual customers. |
| Cc Email Addresses | | | |
| Permission Based Agent Access | | | |
| Respects Agent hierarchy | | | |
| Easy to understand UI | | | |
| Prevents agents from listening and viewing interactions from outside of their hierarchy | | | |
| Supports granular agent access by use of Tags | | | |
| Displays Automated Rules for email interactions that are handled inside of Connect | | | |
| Displays AR rules for email interactions that are handled outside of Connect, i.e. Ended Contacts | | | Interactions that are ended by Automated Rules do not enter Connect, and thus no CTR is created, only an interaction is created. This will be resolved in the 2.98 release. |
| Supports Task Ingestion | | |
Contact History
If activated, this feature is invoked when an agent accepts a contact. The system checks the Customers endpoint, and if a match is found, all previous contacts are displayed to the agent. Additionally, the agent is informed of how many times the customer has made contact within a specified number of days.
Note: Contact History only returns information using the Customer’s endpoint - no search capabilities are available within the feature.
Gap Matrix Interactions plugin vs Contact History
| Information Displayed | Interactions Plugin | Contact History | Comments |
|---|---|---|---|
| Contact ID | | | Voice, Chat, Email, SMS, FB, INSTA, WA |
| Queue | | | Voice, Chat, Email, SMS, FB, INSTA, WA |
| Date | | | Voice, Chat, Email, SMS, FB, INSTA, WA |
| Channel | | | Voice, Chat, Email, SMS, FB, INSTA, WA |
| Agent | | | Voice, Chat, Email, SMS, FB, INSTA, WA |
| Duration | | | Voice, Chat, Email, SMS, FB, INSTA, WA |
| Initiation Method | | | Voice, Chat, Email, SMS, FB, INSTA, WA |
| System Endpoint | | | Voice, Chat, Email, SMS, FB, INSTA, WA |
| Customer Name | | | |
| From, To, Subject, Cc, Date, Time | | | |
| Message Body, Date, Time | | | |
| Show all messages in a thread | | | |
| Displays Automated Rules for email interactions that are handled inside of Connect | | | |
| Displays Automated Rules for email interactions that are handled outside of Connect, i.e. Ended Contacts | | | Interactions that are Ended by AR do not enter Connect, and thus no CTR is created, only an interaction is created. This will be resolved in 2.98 release. |
| Permission Based Agent Access | | | |
| Respects Agent hierarchy | | | |
| Easy to understand UI | | | |
| Prevents agents from listening and viewing interactions from outside of their hierarchy | | | |
| Supports granular agent access by use of Tags | | |