New features and capabilities to enable a more inclusive way of working
Welcome to what’s new in Webex! This article highlights new Webex features and capabilities that we have recently introduced, as well as a preview of new features coming in early 2021.
We’re excited to introduce the all new Webex!… If you are an existing Webex user, When you’re ready to make the switch to the new Webex, we’ll be here to help you through the transition.
INTEGRATIONS AND INDUSTRY SOLUTIONS
CONTROL HUB, SECURITY AND EDGE SERVICES
MEETINGS
Animated meeting reactions
In-meeting animated reactions emojis gives users more freedom to express themselves non-verbally with emoji’s for clap, thumbs up/down, smile, laugh, sad, surprised, and celebrate.
And for the holiday’s we’ve introduced a few seasonal options too.
Enhanced video layout controls
We’ve optimized the layout controls to a single button, labeled Layout. And now we’ve added the option to hide non-video participants to this menu as well for easy access, so you can select the view you want. We’re just getting started, stay tuned for more customized layout options coming in a future release.
And to be more consistent with your experiences on Webex devices, we’ve updated the layout views too. Active speaker and thumbnail video view is now called, Stage view. Active speaker video view is now called, Focus view. Video strip view is now called, Stack view. Floating panel view is now called, Fullscreen view.
Hide names in video
For a more immersive meeting experience, after a few minutes of inactivity name labels now hide for participants not speaking. Forget someone’s name? No problem, name labels will reappear when moving the mouse.
New meeting experience when mobile
We’re continuing to introduce new meeting experiences for mobile users. Recent meeting feature addition for mobile include Webex meeting streaming support for IOS user via Airplay and Apple TV, and iPad users can temporarily mute or unmute by long pressing the bluetooth keyboard’s space bar.
Improved post meeting share experience
Now participant e-mails are also available in the post meeting experience for Webex Assistant making it easier to share transcripts and highlights. On the post-meeting web page, you can now quickly select from participants and invitees to share the post-meeting content with them for view or edit access. This option applies to both the entire post-meeting content as well as just the highlights, if any. Click Select people from participants and invitees.
VDI enhancements
Webex now enables VMWare support for Linux (Ubuntu and eLux) thin clients.
MESSAGING
We’re creating more personalization and adding more intelligence to enhance team collaboration.
Happy holidays – new Seasonal Emoji Reactions
To add some festive cheer to your messaging, we’re giving reactions a seasonal makeover. You’ll see these changes for all reactions on Windows and Mac from December 8 to January 7. (On mobile, reactions use the Android or iOS emojis so we aren’t updating those reactions.)
New Personalization Options
New Webex personalization features let you insert images and colors to fit your style at work. Select a cover photo for your space, choose your favorite color theme for 1:1 and group spaces, and cobranding options.
Set a Cover Photo for Your Profile and Spaces
For a personal touch, choose a background image for your profile, contact card, and spaces. You can select from a set of predefined images, but we’re planning to add support for custom images soon. Available on Windows and Mac.
Choose a New, More Colorful, Theme
Add more color to your views by choosing one of the new themes—Bronze, Jade, and Lavender. Find these new themes in your settings, along with the Light and Dark themes you already had. Supported across —Windows, Mac, iPhone, iPad, and Android
Watch the video to get a quick preview of all three.
CALLING
Consistent user experience for call and meetings
The call and meeting windows on the Webex desktop app now have a fresh new look with modernized icon style, plus an easy to recognize and simplified experience. Now your active calls and meetings have similar user interfaces. This includes duration call timer, an animated microphone icon that indicates your voice input level, a call control bar with text buttons and new icons and more.
Webex Calling
Hunt Groups
Hunt groups are calling groups that can distribute a single call across a specific group of users. You no longer have to go to the Calling Admin portal to set up and configure hunt groups for your locations. You can complete application services configuration in Control Hub under the Features section. For more information, see Hunt Groups in Cisco Webex Control Hub.
Boss Admin
Now you can make and answer calls on your boss’ behalf with Webex Calling Boss-Admin (also known as Executive Assistant feature). If you have more than one boss, you can select the appropriate line when making a call. And you’ll always know which boss an incoming call is intended for. Learn more here.
Call recording
With Webex Calling, call recording is supported if enabled by your admin. Depending on your setup, your incoming and outgoing calls may be recorded automatically, or you may be able to decide which calls you want to record. You’re presented with a visual indicator letting you know when a call is being recorded. Find more details here.
Recent calling features announced for desktops are now available on mobile: Call History details, click on Call icon, and Mirror self video.
DEVICES
Webex continues to add features to enable common app and device experiences to support more hybrid work scenarios.
Custom background options
Looking for a more personalized option for your office? The Webex Desk Pro already supports standard virtual background options. Now we’re giving you the option add your own image with the new custom background upload feature.
Whiteboard black canvas feature
Now you can change between black and white canvas when you’re using the whiteboard. Webex Boards, Desk Devices, and Room Devices.
INTEGRATIONS AND INDUSTRY SOLUTIONS
Microsoft Outlook BOT
Stay on top of your inbox with notifications from the Outlook Alerts for Microsoft Office 365 bot for Webex. Create custom rules based on subject lines and email recipients and never again miss a business-critical email. For greater efficiency and fluidity, you can even have those insights sent directly to relevant Webex spaces and teams.
Pager Duty Bot
Automatically create a War Room space with the team responsible for a service. Add service owners, acknowledge or resolve, and escalate incidents quickly using the bot. Learn more here.
CONTACT CENTER
All new Webex Contact Center
Webex is introducing a next-generation, fully customizable cloud contact center solution for digital-first engagement. Inspired by customers and architected for business, Webex Contact Center delivers the future of customer experience – today. Available in December, learn more about powerful new features and capabilities here.
CONTROL HUB, SECURITY AND EDGE SERVICES
If you are an admin, Webex Control Hub places management, monitoring, troubleshooting, analytics, edge and hybrid services across all your collaboration resources in one pane of glass.
Proactive Notifications with ability to add thresholds
Webex Control Hub admins can now enter custom thresholds on latency, jitter, and packet loss to help control the quality of collaboration experiences.
Revamped Meetings Analytics Quality Page
We’re redesigning the Meetings Analytics Network Quality page with a new user-friendly layout – this also means faster load times with higher data resolution and real time data capabilities. IT admins can view real time data (up to 10 minutes lag), identify users with repetitive network quality issues and cross launching into trouble shooting. We’re also introducing new network quality KPIs and metrics for VoIP, video and join meeting time (JMT) plus trending charts with summary statistics. Analytics in Cisco Webex Control Hub give administrators access to interactive data visualizations that show important information, such as usage and adoption trends and explore data as it automatically adapts to parameters that you specify in real-time.
New Reports: High CPU Usage, Peak Meeting Usage, Microsoft Teams and Slack Integrations Usage
Webex Control Hub now allows admins to build custom reports by selecting dimensions and metrics to generate a CSV or continue to leverage the standards reports. They also have access to new standard reports including high CPU usage, peak meeting usage, and integrations from Microsoft Teams and Slack.
Headset Analytics in Webex Control Hub
Updated Device Analytics page in Webex Control Hub includes usage and inventory information about Cisco Headsets – enabling IT Admins to track how Cisco Headsets are used, what is the geographic distribution of headsets and which models are popular.
Webex Calling events API
The Webhooks API in Webex for Developers has been enhanced to support Webex Calling Call Control events. With this enhancement for user specific calling events developers can provide insight to users on the state of their call in realtime — answered, held, forwarded, recording paused and more. Learn more here.
COMING SOON
The all new Webex is bringing new feature innovation to your collaboration experiences. Here are a just a few examples of coming soon features:
Meetings
In early 2021 real-time translations will be coming to Webex, breaking down language barriers in meetings. Webex Assistant will soon offer live translation from English to top 15 languages spoken by 80 percent of the world population including Spanish, French, German, Mandarin, Portuguese, Arabic, Russian, Dutch, and Japanese. We will be working to quickly expand this list over time so everyone can participate.
Messaging
Webex is making it easy to stay on top of your most important messages. Leveraging Webex Graph and AI technology, Webex will prioritize the most important messages for you based on the people and spaces you interact with the most – coming soon.
Calling
Webex is making it easy to elevate your calls to rich audio & video- bringing calling from hearing, to seeing & doing. Easily move a 1:1 telephone call into a Webex video meeting and take advantage of AI transcriptions, notes and action items, and recordings.
Devices
The Webex team is reimagining the desk for our new hybrid work environment and expanded our integrated devices portfolio to include products that help with things like virtual meeting fatigue, and support the need for a powerful, professional experience no matter where you work. Click here to learn more.
The Webex Desk Camera will be orderable next month. An intelligent, powerful and affordable new camera built to enhance the remote meeting experience and enable small, safe in-person meetings in the office. It delivers up to 4K ultra HD video with vibrant color and incredible low light performance. Plus, it’s simple to manage remotely with Webex Control Hub. Here’s a sneak peak at the new Webex Desk Camera:
For more information on all of these features and upcoming update to Webex, please visit the What’s New Articles for Webex Services.
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