Amazon Connect now supports the ability to configure when whisper flows are used during a contact to optimize flow performance. A whisper flow is what a customer or agent experiences during the moment when they are connected to each other in a voice or chat conversation. With this launch, you can turn off whisper flows, helping you further optimize your flow’s performance and reduce contact duration. For example, you can choose to turn off whisper flows during an outbound or callback scenario to save time when the agent and customer are expecting the contact.
This feature is available in all AWS regions where Amazon Connect is offered.
https://aws.amazon.com/about-aws/whats-new/2024/08/amazon-connect-configure-whisper-flows/
Amazon Connect now makes it easier to deliver high-quality voice experiences in Amazon WorkSpaces Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) environments. Amazon Connect automatically optimizes audio by redirecting media from your agent’s local desktop to Connect, simplifying the agent experience and improving audio quality by reducing network hops. Agents can simply log into their Amazon WorkSpaces client application for a Windows device, a web browser, or Amazon WorkSpaces Thin Client and start accepting calls using your custom agent user interface (i.e., custom Contact Control Panel) using APIs in the Amazon Connect open source JavaScript libraries.
Amazon Connect now supports additional agent scheduling staffing rules, making it easier to schedule agents while complying with labor, union, and other contractual rules. You can now configure five new rules for scheduling agents in Amazon Connect: minimum rest period between shifts, minimum rest period per week, maximum consecutive working days, maximum consecutive day of the week worked, and shift cannot start earlier than the previous day's shift. Once configured, these rules will be applied when new schedules are generated as well as when existing schedules are edited. These additional rules in agent scheduling make day-to-day management of agent schedules easier for managers.
This feature is available in all AWS Regions where Amazon Connect agent scheduling is available.
Amazon Connect now provides an API to update the routing criteria on a contact while it is currently in queue. Routing criteria allow you to target a contact to a specific preferred agent or to a set of agents based on their attributes, such as their proficiency level in a particular language. With this API, you can now update the routing criteria on a queued contact directly from an external system. For example, you could build a dashboard that allows agents to pick contacts from a queue to be routed next, based on attributes such as customer name, and send those routing instructions to Connect with this new API. To learn more about the UpdateContactRoutingData API, see the UpdateContactRoutingData documentation in the Amazon Connect API Reference.
This feature is available in all AWS regions where Amazon Connect is offered.
Amazon Connect Contact Lens generative AI-powered agent performance evaluations (preview) are now available in Europe (Frankfurt), Europe (London), Canada (Central), Asia Pacific (Sydney), Asia Pacific (Tokyo), and Asia Pacific (Singapore) AWS regions, providing managers with generative AI-powered recommendations for answers to questions in agent evaluation forms. Managers now receive additional agent behavioural insights (e.g., did the agent show empathy while delivering bad news?), and get context and justification for the recommended answers (i.e., reference points from the transcript that were used to provide answers), enabling them to perform evaluations faster and more accurately.
With this launch, Contact Lens generative AI-powered agent performance evaluations is available in 8 AWS regions, including the 6 new regions and the existing US East (N. Virginia), US West (Oregon) regions.
Amazon Connect now supports outbound campaign calling to Mexico in the US East (Virginia) and US West (Oregon) regions, making it easier to proactively communicate across voice, SMS, and email for use cases such as delivery notifications, marketing promotions, appointment reminders, or debt collection. Communication capabilities include features such as point-of-dial checks, calling controls for time of day, time zone, number of attempts per contact, and predictive dialing with integrated voicemail detection. A list management capability provided by Amazon Pinpoint can also be used to build customer journeys and multi-channel user contact experiences. Outbound campaigns can be enabled within the AWS Connect Console.
With Amazon Connect outbound campaigns, you only pay-as-you-go for the high-volume outbound service usage, associated telephony charges and any monthly target audience charges via Amazon Pinpoint.
https://aws.amazon.com/about-aws/whats-new/2024/08/amazon-connect-outbound-campaigns-mexico/
Amazon Connect now provides in-app and web voice and video calling capabilities in Africa (Cape Town) region, making it easier to deliver more personalized voice and video experiences in your websites and mobile applications. These voice and video capabilities allow customers to contact you without having to leave your website or mobile application. You can use these capabilities to pass contextual information to Amazon Connect, enabling you to personalize the customer experience based on attributes such as the customer’s profile, authentication status, or actions previously taken within the app.
Using the fully managed communication widget, you can implement these new voice and video calling capabilities with as little as a single line of code. You can also create a fully custom experience for your customers by leveraging the SDK. In addition, you can use the same configuration, routing, analytics, and agent application as with telephone calls and chats, helping saving costly integration time, license fees, and maintenance expenses.
https://aws.amazon.com/about-aws/whats-new/2024/08/amazon-connect-in-app-web-video-calling-africa/
Amazon Connect Contact Lens now provides an audit trail to review the changes made to an agent performance evaluation when it is re-submitted. This launch displays the audit trail, which was previously available within a customer’s S3 bucket, directly in the Amazon Connect UI. When an evaluator submits changes to an existing evaluation form, managers can now view an audit trail of who submitted the original evaluation, who re-submitted the evaluation, and what changes they made. Contact center managers can use this information to perform internal audits and improve consistency across evaluators.
This feature is available in all regions where Contact Lens performance evaluations is already available.
Amazon Connect now allows you to configure flows to take actions on callbacks prior their creation and while they are in queue. For example, you can now automate sending a notification to a customer via SMS before calling them back, update callback attributes based on latest customer data for agents to reference, or even terminate the callback if the issue has already been resolved. You can also now run flows to dynamically re-prioritize and transfer callbacks to another queue based on customer information from Customer profiles or third-party applications, or if it’s just taking too long for the callback queue to drain.
This feature is available in all AWS regions where Amazon Connect is offered.
https://aws.amazon.com/about-aws/whats-new/2024/08/amazon-connect-configure-callbacks/
You can now use metric threshold comparison operator such as LTE (less than equal) and LT (less than) to explicitly include the threshold boundary value.
The metric results empty dimension values were also updated to be consistent in returning null. Previously empty String was returned in some scenarios when the request contained groupings attributes that were not defined in the filters.
https://docs.aws.amazon.com/connect/latest/APIReference/API_GetMetricDataV2.html
You can now use the UpdateContactRoutingData API to programmatically update the routing criteria on a contact. Previously, you could only set the routing criteria on a contact using the Set routing criteria flow block in the Amazon Connect admin website.
https://docs.aws.amazon.com/connect/latest/APIReference/API_UpdateContactRoutingData.html
You can download screen recordings from the Contact details page in the Amazon Connect admin website. This enables you to evaluate contact quality and agent performance by using offline reviews, as well as review downloaded screen recordings with agents for coaching. This release also provides a new security profile permission—Screen recording - Enable download button—to manage who can download screen recordings.
AmazonConnectSynchronizationServiceRolePolicy service-linked role managed policyUpdated the service-linked role managed policy with additional permissions for Managed Synchronization.
You use the outbound campaigns performance dashboard to understand the performance of your outbound campaigns across voice contacts. You can easily visualize and monitor campaign performance, track efficiency, measure compliance, and understand campaign outcomes for your voice workloads. You can view real-time and historical reports using custom time periods and benchmarks, track campaign progress and delivery status, and drill down into call classification outcomes (for example, human answered, voicemail).
Following are new historical metrics for outbound campaigns:
Average dials per minute
Average wait time after customer connection
Campaign contacts abandoned after X
Campaign contacts abandoned after X rate
Delivery attempts
Delivery attempt disposition rate
Human answered
Released Amazon Connect Client Application v2.0.1. This version includes bug fixes and enhancements to improve the stability and monitoring of the application.
Enhancements to generative AI-powered post-contact summaries enable your users to access them within seconds after a voice contact ends. For example, agents can access post-contact summaries on the CCP and use them to quickly complete after contact work (ACW). This feature supports only voice contacts on the CCP.
These faster summaries are available by using APIs and Amazon Kinesis Data Streams, enabling you to integration with third-party agent workspace or CRM systems.
You have more options for searching resources on the Amazon Connect admin website. The search options are available on pages that you use for managing (adding, editing) the following resources: users, queues, hours of operation, routing profiles, and prompts.
There are two ways you can search resources on the Amazon Connect admin website resource management pages:
Search box: This option helps you find matches fast with minimal effort. It provides free-text type-ahead search, and supports searching with "contains" logic.
For example, as you start typing the name of the resource, any results that match are returned. The following image shows the first part of the login name was typed in search. Amazon Connect automatically returned users that matched the first two characters typed - "ja".
Add filter: This option enables you to perform more targeted searches using more advanced criteria. For example, you can specify multiple routing profiles, tags, or logins. The following image shows a Login filter. The search will return results for two logins: janedoe and johndoe.
You can create a pattern of shifts that agents will repeatedly rotate through (for example, morning shift, afternoon shift, night shift). You can define how many weeks each shift should be scheduled before moving to the next one in the rotation. This feature makes it easier to administrate schedules and ensure that agents receive a business-defined sequence of shifts.
Amazon Connect now supports the ability to preferentially route a contact within a queue to specific agents. Using this new feature, you can now set the preferred agent(s) for a given contact, and if that agent is unavailable, fall back to the next set of routing criteria. You can also use this feature to integrate Amazon Connect’s routing with your own custom business logic or machine learning models to personalize matching each contact to the most suitable agent, resulting in better business outcomes and increased customer satisfaction. For example, you could route repeat contacts to the agent who previously handled the customer, and if that specific agent isn’t available, offer the contact to another available agent within the same queue.
Amazon Connect now supports automated rotation of agent shifts, making it easier for contact center managers to administrate schedules and ensure that agents receive a business-defined sequence of shifts.
Automated shift rotations speed up the week-to-week scheduling process for contact center managers, eliminating the need to manually move agents between different shifts. With shift rotation, contact center managers can now create a pattern of shifts that agents will repeatedly rotate through (e.g., morning shift, afternoon shift, night shift) and define how many weeks each shift should be scheduled before moving to the next one in the rotation. These shift rotation patterns are automatically applied when new schedules are created, eliminating the need for contact center managers to manually assign shifts to groups of agents. Additionally, contact center managers can bulk upload and download shift rotation and shift profile assignments, making it easy to set up and update shift rotations for thousands of agents.
There is no additional charge for this feature and it is available in all AWS Regions where Amazon Connect agent scheduling is available.
Amazon Connect now provides an API to search for hierarchy groups by name, group ID, tag, or other criteria. Hierarchy groups describe your organization’s structure, and are used for reporting and access control. With this new API, you can now answer questions such as, “How many teams operate in the northwest region?” and, “What groups have a tag indicating they can access performance reviews?” and see a response with details like name, description, hierarchy level, ARN, and when a record was last updated.
The SearchUserHierarchyGroups API is supported in all AWS regions where Amazon Connect is offered.
Amazon Connect now provides an API to search an agent status by name, ID, tag, or other criteria. Agent statuses are used in the Contact Control Panel (CCP) to indicate if an agent is available to handle contacts or not, for example because they are away for lunch or in training. With this new API, you can now answer questions such as, “How many of our statuses are disabled?”, and, “What statuses have ‘break’ in their description?”, and see a response with details like name, description, display order, and ARN.
The SearchAgentStatuses API is supported in all AWS regions where Amazon Connect is offered.
Amazon Connect Contact Lens now provides generative AI-powered post-contact summaries within seconds after a contact ends, versus minutes previously, helping you get faster insights when reviewing contacts, save time on after-contact work, and more quickly identifying opportunities to improve contact quality and agent performance. These faster summaries are available via API and Kinesis data streams, enabling integrations with third-party agent workspace or CRM systems. You can also access these summaries natively within Amazon Connect through contact details and contact control panel (CCP).
Generative AI-powered post-contact summaries are available in the US West (Oregon), and US East (Northern Virginia) regions.
Amazon Connect Contact Lens now offers a new dashboard for outbound campaign analytics. You can now easily visualize and monitor campaign performance, track efficiency, measure compliance, and understand campaign outcomes for your voice workloads. You can view real-time and historical reports using custom time periods and benchmarks, track campaign progress and delivery status, and drill down into call classification outcomes (e.g., human answered, voicemail). You can also quickly identify trends and patterns across key metrics, such as dials attempted or abandonment rate, to monitor and enhance campaign performance. Additionally, these metrics are now available via API for custom reporting or integrations with other data sources.
Outbound campaign analytics is available in Amazon Connect Contact Lens reports and the GetMetricDataV2 API in all AWS regions where Amazon Connect outbound campaigns is available. This includes US East (N. Virginia), US West (Oregon), Asia Pacific (Sydney), Canada (Central), Europe (Frankfurt), and Europe (London).
Amazon Connect Contact Lens now provides the ability to download screen recordings from the contact details page in the Amazon Connect UI, for customers that use Contact Lens screen recording. With this launch, managers can evaluate contact quality and agent performance via offline reviews, as well as review downloaded screen recordings with agents for coaching. This launch also provides a new permission to manage who can download screen recordings.
This feature is available in all AWS regions where Contact Lens screen recording is offered.
Amazon Connect has expanded availability to support Inbound Direct Dial (DID) telephone numbers and guaranteed number presentation for in-country calling for Vietnam from the Asia Pacific (Singapore), Asia Pacific (Sydney), Asia Pacific (Tokyo), and Asia Pacific (Seoul) regions.
The new Telephony Rates are now available as part of the standard pricing for Amazon Connect service usage for Asia Pacific (Singapore), Asia Pacific (Sydney), Asia Pacific (Tokyo), and Asia Pacific (Seoul) regions.
Amazon Connect now enables agents to view pre-approved time off windows for their scheduling group (group allowance), making it easier for agents to identify available options when requesting time off. For example, when creating a time off request for 8 a.m. to 12 p.m., an agent can now see that while there is available group allowance for 8 a.m. to 11 a.m., there isn’t any remaining allowance for 11 a.m. to 12 p.m. Agents can then modify their time off request before submitting or request a supervisor override. This launch simplifies the time off process for agents by letting them evaluate which days have the required allowance before submitting the request.
This feature is available in all AWS Regions where Amazon Connect agent scheduling is available.
You can use the outbound campaigns performance dashboard to understand the performance of your outbound campaigns across voice contacts.
You can now offer a contact in a queue to a specific agent or set of agents based on user ID; if the agent is not available within a given period of time, you can expire off the routing criteria to instead offer the contact to any available agent in queue.
Amazon Q in Connect, a generative-AI powered assistant for contact center agents, recommends step-by-step guides in real-time. Agents use step-by-step guides to quickly take action to resolve customer issues.
In addition, see the following new APIs that are part of this release:
The Amazon Connect agent workspace features an updated user interface to improve the productivity and focus for your agents. The updated user interface is designed to be more intuitive and highly responsive, and it increases the visual consistency across capabilities. It provides your agents with a more streamlined user experience.
With this launch, you can also easily build and embed third-party applications that have a consistent look and feel with the agent workspace by using Cloudscape Design System components.
You can now configure rules to automatically create a task, send an email, or generate an
Amazon Eventbridge event whenever a Flows and Flow Modules metrics breaches the threshold you define. For example, you can create a rule to assign a task to a contact center administrator whenever the dropped rate (i.e. percentage of contacts that dropped from a flow) for your inbound welcome flow exceeds 10% over a trailing 4 hour window.
These features are available in all AWS regions where Amazon Connect is available.
Amazon Connect Contact Lens now offers analytics for Flows and Flow Modules, enabling you to identify emergent issues (e.g., a spike in contacts unexpectedly dropping from a flow),
monitor usage patterns (e.g., most used flows or modules, an increasing trend in duration), and measure the impact of configuration changes across your customer or agent experiences including guides and task automation. From the Flows performance dashboard, you can view and compare real-time and historical aggregated performance, trends, and insights over custom-defined time periods (e.g., week over week), helping you answer questions such as “how many contacts dropped out of my contact center before reaching a queue?” or “how long does it take for contacts to navigate through my end-customer self-service voice flow?” These metrics are also available programmatically via the existing GetMetricsDataV2 API.
These features are available in all AWS regions where Amazon Connect is available.
Amazon Connect now provides AWS CloudTrail support for flow management pages on the
Connect admin website. When you add, update, or delete a flow from a flow management page, a record of that activity is available in AWS CloudTrail for visibility, reporting, and compliance, helping you answer questions such as, “who last updated this flow?” or “when was this flow last saved?”
These features are supported in all AWS regions where Amazon Connect is offered.
Amazon Connect now provides enhanced search capabilities for flows and flow modules on the Connect admin website and programmatically using APIs. You can now search for flows and flow modules by name, description, type, status, and tags, making it easy to filter and identify a specific flow when managing your Connect instances. For example, you can now search for all flows tagged with the Department:Help_Desk key value pair to filter your set of flows down to the specific ones you are looking for.
This feature is supported in all AWS regions where Amazon Connect is offered.
Amazon Connect now provides granular access controls using resource tags to define who can
access specific flows and flow modules from the Connect admin website. For example, you can
now tag flows with Department:Support from the flow designer UI, restricting access to only
administrators from your support line of business.
These features are supported in all AWS regions where Amazon Connect is offered.
Amazon Connect Cases now provides APIs that make it easy to upload files, check file details, and delete files from cases. Contact center administrators can use these APIs to automate the attachment of files to cases. In addition, these APIs also enable you to use case attachments in a custom agent desktop.
Amazon Connect Cases is available in the following AWS Regions: US East (N. Virginia), US West (Oregon), Asia Pacific (Singapore), Asia Pacific (Sydney), Canada (Central), Europe
(Frankfurt), and Europe (London).