What's new in Webex: November 2021

There is a lot of gratitude here at Webex as we build on the momentum of all the innovation announcements at WebexOne. If you didn’t get a chance to attend, you can still catch the replays here. This month we are bringing to you more exciting capabilities to power your hybrid workspaces, workforce, workflows, platform, and customer experience. Read below for details. WORKFORCE WORKSPACES CUSTOMER EXPERIENCES WORKFLOWS PLATFORM

WORKFORCE

Webex App A fresh new look for a best-in-class experience As part of our ongoing rebrand the Webex App has had a transformation with vibrant new colors, fun new iconography, graphics and new color schemes for you to personalize your app experience. we also delivered improvements to accessibility, usability, and performance. For more details go here. Webex optimized for iPad Webex for iPad delivers ultimate productivity experience with the familiarity of iPadOS, and support for native features like Split View for multitasking and Center Stage, which automatically pans the camera to keep users in view. Read more about it. Hide availability from specific users Webex App takes user privacy seriously. Users can now select to hide their availability and status from another specific user via two easy options: visit the privacy tab in your preferences/settings menu and add a user, or simply right click on the user from your Webex contact list and select ‘Hide my availability and status’. Users will no longer see your availability & custom status, but you will continue to see theirs.  This feature helps you remain focused and on track by removing distractions, while still letting your teams know you are available. Learn more. Join a meeting from the global search bar  With one click, you can join a meeting from the global search bar at the top of the Webex app with a new green “Join” button. Simply paste any of the following four meeting join methods into search: Meeting number, Video/SIP address, Meeting link or, PMR link and the green “join” button will appear. Expanded Cisco Calling plans availability We recently announced additional European coverage for Cisco Calling Plans with 10 EU countries available in trials. We’re happy to announce 6 of these countries are now generally available: Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, and Ireland. Additional EU countries will be coming soon. Learn more  about Cisco Calling Plans and other PSTN options that are available for Webex Calling. Video capabilities for ad hoc conference calls Now you can use video instead of just voice in N-way ad-hoc conference calls with up to 6 participants, when you’re using video capable devices; such as, Multiplatform Phones or the Webex App.

Breakout session – Host and cohost muting capabilities Up till now, breakout session attendees could mute and unmute themselves freely. But in some situations, the ability for meeting hosts and cohosts to control the mute behavior in breakout sessions is necessary. Starting this month, meeting host and cohosts will be able to mute attendees on entry and prevent attendees from unmuting themselves.

  Accessibility improvements In some meetings, if there is a lot of action (people joining and leaving, chat, reactions, questions, etc.), the screen reader announcements can become disruptive. With this feature, users will be able to customize their screen reader notifications to suit their preferences. Also, users will be able to adjust the font size of the text in the Chat panel from directly within the Meetings window.

1080p video resolution support In most situations, 720p video resolution is good enough for a video conference. But in some situations, you may want to see one attendee’s video in higher resolution – maybe a teacher, client or your boss. That’s why we are excited to launch support for 1080p video resolution. Now any attendee can select to send their video in 1080p resolution, and all attendees will receive that resolution when viewing only that attendee’s video in a grid view or stage view.

WORKSPACES 

Webex Rooms-Bad network indicator No more wondering if there are network issues that are impacting your room device. With this capability, you will receive a notification letting you know if there are issues with the network where the device is connected.

CUSTOMER EXPERIENCES  

Webex Contact Center is now a Chrome Enterprise Recommended solution by Google Built on a next generation cloud-based platform, Webex Contact Center delivers digital-first customer engagement, contextual customer experience management, and super-agent intelligence. Webex Contact Center’s best-of-breed platform architecture with Chrome‘s fast, secure OS, brings your business the innovation, flexibility, scalability, and agility of the cloud without sacrificing security. Read more on why Google is recommending Webex Contact Center.

WORKFLOWS

Schedule Meetings faster with new Calendly Integration No more copying and pasting Webex video conferencing details to a Calendly meeting. With this integration you can easily setup both tools by authenticating with Webex from the Integrations page in Calendly and selecting Webex as location within your event type field. Once changes are saved, Calendly will automatically generate a dynamic Webex meeting link in the calendar invite every time a meeting is scheduled. Learn more.

Elevate your service organization performance with Webex App for Salesforce Webex is proud to announce the extension of the Webex App for Salesforce to include Service-oriented workflows, particularly geared towards allowing highly skilled agents to serve their customers faster, as well as enhancing their ability to nurture healthy relationships with them. Click to learn more and download the Webex App for Salesforce

PLATFORM

Simplified user management Streamline your user onboarding and management with a simplified user management experience. You can now sync your Active Directory groups and members in Control Hub and bulk assign privileges to different users in your organization, saving IT time and resources.

Optimized media routing in Asia Pacific Webex Calling Media Point of Presence (PoP) in Singapore will offers edge services, media services, and interconnections with partners such as Cloud-Connected PSTN Partners (CCPP) to customer locations in Southeast Asian countries. Users in the region will connect to the Singapore PoP as their closest entry point to the Webex network, minimizing latency and improving media quality allowing for optimal performance. Group license assignment With this capability system admins can now add or update license to both new and existing users in active directory groups. Learn more here.  Resources  Click here to learn more about the new Webex Suite and see for yourself how it can enable your organization for hybrid work Get started and sign up for Webex Learn More  Webex Suite Hybrid Work Index: Data-driven insights to guide your decisions for the Hybrid Work era. Learn more about webex, join one of our upcoming training sessions  Explore daily product demonstrations