Release Notes - VanillaSoft

The VanillaSoft SmartCaller ID add-on allows users of VanillaSoft’s VoIP service to match the area code of the number they are calling from to the area code of the number they are calling. By matching the area code, the call recipient is more likely to answer the call (because they see it as local and therefore less likely to be a sales call). However, with the move to wireless phones, people are choosing to keep their mobile number even when they relocate to a new area code. As a result, matching the area code no longer guarantees that the call will appear to the recipient as a local call.

To ensure that SmartCaller ID is matching the “call from” area code to the local area code of the prospect, we have added ZIP Code-based number matching. With ZIP Code-based number matching, the number displayed to the prospect matches the area code of their address rather than their mobile phone number.

When ZIP Code-based SmartCaller ID is active, if the contact has a ZIP Code, VanillaSoft will verify if any of the “calling from” numbers in your purchased SmartCaller ID pool of numbers have area codes matching those which are assigned to the ZIP Code’s geographic region. If a match is found, the ZIP Code matching “calling from” number will be used.

If a number is not found that matches the ZIP Code’s geographic region, or the contact has no ZIP code, then SmartCaller ID will default to matching the contact’s area code.

If you would like to know more about SmartCaller ID and add it to your plan, please contact VanillaSoft sales.

If you are already a SmartCaller ID user and would like to activate ZIP Code-based number matching, please contact VanillaSoft support.

New Reporting Templates

With this release we have added 13 new report templates for you to customize for your reporting purposes, including:

Lead Source by Result Code
Queue Overview by Lead Source, and
Speed to Lead

These new templates can be found in the Reporting tab in the “Templates” folder.

The VoIP Lines Admin Page Has Moved

We have moved the VoIP Lines page from ‘MyAccount’ to ‘Users’ so that Admin Combos will have visibility of how many VoIP lines are assigned to each user.

Note: the functionality to delete VoIP lines will remain available to Account Admins only.

September 2021

Rule-Based Routing Supports Custom Date Fields

Rule Based Routing configuration can now be defined from a predefined number of days after either

the ‘Contact Added-Date’, or
Any input custom field where the Data Type = Date or Date Time

Learn more about Rule-Based Routing here

“Refresh Quota” Speed Enhancements

The refresh performance for the “Show Quota Reached” button on the User Quota page has been dramatically improved.

In addition, the refresh can be applied to a particular caller using the new individual refresh button at the end of each caller’s row.

Custom Table Sorting

Before this release, new data added to a Custom Table was always shown at the bottom of the table. With this enhancement, admins can choose how they want their custom tables to appear – whether the most recent records appear at the top or at the bottom of the custom table list.

This setting can be changed on the Custom Tables setup page in the Options section:

Blackbaud Payment Gateway Enhancement

New Blackbaud Payment Gateway data fields have been added, allowing this data to be stored in VanillaSoft.

Authorization Code
Transaction ID

Update Phone Status via an Incoming Web Lead

The Phone Status field has been added to the Incoming Web Leads page for each available Phone Field. This will allow an incoming web lead to update the phone status in VanillaSoft.

An Incoming Web Lead Will Now Erase Phone Field Data

As phone numbers are particularly important data, when we originally created the incoming web leads “Allow update to erase field data” feature, we made an exception for phone fields. If the incoming field data was blank for a field containing a telephone number, VanillaSoft would ignore instructions to “update” the phone number so as not to erase it.

With this release we have removed this exception. The “Allow update to erase field data” is treated the same for all field mappings, including any phone field. Now, if 1) a phone field mapping has the “Allow update to erase field data” checked, and 2) an incoming web lead comes in with no content in the phone field (it is blank), any pre-existing data will be erased.

Florida Telemarketing Regulation Enforcement

In conjunction with USHealth Corporate, VanillaSoft has made changes to the software as part of a system-wide project to ensure compliance with a new telemarketing law passed in Florida. This new law prohibits calling or texting an individual more than 3 times in a 24-hour period.

The result is that, if the 3 touch limit in a 24 hour period is reached for a contact, the number(s) will be hidden in VanillaSoft until the 24-hour window has passed.

Note that SMS messages are also affected and agents will not be able to send a text until the 24 hour limit has passed.

What If The Prospect Is Expecting Your Call/Text?

The “Override 24 hour limit” button will provide agents with the option to bypass these new restrictions. If an agent attempts to make contact after the three touch limit has been reached and before 24 hours has passed, they will see the following message requiring acknowledgement:

Florida law prohibits placing more than three (3) telephone calls or text messages to the same person in a 24-hour period. You have requested to place a call or text message that exceeds that number. By selecting ‘Confirm’ below, you hereby attest that the additional contact is not unsolicited and that the prospect specifically requested the additional contact from you.

April 29, 2021

New Custom Field Type: Searchable Menu

The new “Searchable Menu” Custom Field Type allows callers to search through up to 10,000 values within a field drop-down list, to quickly find the right item. Note: the “Searchable Menu” field will only accept one selection and cannot be used as a multi-select.

Creating a Searchable Menu Field Type

The “Searchable Menu” Field Type has been added to the Field Customization > Custom Fields page.

Create or edit an existing custom field, then select the “Field Type” dropdown menu.

To import a list of field values, click the “Import” button.

Only .CSV files can be imported.

The following applies to the .CSV file:

No header in the file
The .CSV file can only have one column
The column cannot exceed 10,000 rows
All values will be sorted alphabetically once imported

Upon a successful import, if the custom field is set to ‘Active’, the searchable menu will be immediately available.

The list cannot be edited within VanillaSoft. Changes will need to take place in the .CSV file and the file re-imported.

To export the list of “Searchable Menu” items, click the ‘Export’ button.

Using “Searchable Menu” Fields

“Searchable Menu” fields will operate just as any other dropdown list field.

However, to speed the selection process, agents can type the value they are searching for. The search will return all values where the search term appears.

Search results will appear in alphabetical order.

Bluefin Payment Gateway

Organizations using the Bluefin Payment Gateway now have an option to work in sandbox mode, allowing them to test the gateway without having to process a real credit card transaction.
Bluefin payment gateway panel fields are now automatically populated with the information from the main contact fields (with the exception of the phone field), eliminating the need for agents to type the same information twice.
We have added a ‘Refresh’ button to the payments tab in the caller view. This will allow agents to quickly update/copy payment gateway fields with information that was manually updated in the contact panel.
The following Bluefin data fields are now stored in VanillaSoft and are available for both Reporting and Outgoing Web Leads.

Recurring Profile ID
Authorization Code
Transaction ID

Email Unsubscribe Enhancements

The new “Email Unsubscribed” fields have been added to the Contact Management page. In addition, “Email Unsubscribed” and “SMS Opted Out” have been added to Intellective Routing filters.

April 14, 2021

New Zapier App

VanillaSoft’s new Zapier app is now available from the Zapier website, providing easy integration between VanillaSoft and hundreds of other applications. With the new VanillaSoft app, all Zap creation and management is done from within Zapier, making setup and management of your Zaps easier.

For details about our integration with Zapier, please visit our integrations page: http://vanillasoft.com/product/features/integrations

To learn how to set up a Zap, please refer to this VanillaSoft Support Portal article: http://support.vanillasoft.com/hc/en-us/articles/360058541372

With the new app’s availability, VanillaSoft will be ending support for the current app using the legacy Zapier technology on April 30th, 2021.

Therefore, we recommend that those currently using the legacy app begin rebuilding their Zaps using the new app as soon as possible. You can find migration instructions in the VanillaSoft Support Portal. http://support.vanillasoft.com/hc/en-us/articles/360058978791-VanillaSoft-Zapier-Migration

Email Unsubscribe Enhancements

We have added additional functionality to the Caller and Admin interfaces to facilitate email unsubscribe.

Agent Unsubscribe Options
From the “Edit Contact” screen, agents will now be able to Unsubscribe the email address of the current contact.

NOTE: Once a contact’s email address is marked as “Email Unsubscribed,” an agent cannot re-subscribe that contact’s email. The option to uncheck the Email Unsubscribed checkbox will be greyed out. An administrator would be required to uncheck the “Email Unsubscribe” option.

Admin Unsubscribe Options
On the Admin-side, administrators can quickly unsubscribe and resubscribe a contact’s email address from the Search Contacts > Contacts Information screen.

“Edit Dialing” Is Now Separate From “Edit Profile”

With this release, Dialing Info has been separated from the User Profile. As a result, administrators will now be able to allow or restrict user access to the User Profile and the Dialing settings individually. This provides greater control over what profile editing rights can be granted to agents.

Use case
Agents who wish or need to work from a different computer must release the VS Connect Softphone so they can re-establish VS Connect from the new computer. This change will allow individual agents to “release VS Connect Softphone” without admin assistance while also preventing agents from accessing or changing their profile settings. Agents can be granted access to just their Dialing information so they can switch computers on their own.

Import Queue Speed Improvements

To avoid backlogs to the import queue, we have established three separate processing threads that will work simultaneously to import files. These changes will help us avoid situations where a customer uploading an extremely large file would delay other customers’ imports that would normally take only a few minutes. We expect these improvements to dramatically decrease the import backlog and increase the speed with which your files are imported.

The new process will estimate the import time required for each file and then route the file to the appropriate processing queue.

Import tier 1 – quick import
Import tier 2 – medium import time
Import tier 3 – long import time

To increase processing time further, if the queue for Import tier 3 is empty, it will accept files from Import Tier 2.

Intellective Routing Filters Save in the Background

Intellective Routing (IR) filters are now saved in the background. This update will allow the administrator to navigate away from the Intellective Routing page or even close VanillaSoft while large and complex IR filters are saved.

The “Calculate Contact Count” button has been renamed to “Preview Contact Count.”

Clicking the “Preview Contact Count” button will immediately calculate the number of contacts available via this filter for routing.
Clicking the “Preview Contact Count” button is optional. It will not begin to save the filter.

Clicking the “Save” button will begin the save process. When the Save button is clicked, the following will take place:

A “Cancel Process” button will replace the “Save” button, and a “Calculating contact count” notification will appear with it.
A pop-up window will appear notifying the administrator that the changes were saved, and they can navigate away from the page or log out (if they are saving a large filter which can take several minutes.)

The filter will not take effect until the saving process is complete

The administrator can still assign the filter to callers.
If the caller logs in while the IR filter is still being saved, they will receive a notice that VanillaSoft is still compiling their contact queue and that it will be ready shortly.

Added “Lead Source” to the Data Collection Prompts Fields

We have added “Lead Source” to Data Collection Prompts.

New Outgoing Web Leads Fields

Payment gateways allow your agents to collect payments or donations immediately, right from the VanillaSoft interface, saving time, effort and eliminating the chance a donor might change their minds.

To accommodate payment gateway information, within the Outgoing Web Leads page, we have added new fields to the field mapping section. The ‘Last Payment Information’ section now shows the fields:

AuthorizationCode
TransactionID
PaymentType
FirstPaymentDate
RecurringPaymentFrequency
RecurringNumberOfPayments
RecurringTotalPayment
RecurringProfileID

The ‘Phone Information’ section now contains a “status” field for each phone type in use:

Business Status
Mobile Status
Home Status
Cottage Status

February 2021

Auto-Cancel SMS Drip Campaigns

This release adds an auto-cancel option to your SMS Drip Campaigns. When creating (or editing) an SMS Drip campaign, there is now a checkbox control which cancels the campaign as soon as the targeted contact responds (any response – the content of the reply SMS is not relevant).

The “Cancel Drip on reply” checkbox is activated by default on all new SMS Drip campaigns. You can manually turn it on (or off) for any of your existing campaigns simply by clicking the checkbox in the Create/Edit SMS Drip Campaign page.

SMS Status Messages

Based on customer feedback and insights from telecom industry experts, VanillaSoft has improved our SMS status bubble messages. These new improvements will provide more specifics to agents about the problem, so they know what actions to take. Improvements include:

refining when the system will cancel an SMS Drip Campaign
enhancements to the “hover over” message that appears when the mouse is moved over a status message
new status messages when longer descriptions are necessary

December 2020

VanillaSoft Unite for Salesforce (Salesforce Integrations)

With this release, VanillaSoft has updated the ability to send data to Salesforce in real-time. It is now possible to send Salesforce data to VanillaSoft in real-time using the VanillaSoft Unite for Salesforce app.

From the “Integration” menu within VanillaSoft, you will now find a page for “Salesforce Integrations.” From the Salesforce Integrations page, you will be able to configure which data you wish to send from VanillaSoft to Salesforce.

You will also be able to configure how Salesforce will send data to VanillaSoft. This will require you to install the VanillaSoft Unite for Salesforce app, available from the Salesforce AppExchange.

For complete details on how to configure data sharing between VanillaSoft and Salesforce, we recommend you read our extensive guides and help files.

Calling Periods Enhancements

With this release, we have made it possible to control the Calling Periods by weekdays (Mon-Fri) as well as uniquely for both Saturday and Sunday.

This release also empowers admins to customize the “lunch hour” start and end times.

Finally, we have enhanced the functionality of the Calling Period Exceptions configuration, making it easier to set up special restrictions outside the standard calling period settings (e.g. some U.S. states may have more restrictive calling periods).

Auto-save Comments

When text is entered on a contact in

the Comments tab or
the Comments box on the full result page

the text will automatically be auto-saved.

Note:

Only the most recent keystroke is auto-saved. There is no “undo” recovery option.
If an agent leaves the contact without resulting to do a search or find a contact from MyStats, when the agent returns to the original contact the comments will still be visible.
If the agent attempts to leave the contact altogether before resulting, a warning will appear, alerting the agent that their comments will be lost.

Incoming Web Leads Enhancements

Major improvements have been made to the Incoming Web Leads.
From the Incoming Web Leads configuration page, you will notice that:

1. The Options section was split into a New Contacts section and an Existing Contacts section. The descriptions were modified as well to make their function more clear.
2. The ‘Reopen/flag Updated Contacts’ and ‘Flag Duplicates’ checkbox has been split so that the ‘Flag duplicates’ checkbox now resides in the New Contacts section, and the ‘Reopen and flag updated contacts’ checkbox now resides in the Existing Contacts section.

The overall useability of the page has been improved:
1. Duplicate fields will no longer be shown in the Update Key drop-down list
2. Field navigation using the Tab key has been enhanced
3. Tooltips have been added to make feature help easier to access
4. Mandatory fields are clearly identified when a save fails with red frames
5. Text has been added to the “Add Field” button (replacing “+”) to make in the Field Mapping section easier to navigate
6. Autosave has been disabled when adding new fields. Admins must now use the “Save” button to validate and save changes.

May 2020

Access to the My SMS User Menu Has Moved (For SMS Users Only)

The My SMS user menu is now accessible as a stand-alone item from the top blue menu bar in the User interface.

From the My SMS user menu, the user has access to their SMS Inbox (as usual), but also to the SMS Template Management tab.

User-specific SMS templates allow you to manage and tailor your messaging to ensure deliverability and increase response rates.

When sending a SMS text, the User will still have access to the Admin created templates as well as their personal templates.

Account Admins Can Now Control Which Admin Combo Has Access to the Contact Management Page

Account Administrators can now allow or restrict Admin Combo users from accessing the Contact Management page.

Added Currency Symbols for Payment Gateways

When setting up payment gateways, the Admin can now choose from Dollars ($) Euros (€) or Pounds (£).

VanillaSoft Will No Longer Send Emails Using Free Email Addresses Unless SMTP Is Configured

Sending emails from services such as @Gmail.com or @Yahoo.com will now be blocked from sending unless the SMTP server settings have been configured within VanillaSoft.

Emails sent from private email addresses (MyCompanyName.com, MySchool.edu, etc.) will not be impacted.

(Using a free email address will have no other impact on your use of VanillaSoft, other than emails from these addresses will not be sent unless the SMTP server settings are configured within VanillaSoft).

Users will be alerted when sending if their SMTP settings have not been configured.

For more information on how to set up your free email account properly, please read this VanillaSoft Support article.

April 2020

De-Duping Enhancements

A NEW “Call History” section has been created, containing the following three new fields:

Last Result Code (“Display” only)
Last Call Date (“Display” only)
Last Comment (“Display” only)

The “Contact Information” section has been updated with five new fields:

Lead Source (“Display” only)
Lead Status (“Display” only)
Scheduled Date & Time (“Display” only)
Team (“Display” only)
Salesforce ID (“De-Dupe By” and “Display”)
- *Note: SalesforceID will only be visible if Salesforce is enabled on the project.

March 2020

Intellective Routing Enhancements

a) Intellective Routing priority block added as a contact variable

Many VanillaSoft users have a single-purpose for their outbound communications, such as prospecting new customers, recruiting staff, or seeking donations. But some may be required to make calls for a multitude of different reasons, such as customer service agents following up on order status or late payments. In cases such as this, it is important that the agents know in advance why the contact is to be called or emailed.

With this release we have improved agent visibility into call routing priority. The following three Intellective Routing items are now available as contact variables to be used in script templates:

The Intellective Routing priority number
The Intellective Routing priority description
The name of the Intellective Routing Filter

With these three new contact variables, the administrator can display to the agents why the contact was routed to them from the Scripts pane.

b) Intellective Routing priority blocks can now be duplicated or deleted

A new dropdown has been added to each priority block, giving administrators the ability to duplicate or delete Intellective Routing priority blocks.

Improvements when opening the Intellective Routing page

For Intellective Routing filters with a large number of priority blocks, we have improved the page load times.

Blackbaud Payment Gateway Integration

Blackbaud is a payment gateway used by many colleges and universities. It is now integrated directly within VanillaSoft for easy payment processing.

New Salesforce Fields

New “Salesforce ID” and “Opportunity ID” fields are now accessible from the following locations in VanillaSoft:

Incoming Web Leads
Outgoing Web Leads
Export Contacts
Import Contacts
Contact Management
Contact Variables
Edit Contact Page on the Admin Side
Basic Reporting (Reporting Wizard)
Advanced Reporting

Export User Details

An ‘Export to Excel’ button has been added to the Manage Users page on the Admin-side, giving administrators the ability to export the details of all users on the account.
Of note, each user’s ID (UserID) is included in the exported file.

Improved Edit User and Account Profile Page Load Times

We have made improvements to the load time on the Edit User Profile page and the Account Profile page.

July 2019

Ability to Export Only Updated Contacts

The Export Updated Fields feature allows an Admin to export the most recent change made to existing custom fields for all contacts in a VanillaSoft Project. Each custom field will be included in a separate .csv file and can then be imported into other applications (such as a CRM), allowing your existing data to be easily updated.

Type Dates Into Calendars

All places on the Caller side where a datepicker can be used to select a date have been enhanced to allow callers to be able to manually enter dates rather than being forced to choose a date from the datepicker. This makes it more accessible to users with visual impairments. The following areas were changed:

Appointment Date
Callback Date
Calendar Event Start and End dates
Retry At Date
Date/Time fields in Custom Fields (other information)
Date/Time fields in Custom Tables

Set Result Code Delays by Team

In June 2018, we added a feature allowing Admins to be able to set a timed delay before their Callers can result a lead. This feature ensures that each lead is worked appropriately before moving on to the next lead.

This result code delay feature has been further enhanced so that Admins can now control the delay setting by team. This gives the Admin the ability to treat the delay setting differently for each team, while still maintaining the global delay for other callers.

Bugs/Issues Fixed

All dates visible within a project now correctly show based on the date format set for the Project Setting.
An issue in Microsoft Edge, where sometimes the phone numbers on a contact did not save properly when being edited inline on the main Caller page.
Issues with Safari 12, where the page would not return results when executing a search on the caller side.
Issues on the Admin side, where the columns in the Call History layout were not properly aligned when there were Blast history items among the call history rows.
Issues with the MyContacts page, where the page would not load correctly when custom field columns were added to the list.

May 2019

Incoming Web Lead Enhancements

Three enhancements have been made to the Incoming Web Lead feature:

i. Error response for duplicate Contact

Previously, when the “Do not allow duplicates to be created” feature was active for an Incoming Web Lead, and a duplicate contact was received, VanillaSoft would post a server-side message to the lead provider incorrectly stating “Success”. With this enhancement, VanillaSoft now posts a default server-side message stating “Duplicate Contact”. This message is editable.

ii. Allow the use of UserID to assign either Contact Owner or Scheduled Call User

Before this release, when the configuration of an Incoming Web Lead included a mapping to the Contact Owner field, only a VanillaSoft UserName could be passed into the field for the lead to be assigned an owner. If something other than a UserName was used in the Contact Owner field, that information was ignored, and ownership was not assigned to the lead.

This enhancement now allows the VanillaSoft UserID to be used in addition to the VanillaSoft UserName. This is beneficial because the UserID is unique to a user and never changes, whereas the UserName is based on an email address, which can be changed.

The same logic also applies to the ‘Scheduled Call User’ field in that it will also now accept both UserID and UserName.

Note: if the inbound field being mapped to either the Contact Owner field or the Scheduled Call User field is blank or does not match a UserName or UserID, the incoming data for this field will continue to be ignored (ie. nothing gets assigned).

iii. Allow an Incoming Web Lead Update to remove the Contact Owner

Before this release, if an Incoming Web Lead was set to “Update Existing Contacts” and the “Contact Owner” field was set to “Allow update to erase field data”, any incoming web lead with an empty value for the Contact Owner was incorrectly not removing the Contact Owner on the lead.

This enhancement fixes this issue so that incoming web leads with an empty value for the Contact Owner will result in the Contact Owner being removed from the Contact record.

Contact Management Page Improvements

Enhancements to the Contact Management page have been made to improve the overall understanding and usability of the page. Improvements have been made to the naming of certain functions making it more obvious as to what each does, and hover-over text has been added to further help explain the function. Most importantly, we’ve added pop-up warnings to various tasks, ensuring users are fully aware of what is about to happen before clicking ‘Confirm’ to start the task or change.

Upload/Attachment Size Increase (from 12 MB to 40 MB)

The Upload/Attachment size has been increased from 12 MB to 40 MB in the following places:

Import files
Document library
Attaching documents to Contacts directly
Email attachments
Email template attachments

(Note: Many email services have size restrictions on attachments. This means that even though the email attachment file size has increased, if a large file is attached to an email, there is potential that the email may not be sent.)

Custom Fields and Custom Tables – Updated Data Type Labeling

The following improvements were made to the usability on the Admin side of the Custom Fields page and the Custom Tables page:

Changed the label of Data Type “Formatted Number” to “Number – decimals allowed”
Changed the label of Data Type “Number” to “Number – no decimals”
If the Data Type selected is “Date or Date/Time”, the screen will now display the Project Default Date Format (i.e. mm/dd/yyyy).

Bugs/Issues Fixed

Owned contacts were sometimes not showing on the MyContacts page on the Caller side.
In custom tables, an error could occur if a formula field was adding numbers from more than three fields.
The de-duping function sometimes swapped custom dates when the “View Duplicates” button was clicked.
When copying a project that contained saved mappings for the Contact Import of type ‘add/update’, sometimes it did not copy all the import contact saved mappings correctly.
Result codes were sometimes not showing in the correct categories on the admin-side main Result Code page.
When an update came in from an incoming web lead, an existing Contact Owner was sometimes removed even when the value passed was not a valid value for replacing the contact owner.

February 2019

Vidyard GoVideo integration

We’re excited to unveil our integration with Vidyard GoVideo—the personal video messaging tool designed for sales professionals.

Vidyard helps organizations drive more revenue through the use of online video. With our new Vidyard GoVideo integration, we’re making it easy for sales teams to start using video to generate more pipeline, qualify more opportunities, and close more deals – right from within VanillaSoft. Just click the video icon on the email page, record a personalized video to that contact, and it’s immediately attached to the email ready to be sent. And best of all, it’s completely free!

Learn more about sending a personalized video from VanillaSoft

Ability to restrict Admins when running a Contact Management query from updating contacts or flagging/unflagging contacts

Account Admins can now separately control whether their Admins have the ability to update contacts and flag/unflag contacts when they are running a Contact Management query. This control is available on the Admin Permissions page of each Admin, as shown in the image below:

‘Assign Team Result Codes’ page redesign

The Result Code Assignment page has been entirely redone, making it much easier and faster to assign Result Codes by Team or Lead Status.

‘Does Not Contain’ has been added as a Contact Management Query

December 2018

Lead Status-based Result Codes

Before this release, result codes could only be assigned to Teams. This enhancement adds the option for Admins to assign result codes to Lead Statuses. Once result codes are assigned to lead statuses on the Admin side, when a contact with a lead status routes to an agent, the agent will only see result codes that have been assigned to that lead status.

Admins can setup Lead Status based result codes on the ‘Result Code Assignment’ page as shown in the image:

Talk Time (for VanillaSoft VoIP/CMV users)

For users of VanillaSoft VoIP (CMV), we’ve added a new reportable field called Talk Time, which tracks the length of time between when the call is answered until the call has ended. (We call this Talk Time to avoid confusion with Call Duration, which is the length of time between when a Contact is routed until it is resulted.)

Talk Time is available in the following places in VanillaSoft:

Reporting
Contact Management
Contact Management Export Results
Custom Dashboards
Call History on both the Caller side and Admin side
Corporate Call History tab
Export Contacts page
Intellective Routing
Audio Review page

Example of Talk Time shown in Call History on the Caller side

Contact Team, Owner and Scheduled Call User are now tracked with each call history

VanillaSoft now tracks the team, the owner, and the scheduled call user (that the appointment was set for) as part of the call history in the field names in the reports/queries shown below:

Contact Management

Last Contact Team
Last Contact Owner User Name
Last Contact Owner User Full Name
Last Contact Owner User Alias
Last Scheduled Call User Name
Last Scheduled Call User Full Name
Last Scheduled Call User Alias

Reporting

Last Call Report

LastOfContactTeam
LastOfContactOwnerUserName
LastOfContactOwnerNameLastFirst
LastOfContactOwnerAlias
LastOfScheduledCallUserName
LastOfScheduledCallNameLastFirst
LastOfScheduledCallAlias

All Call Report

CallHistoryContactTeam
CallHistoryContactOwnerUserName
CallHistoryContactOwnerNameLastFirst
CallHistoryContactOwnerAlias
CallHistoryScheduledCallUserName
CallHistoryScheduledCallNameLastFirst
CallHistoryScheduledCallAlias

Export Contacts

Export all contacts and last call information

Last Call Team
Last Contact Owner User Name
Last Scheduled Call User Name

Export complete call history for all contacts

ContactTeam
ContactOwner
ScheduledCallUser

September 2018

Outlook Calendar Synchronization

VanillaSoft users or external agents can sync their Google Calendar with the VanillaSoft calendar, and now this synchronization also works with an Outlook calendar – provided that Outlook is hosted in the cloud, either with an Outlook.com calendar or an Outlook 365 calendar that is hosted on Microsoft Exchange. (Note that VanillaSoft cannot guarantee that Exchange hybrid deployments will work with this integration.)

Once synchronized, the Outlook calendar events of a VanillaSoft user or external agent will be visible to VanillaSoft users/appointment setters in VanillaSoft, helping to ensure that appointments booked in VanillaSoft do not conflict with other scheduled events. In addition, appointments booked in VanillaSoft will also appear in the Outlook calendar of the agent the appointment is booked for.

Outlook
Learn more about Calendar Synchronization

The ability to group Result Codes into categories

For a Project with many result codes, it can sometimes be difficult for a Caller to quickly find the right one. This enhancement gives the Admin the ability to create Result Code categories, making it easier for the Caller to search out and find the right result code.

Improvements to the Result Codes page on the Admin-side

In addition to being able to group Result Codes into categories, we’ve also refreshed the Result Codes page on the Admin side, making it easier to create and manage result codes. In particular, you can now change the sort order of a result code (or a result code category) by dragging and dropping it to a new location.

Improvements to the Manage Users page

It’s now much easier to manage a large number of users on the Manager Users page on the Admin side:

You can now sort the order of any column by clicking the column header, making it much easier to group users by projects or teams.
We’ve removed the auto-save feature that used to trigger each time a new project was selected for a user. This means that an Admin will now be able to make multiple changes, and then can save these changes all at once.

A color can now be fixed to a user or external agent appearing on the calendar

By default, VanillaSoft automatically selects a color to represent each user and external agent appearing on the appointment calendar. However, this color is not fixed and can change as new users and external agents are added or removed.

A ‘User Calendar Color’ dropdown has been added on the Admin side to the Edit User page of each user, and to the Manage External Agents page for external agents, allowing Admins to be able to assign a fixed color to a user or external agent that will never change. By default, the dropdown is set to ‘Automatic’. To assign a fixed color that will not change, change the default setting from ‘Automatic’ to ‘Custom’ and then select a color.

Hide closed contacts in the Corporate Contacts view

A “Hide Closed Contacts” checkbox has been added to the Corporate Contacts section on the Caller-side. For a contact that has many associated corporate contacts, checking this box hides those that are closed, so the Caller only sees the contacts being actively engaged.

Learn more about Corporate Contacts

‘Salesforce ID’ has been added as a contact variable

If you are using VanillaSoft with Salesforce, we have added the Salesforce ID as a contact variable to the following pages:

Call Scripts
Email Templates
SMS Templates
Mail Merge

The attachments page has been updated with an audio player

We’ve updated the attachments page on the Caller-side with an audio player. When an mp3, wav, wma or m4p file has been attached to a Contact, a Caller can now listen to the audio file directly within VanillaSoft.

Redesigned CMV HUD

We’ve updated the overall look and feel of the VanillaSoft VoIP/CMV Hud.

CMV HUD

June 2018

Google Cloud

VanillaSoft moved its servers to the Google Cloud. This move will allow us to provide you with much better application support, especially as it relates to disaster recovery, uptime, and overall service levels.

Prevent a duplicate contact from being added manually

A checkbox has been added on the Admin side of VanillaSoft to the ‘Customize Add/Edit Contact’ page, allowing Admins to turn on a feature that automatically checks for duplicate contacts (based on the phone number) when a Caller manually adds a new contact, or edits an existing contact. When enabled, if any of the phone numbers on the newly entered contact match any of the phone numbers on an existing contact in the same project, the Caller is prompted to select one of the following:

View the duplicate contact
‘Cancel’ the adding or editing of a contact
‘Continue’ to add or edit a duplicate contact.

Force a delay before a lead can be resulted

Want to delay the resulting of each Contact to ensure your callers are working each lead appropriately?

A checkbox has been added on the Admin side of VanillaSoft to the bottom of the Results Code page stating, “Prevent the Caller from resulting newly routed Contacts for ▢ seconds”. If enabled on a Project, Callers are not able to result a Contact until the specified time has expired for the following scenarios:

When a new Contact routes after the resulting of a previous Contact
When a Caller first logs into VanillaSoft and the first contact is routed
When a contact comes up from a search.

If the Caller attempts to result a contact within the specified time, a message appears stating the amount of time left before the contact can be resulted.

Incoming Web Leads enhancements

We have added three new items to the Options section of the Incoming Web Lead page:

Add the ability for the Admin to delay when a new inbound web lead routes
Prevent an incoming web lead from creating a duplicate contact
Update Only (ie. do not add a new contact)

Learn More about Incoming Web Leads

Restrict a Caller from communicating via SMS to manually added contacts

A checkbox has been added on the Admin side to the bottom of the Phone Fields page stating, “Contacts manually added by callers are automatically opted-out of SMS”. When checked, contacts manually added by your Callers are automatically opted-out of receiving SMS messages.

Learn more about SMS messaging in VanillaSoft

Calendar Improvements

The option selected in the ‘View Calendar for’ dropdown on the Calendar page will ‘stick’, meaning the next time the Caller goes to the Calendar, that previously selected project continues to be selected.
A ‘Current Project’ option has been added to the ‘View Calendar for’ dropdown. When selected, the calendar view will always be the project that the caller is currently working on.

April 2018

Option to restrict the My Stats page

Admins can now restrict the access of Callers to the My Stats page. To do this, go to the Active Users page and remove the access for a Caller under the ‘My Stats Page” column.

‘Integrations’ section added to the Admin Permissions page of each Admin-Combo user

A new ‘Integrations’ section has been added to the Admin Permissions tab on the Edit User page of each Admin-Combo, giving the Account Admin the ability to control access to each integration feature.

The ability to inactivate individual phone numbers via a mass update.

Admins can now inactivate a certain phone number type for a large number of contacts via a mass update in Contact Management. For example, if you have multiple contacts that you no longer want to be reached by the cell phone number, you can inactivate the cell phone number field without permanently removing it. To allow for this, Contact Management now shows a status field for each phone field type.

Learn more about Contact Management

Audio Review page enhancements

A ‘Team’ field has been added as a selection in the Audio Review search criteria to both the Caller and Admin side when there is at least one team on the Project.
The following columns have been added to the Audio Review results table: Contact Name; Company; Contact’s Team (if the project has at least one team set up)

Variables in Fixed Web Tabs

This enhancement allows for Contact Variables to be used so that a fixed web page shown in a panel can change based on the contact being viewed.

‘Country Code’ has been added to Reporting

You are now able to include country code when defining a report.

New fields added to Web Leads and Zapier

Scheduled Call Date
Scheduled Call Time
Scheduled Call User
Scheduled Date & Time
Latitude
Longitude

January 2018

Restrict specified email templates to certain teams

Now an Admin can restrict email templates to certain teams, in addition to previously being able to restrict custom tabs, result codes and call scripts.

Word DocX support on MailMerge Contacts in Contact Management

Now both PDF and Word DocX documents can be used as a template for Mail Merge contacts in the Contact Management page.

VanillaSoft’s voice drop now works on Mac computers

Learn more about VanillaSoft’s Voice Drop feature

Send emails from a specific Project using your own outgoing email server (SMTP)

You can now send emails from VanillaSoft using your own outgoing email server (SMTP) on a per project basis, allowing you to adopt project specific personas and trigger project specific email campaigns.