Release notes for Zoom Virtual Agent

Upcoming Release

Details about upcoming releases will be posted as they become available.

Current Release

October 22, 2023

New and enhanced features

• Support for widget duplication
  The bot flow canvas has been improved to support widget duplication. When building complex flows, users can quickly copy existing widgets, saving time and reducing the need for additional configuration work.
• Support for variable icon { }
  A variable icon has been added to the prompt toolbar so that users can easily discover and utilize the variables functionality within widgets that include a prompt in bot flow such as Send Media, Collect Input, and Match Intent. This enhancement simplifies the process of inserting variables when creating a bot flow.
• Support escalation control
  When a support escalation experience is triggered, businesses have the flexibility to either utilize their existing support channels or implement a bot flow. This control enables businesses to tailor the support experience precisely to their needs, enhancing user interactions and support efficiency.
• Streamlined form integration for ZECO
  ZECO enables the retrieval of CRM-created forms directly in the form builder UI. Admins can effortlessly assign distinct forms based on various user cases. This ensures that users receive relevant forms, minimizing confusion while preserving transparency for agents. This is only applicable for Salesforce and read-only for Zendesk.
• Enhancements to explore feature
  A new section has been added to the explore feature that lets users use Tags and Categories to filter results. This addition empowers users to choose Tags and Categories for narrowing down system-provided answers. This also improves the accuracy of replicating bot behavior, helping customers test knowledge management answers more effectively.
• Enhancements to script widget
  The script widget has been improved to align with Zoom Contact Center, incorporating dedicated exits for both success and failure. This improvement ensures consistent and straightforward script execution tracking.
• Auto-coaching for knowledge bases
  The enhancement of onboarding and managing knowledge bases has been improved through the utilization of GenAI. Within the knowledge base settings, users have the option to enable GenAI to generate queries based on their knowledge base content. This functionality allows them to efficiently train the information retrieval (IR) system to align with their specific company content.
• Pre-filling of Salesforce and customer ticket forms
  Prior to connecting the end-user to a chat agent for support, the agent requires supplementary user information that would be helpful for the chat, such as the user's name, email, type of issue, product category, and zipcode. The prechat form enables brands to present these questions and gather user information before initiating the chat with the agent.

Resolved issues

• Minor bug fixes
• Resolved an issue where deleted intents are not being properly removed from the bot flows they were initially linked to, resulting in problems with saving and causing confusion.
• Resolved an issue where Zoom Contact Center to Zoom Virtual Agent chat routing failed when typing Agent into the chat widget.
• Resolved an issue where the intent did not appear as expected in the bot flows editor.
• Resolved an issue where customers, upon receiving a knowledge base recommendation from Zoom Virtual Agent, saw a snippet while reports and Zendesk chat transcripts displayed the entire article, rendering it unreadable.
• Resolved an issue where customers frequently received a "Your bot flows and widgets have been copied and saved, but we couldn't reach the machine translation service" error when saving a sub flow to Draft in a multi-language bot.

Previous Releases

Note: The information in the past release notes may have been superseded by subsequent release notes. Please review all current release notes carefully.

September 17, 2023

New and enhanced features

• Simplified ticket form creation
  A user-friendly UI has been developed to allow admins to easily create and manage form definitions without any coding knowledge or engineering support. Zendesk serves as the platform for previewing a set of forms, while Salesforce provides comprehensive support for form building.
  
• Improvements to error handling for knowledge base sync
  The improved error handling for knowledge base sync calls out individual issues and errors during syncs, reducing confusion and enabling users to promptly address specific problems.
• Enabling pre-filling of Zendesk ticket forms
  Pre-filling of ticket forms has been enabled using the information collected through global and local variables in bot flows. This eliminates the need for manual data entry, expediting the ticket submission process.
• Enhanced CRM support for Salesforce and Kustomer
  CRM agents can access chat transcripts from interactions with the bot, providing more accurate solutions and enhancing user satisfaction. This also reduces the likelihood of multiple tickets for the same issue.
• Support for new query library
  A new query library has been added to offer users improved methods for viewing and managing uploaded queries, enhancing query discoverability. This feature enables users to find and manage queries more easily, and quickly view and understand query statuses.
• Improvements to bot flow navigation
  The bot flow builder has been improved to provide a smoother and more effective flow-building experience. Enhancements include relocating the navigation bar for enhanced visibility, extending the zoom range for easy viewing of the entire flow, introducing new keyboard shortcuts for swift zooming, and enabling navigation using trackpad gestures and mouse actions to ensure smooth movement and zooming.

Resolved issues

• Minor bug fixes
• Resolved an issue where changes weren't immediately published when coaching or adding new phrases to an intent. Additionally, when the domain was trained and published, the intent status didn't update to Published but remained as Draft.
• Resolved an issue where the form would not submit if the email field did not adhere to the correct email format, and the customer attempted to submit it.
• Resolved an issue where a "Timeout of 50000ms exceeded" error message displayed when attempting to publish the Zoom Virtual Agent bot.
• Resolved an issue where users were unable to publish intent domain.
• Resolved an issue where certain intents migrated from Solvvy did not appear on the intent list but appeared on the workflows.
• Resolved an issue where the Condition widget value was too restrictive for URL field types.

August 20, 2023

New and enhanced features

• Simplified Zendesk and Salesforce form creation
  Zoom Virtual Agent admins can design and manage Salesforce forms and preview Zendesk forms without any technical expertise required. This will also be the platform for other major form-related features in the upcoming releases.
  

• Support escalation experience controls
  The bot support system has been enhanced to allow businesses to build settings within the bot, enabling them to easily turn on or off the support channel's active and passive triggers. When an end-user requests support or fails to find a satisfactory answer through the knowledge base or predefined intents, the bot will automatically present available support channels. The logic behind this automated offering is efficiently managed by the bot, ensuring that users receive appropriate assistance without delay.
• New Groups section in Knowledge Management
  The new Groups section in the Knowledge Management has been added so that users can effortlessly add or remove knowledge bases from groups, ensuring a more organized and efficient knowledge management process.
• Improvements to article tagging
  Significant improvements have been made to the article tagging in Zoom Virtual Agent. Users can easily manage and leverage article tags, whether carried over from Solvvy or newly added Zoom tags within the Zoom Virtual Agent system.
  
• Flexible model selection for enhanced responses
  Flexible model selection allows users to choose the model they want to use for answering content from the selected knowledge base. Users can choose between the Extractive (Internal) model, which extracts information directly from the article, or the Generative (Anthropic) model, which uses Generative AI to generate responses. With this feature, users can confidently tailor their responses to meet the requirements of sensitive topics or situations where precise verbiage is crucial.
• Enhancements to Condition widget
  The Zoom Virtual Agent Condition widget has been enhanced to optimize comparison logic and flow building. These improvements include supporting multi-comparisons and enabling multiple value checks within a single step. Additionally, the operators offered are now context-specific, based on the variable type, ensuring relevance and efficiency (for example, equal to, contains, etc.). These updates aim to provide users with a more versatile and streamlined experience when working with comparison operations in their virtual agent flows.
• Enhancement to coaching dashboard
  A progress bar to the coaching dashboard has been implemented so that users can set their coaching goals for the week and track the progress of how many queries were coached for their account.
• Amazon Connect integration
  Account owners and admins can integrate Zoom Virtual Agent with Amazon Connect. This feature can be leveraged to enable the utilization of Amazon Connect as a chat platform when this feature is enabled for the Customer Relationship Management (CRM). 
• Support for CRM tags in chat
  Admins can categorize and manage customer chats effortlessly through CRM tagging. CRM tags are labels or keywords that provide valuable context to customer interactions. This allows admins to categorize and organize chats, making it easier to identify the issue type and provide specialized assistance.

Resolved issues

• Minor bug fixes

July 16, 2023

New and enhanced features

• Source content highlighting
  A new highlighting feature for source content within answers has been implemented. When users click on a knowledge base link, the specific section of text that was extracted is automatically highlighted. This helps users in easily identifying and locating their context within the larger article.
  
• Filter knowledge base results returned by segment
  Bot Flows can restrict the knowledge base content returned to the user at a specific step in the conversation. This restriction is achieved by using variable parameters and the knowledge base category or tags in the bot. When the variable parameter is matched, the answer returned to the user’s query is filtered based on the specified category/tag, ensuring that the user receives targeted and contextually appropriate content.
  
• Enhancement to JS web sync tool
  The JS web sync tool has been enhanced to enable the creation of articles from each FAQ question, solving both the size limitation and analytics challenges faced by organizations. With the enhanced JS web sync, each FAQ question is now treated as an individual article, ensuring that article sizes do not exceed the limitations. Previously, saving FAQ pages as a single article resulted in excessive file sizes, making it impossible to save certain pages due to the maximum limit of 100kb. In addition, organizations can now gain insights into the effectiveness of individual FAQ items in assisting customers by creating separate articles for each FAQ item.
• Confluence Integration with Knowledge Management
  Knowledge Management now offers new options to connect with Confluence, enabling Zoom Virtual Agent to provide answers from their Confluence pages. Users can customize the synced content similar to other API connected knowledge sources.
  
• Article reference in coaching page
  Admins have the ability to directly access articles from the coaching page, allowing them to review the full context effortlessly. A new View Article link has been added, which appears when a URL is available for an article.
  
• Zoom Virtual Agent bot and bot flows localization for all supported languages
  The Zoom Virtual Agent bot and bot flows have been localized when you have your language set to any of the currently supported languages.

Resolved issues

• Minor bug fixes

June 18, 2023

New and enhanced features

• Zendesk chat integration
  Zoom Virtual Agent offers support for Zendesk chat integration, allowing businesses to seamlessly connect their Zoom Virtual Agent bot with their Zendesk instance for a better customer support experience. With this integration, end-users can easily connect with agents via chat if needed, while still using the Zoom Virtual Agent bot for initial queries.
• Web sync link discovery
  Web sync capabilities have been enhanced by enabling link discovery for web page synchronization. This allows customers to bypass the requirement of a sitemap and ensures their data remains up to date with website changes. Users will be able to set a source URL and rules to help guide the system through their website to sync relevant pages.
• Expanded category selection for knowledge base integrations
  The category selection options for knowledge base integrations have been expanded to allow users to select subcategories within a category when onboarding or editing a knowledge base. By providing deeper customization options, users can now take advantage of their additional organization levels and have greater control over the content they retrieve.
• Intercom ticket creation and response
  Users can submit tickets directly through the bot when their queries or issues cannot be resolved, ensuring a streamlined and efficient support process. When CRM agents receive the ticket, they have access to the complete conversation history, empowering them with valuable context to address user queries effectively. The chat transcript serves as a reference point, enabling agents to provide more accurate and relevant solutions, reducing the likelihood of duplicating the bot's previous responses.

Resolved issues

• Minor bug fixes

May 28, 2023

New and enhanced features

• Support for Bot to Bot handoff feature 
  Zoom Virtual Agent account owners and admins can choose to send the user to a different bot entirely, and if a Bot is selected, they can choose the Main Flow or Sub Flow to begin with. This feature enables bots to recognize the user's type and direct them to the appropriate bot or bot flow.
• Support for admin audit report 
  A new admin audit report feature has been added, allowing administrators to track changes made to their account by users. Similar to other Zoom products, the report allows administrators to track user actions, such as additions, deletions, and updates, providing better transparency and oversight.
• Specific knowledge base content type 
  A new content type has been added in the Web SDK specifically designed for knowledge base content, making it easy to display helpful information to end-users in a more user-friendly way. With this new feature, end-users can easily identify and access helpful non-conversational content, improving the overall user experience.
• Kustomer integration for knowledge management 
  Admins and account owners can establish a connection between Zoom Virtual Agent and Kustomer CRM, allowing them to import articles from any public or internal knowledge bases they may have in Kustomer. This integration streamlines the process of importing and managing knowledge content, ensuring that Zoom Virtual Agent has access to the necessary information to deliver effective solutions.
• Enhanced visibility for connected knowledge bases 
  Admins and account owners can see important details for connected knowledge items, including the title, content, category, and URL. This improvement brings connected knowledge bases on par with manual knowledge base in terms of providing comprehensive visibility into the available knowledge content. It enables users to have a clear understanding of the information sourced from their connected knowledge bases, ensuring data accuracy and quality.
• Improvements to manual knowledge base creation 
  To improve the content management experience for manual knowledge base, the ability to insert content through CSV bulk uploads has been implemented. With this new feature, users can simply upload a CSV file containing new articles or updated content, and the system will add or update the content accordingly within the manual knowledge base. This eliminates the need for one-by-one article management, providing a more streamlined and efficient approach to keeping manual knowledge base updated.
• Enhanced Salesforce knowledge base customization 
  Admins and account owners have the ability to edit certain Salesforce field options after a Salesforce knowledge base has been created. This feature allows users to correct issues with their integration without the need to delete and recreate the knowledge base.
• Improvements to web sync sitemap 
  The sitemap path selector has been improved to accommodate sitemaps with more than 5000 url paths. This enables websites with larger sitemaps to effectively utilize our crawler and ensure their knowledge base remains updated.
• Enhancement to web sync feature 
  Admins can upload relevant links as an alternative to relying solely on sitemaps. This empowers customers to include specific web content that they want to sync with our system.
• ServiceNow ITSM integration
  Admins and account owners have the option to configure ticket types as either ITSM or CSM, catering to specific requirements. End-users can seamlessly submit ITSM tickets directly from Zoom Virtual Agent to the CRM system, simplifying the process of creating tickets for IT service-related issues. Furthermore, ITSM tickets raised through Zoom Virtual Agent are automatically categorized as ITSM and seamlessly integrated into the ServiceNow ITSM system.
  
• Real-time live agent chat integration
  Zoom Virtual Agent supports live agent chat within the user interface (UI) which allows end-users to initiate chat conversations with live support agents without leaving the UI. Through this integration, end-users can now receive instant chat messages and replies from their CRM via live support agents, facilitating quicker issue resolution.
  
• Intercom integration
  Account owners and admins can integrate Zoom Virtual Agent with Intercom to enable the users to chat with a live Intercom agent within the same UI.
  
• Gorgias support channel integration
  A new ticket creation integration channel has been added to Zoom Virtual Agent, allowing businesses to leverage the power of the Zoom Virtual Agent bot while providing end-users with the ability to create support tickets when needed. With this integration, the Zoom Virtual Agent bot can now render a ticket form, enabling users to submit their queries or issues directly as support tickets.
• Enhancement to default ticket form
  The default ticket form has been enhanced to capture user information and seamlessly pass it to the CRM. With the addition of Name and Email fields, users can provide their personal details directly in the ticket form, enabling more efficient ticket creation. Furthermore, if user data has already been obtained from the welcome screen, the Name and Email fields will be automatically populated, saving time and ensuring accurate user information.
• Enhanced CRM support with chat transcript integration
  Zoom Virtual Agent sends the transcript of the chat between the user and the bot as an internal note with the ticket to the CRM. This enables agents to have better context of the user's interaction with the bot and provide more personalized and effective solutions. The Web SDK has been updated to include this new feature.

Resolved issues

• Minor bug fixes

April 16, 2023

New and enhanced features

• Salesforce integration with Knowledge Management
  A new option within Knowledge Management has been added to connect to Salesforce and customize the content we pull in. With this new integration, users can connect to the Knowledge Items within Salesforce and use them for Q&A, similar to other CRM connections.
• Global variable performance tracking
  Zoom Virtual Agent account owners and admins can track the performance of their chatbot solution on a per-global variable basis, exploring in a more targeted way how their Bot Flows and Knowledge Base solutions are performing in terms of resolving customers' issues.
• Dedicated page for general bot responses
  A new page has been added to allow Zoom Virtual Agent account owners and admins to easily manage responses to simple requests, centralize text for escalations to another support channel, and have insights into where the text they're controlling will be used. With this feature, bot admins will have an easy-to-use page for setting up all centralized text to be used throughout the bot, and can see the default/small talk intents and override the default intents.
• Bot creation improvements
  Zoom Virtual Agent account owners and admins are able to view the intents associated with their bot flows in a list view, without having to click into the canvas. Additionally, we have updated the subflow creation process so that intents are selected at the same time as the subflow is created, making it easier to manage intent-subflow connections. These changes will help bot builders more easily track which intents are being used and prevent issues caused by intent-subflow versioning.
• Support for ticket creation integration channel
  Zoom Virtual Agent supports ticket creation integration channel, allowing businesses to seamlessly create tickets for customers who require additional support beyond what the bot can provide.
• AI-generated training phrases
  Zoom Virtual Agent account owners and admins can use a new tool to create intents with relevant training phrases efficiently and accurately. With this new tool, admins can define the number of generated training phrases, which will be based on the intent name and description to ensure accuracy. The generated training phrases can then be easily deleted if necessary. This tool aims to improve intent and model performance while saving time for admins.

Resolved issues

• Minor bug fixes

March 19, 2023

Changes to existing features

• Train domain with single intent
  Account owners and admins can now create and train domains that have a single intent. Previously, at least 2 intents are required in the domain to train and publish it.
• Support for Knowledge Base Group
  Zoom Virtual Agent account owners and admins can now choose between a single knowledge base source, which is already available, and Knowledge Base Group. The Knowledge Base Group option allows businesses to select specific groups of knowledge base articles that they want their bot to use. With this new feature, businesses can create a personalized bot that returns only relevant content, making it easier for users to find the information they need quickly. In addition, businesses can exclude specific content that they do not want to be shown, such as temporary articles or articles that should not be discoverable.

New and enhanced features

• Intent Manager setup guide
  Intent Manager setup guide is available on the Intent Manager page to help new users understand and build domains and intents. The setup guide explains the definition of domain and intent, their roles in Virtual Agent, and how they work. Users have the option to show or skip the setup guide.
• Pre-built intents by industry or department
  Account owners and admins can view and search for pre-built intents related to their business. This makes intents readily available to new users and makes constructing and training models less intimidating.
• ServiceNow chat integration
  Account owners and admins can integrate Zoom Virtual Agent with ServiceNow to enable the chatbot to connect users to a live ServiceNow agent.
• Salesforce chat integration
  Account owners and admins can integrate Zoom Virtual Agent with Salesforce to enable the chatbot to connect them to a live Salesforce agent.
• Salesforce ticket submission
  Account owners and admins can raise and submit a ticket to the CRM from the Zoom Virtual Agent chatbot.
• Improvements on CollectInput widget
  CollectInput widget has been improved so that admins can easily set up their Quick Reply buttons. Improvements include a new UI for switching between Text Input and Quick Replies, enabling Zoom Virtual Agent account owners and admins to choose whether button selection is required or if text searches will also return results, and adding description in the CollectInput setup panel.
• Send customers to a specific support channel
  Zoom Virtual Agent account owners and admins are now able to set up an exit point for their bot flow through a specific channel or set of channels. This allows businesses to design flows that intentionally escalate to another channel to better fit their business processes.
• Data retention setting sync
  Integration between Zoom Virtual Agent and Zoom Contact Center has been enhanced so that if a user changes the data retention setting for messages in Zoom Virtual Agent, it is also changed in Zoom Contact Center. This change is indicated in the tooltip and header description to reflect its shared status. Clients who have Zoom Contact Center and Zoom Virtual Agent together and have different settings in each product will have their Zoom Contact Center setting migrated to their setting in Zoom Virtual Agent.
• Solvyy clients configuration/data migration
  Solvvy clients who are migrating to Zoom Virtual Agent can now migrate their intent assets, including intent name, description, training phrases, and regex and text-based rules per account. This allows for a seamless transition and eliminates the need to recreate intent assets.
• New web crawler for knowledge base
  Customers who have existing knowledge base content on their website can now easily keep their chatbot's answers up-to-date using a new web sync feature. This feature uses a customer's existing sitemap and allows users to select a target domain, pull in content, and customize the crawler to select only meaningful parts of their knowledge base. This website content can be trained just like API and manual content to improve the answers provided to end users.
• WYSIWYG editor for manual knowledge base
  A text editor has been added to the manual knowledge base, which enables users to add styling to knowledge base items without requiring knowledge of HTML. This allows users to view the outcome of their work as they create it, improving productivity and the user experience. Additionally, the styling on the Content field will be displayed, providing users with an easier way to see the outcome without relying on HTML tags.
• Auto-creation of entry IDs
  Bot flow builder feature now includes auto-creation of entry IDs in the Main Flow to reduce the number of steps to launch your Bot. This feature simplifies the process of adding widgets and makes it easier for new admins to get started quickly.

Resolved issues

• Minor bug fixes

February 26, 2023

New and enhanced features

• Knowledge Base ServiceNow integration
  When creating a knowledge base, users can download articles from ServiceNow and use them in their knowledge base. Account owners and admins can see customization options specific to ServiceNow when onboarding a ServiceNow knowledge base and choose which categories to be used by Zoom Virtual Agent. After creating a knowledge base, users can update these customizations and exclude specific articles from their chatbot.
• Individual query coaching
  A new search bar has been added to the coaching dashboard, allowing users to search all queries to see if they are user-submitted or synthetic queries. This allows users to click on searched queries for coaching.
• Improvements to Coaching feature
  The Coaching feature on the Knowledge Management tab has been enhanced to make it easier for users to open the coach dashboard, filter searches, and examine data. Improvements include launching coaching more prominently within the knowledge base section, customizing the knowledge base targeted, and providing more information regarding the queries being coached and their relevance to the currently selected knowledge base.
• Remove tables from crawled content
  Table tags are added to exclude tables when syncing knowledge base. Tables are removed from crawled content because they do not display correctly in chat windows.
• Replace instances of crawl with sync
  Every mention of crawl on the Knowledge Management page will now be referred to as sync.

Resolved issues

• Minor bug fixes

January 18, 2023

• General availability for Zoom Virtual Agent
  Zoom Virtual Agent is a Conversational AI and Chatbot Solution that works around-the-clock on multiple customer support channels to deliver fast, personalized customer resolutions, reduce call volumes to human agents, generate actionable analytics, and drive significant operational efficiencies. To learn more about Zoom Virtual Agent, visit the Zoom Virtual Agent product page and support page.