No Jitter Roll: Five for Friday 2019-09-26No Jitter Roll: Five for Friday 2019-09-26
A look at the latest news coming from Cisco, Salesforce, Avaya, NextPlane, and Serviceaide.
September 26, 2019
In this week’s No Jitter Roll, we share the latest on collaboration and customer relationship management security, contact center platform enhancements, Webex Teams federation capabilities, and virtual agent automation.
Cisco Extends Webex Security Options
This week, Cisco announced the availability of its Cisco Webex Control Hub Extended Security Pack.
Designed to further secure its collaboration platform, the offer packages together Cisco Cloudlock CASB for Webex Teams with native Webex anti-malware capabilities powered by Cisco Talos ClamAV running in Webex Cloud. Additionally, it offers advanced user protection against Trojans, ransomware, and other attacks, according to Cisco. Outside collaboration is also protected through Cisco’s Cloudlock CASB supporting Data Loss Prevention (DLP) policies.
Webex users can purchase this security stack as an add-on to their subscription.
Salesforce Tackles Security With a ‘Quip’
In other security news, customer relationship management (CRM) provider Salesforce announced it is beefing up security in its collaboration too, Quip, with a new set of features called Quip Shield.
Developed for “regulation heavy” industries (financial services, healthcare, public sector, etc.) in mind, the advanced security offering provides three services:
Enterprise key management (EKM): This service allows administrators to create, manage, and control access to encryption keys, Salesforce said. Administrators can also track key usage through an unchangeable audit log and respond to threats by revoking access to encrypted data.
Event monitoring: Quip’s event monitoring capabilities let users programmatically monitor activity and set in place custom rules to flag and address suspicious behavior, Salesforce said.
Antivirus scanning: Files are automatically scanned for malicious content when they are uploaded to Quip, according to Salesforce. Additionally, Salesforce is bringing HIPAA certification to Quip for users in the healthcare industry.
Quip Shield is currently available for an additional cost and pricing varies based on usage.
NextPlane Announces Webex Teams Federation
In federation news, UC interoperability provider NextPlane this week released federation capabilities for Cisco Webex Teams, which follows up a similar announcement last month of Microsoft Teams interoperability.
With the latest announcement, NextPlane’s ConverseCloud users can now openly federate with Cisco Webex Teams users. Nextplane now offers federation services across Cisco’s range of collaboration tools, including Jabber, Nextplane said.
Universal federation and interoperability service for Webex Teams is offered on a tiered system, from Basic to Premium.
Avaya Enhances CC Portfolio
Moving over to the contact center space, Avaya unveiled its latest enhancement to its Avaya IX Contact Center portfolio this week, focusing on frontline agents. The new features will include:
Avaya IX Teamspace. This feature will allow frontline agents to communicate and collaborate with back-office staff through rich media chat and messaging capabilities, Avaya said.
Avaya IX Dashboard. Designed for middle and senior CX managers, this modular dashboard provides a snapshot of a customer’s journey with accessible analytics. The dashboard is delivered via a single interface viewable from any device, Avaya said.
Agent Scripting. To address the inconsistencies in agent skill sets, this browser-based call flow scripting platform provides on-screen step-by-step guidance designed to better navigate customer interactions, Avaya said. Additionally, the feature can be integrated with CRM and other back-end systems to make customer data available to agents.
Serviceaide Puts Virtual Agents to Work
Lastly, this week enterprise service management software provider Serviceaide launched its IT automation solution, Luma Automation.
The automation solution can be integrated with Serviceaide’s AI-based Luma Virtual Agent, allowing users to automate numerous tasks for virtual agents through a conversational interface, Serviceaide said. This combined offering can automate password reset requests, account unlocks, file and disk cleanups, database queries, service restarts, system and service restarts and reboots, and change of service access requests.
Luma can either be integrated into Serviceaide’s IT service management suite, Intelligent Service Management, or other management system, according to Serviceaide. A Luma Automation plan includes Luma Virtual agent, and the service is sold in bundles (a 50,000 bundle costs less than 50 cents per transaction), according to Serviceaide.
