At a glance:

  • Post-meeting summary with easy access to recordings, chat, and polls, right in your 8x8 Work app
  • Breakout rooms for focused, effective discussions
  • Frontdesk enhancements so you'll not miss Switchboard Pro
  • New and improved 8x8 Work for Web is now Citrix compatible
  • 8x8 pure cloud solution for users in the Philippines and Panama
  • Enhanced Reporting for Contact Center Analytics
  • 8x8 Connect’s language localization
  • SOC2 and HIPAA certifications for 8x8 Embeddable Communications and API platform

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There's nothing like having your cake and eating it too, is there?

Last week, I had a meeting with my coworkers in the customer marketing and brand departments to record our winter highlight webinar. There were six people on the call and we all said our hellos, discussed what we were trying to accomplish, and crystalized what the final deliverable needed to look like. Then, we split into two breakout rooms: four of us in one breakout room to discuss product details and two in another to discuss the brand elements and video editing action items. We got back on to the main meeting, hit record, and voila! In 43 minutes we all had everything we needed, and it was the most effective six-person meeting I’ve hosted in a long time. We didn't have to get on multiple calls, send a barrage of emails, or chat back and forth to get the job done. It was fast, clean, and effective.

This is what breakout rooms could do for us, as the marketing team at a software company. Now, imagine all the things this feature could be used for within your own organization. Breakout rooms are just one of the exciting features in this new release that we can’t wait to share with you. Here are some of our favorite highlights:

1. Enhanced post-meeting summary

Meeting hosts can review participant engagement and easily access meeting details and in-meeting actions like recording, chat, and polls after a meeting has ended. These features are all available right there in your 8x8 Work app, so there’s no more hunting down recordings and poll output in backend user portals or requesting your coworker to send a link that was shared in meeting chat but then lost because the meeting ended.

8x8 Inc.

2. Breakout rooms for effective meeting outcomes

The meeting host can now split participants into separate sessions for smaller, focused discussions. This would be especially relevant for the education vertical, where teachers can split students into smaller groups for projects or activities and then have everyone regroup after some time. This would also be useful for training sessions, where the trainer can bring together smaller groups or enable brainstorming sessions.

8x8 Inc.

3. Frontdesk enhancements

8x8's latest-generation call handling experience continues to evolve. With support now added for multiple call parking modes, shared notes, and directory filter options, 8x8 Frontdesk is a worthy successor to its legacy Switchboard Pro solution.

8x8 Inc.

4. 8x8 Work for Web is now on the Citrix Marketplace.

Launched as a beta program in March 2021, 8x8 Work for Web brings robust collaboration and business phone capabilities to your browser. It is now available to all our customers and geared to be used as an alternate endpoint in the most demanding call handling environments, such as contact centers.

It is now also Citrix compatible to better meet the needs of our customers that work in a virtualized environment.

5. 8x8 pure cloud solution for users in the Philippines and Panama

8x8 offers the industry's first integrated cloud contact center and phone solution for multinational companies in the Philippines. As the region's premier hub for outsourced business services, the Philippines is the latest country where 8x8 can uniquely provide flexible, reliable, and high-quality PSTN replacement services for multinational organizations.

Also, 8x8 has expanded the availability of its services for customers with operations, offices, and personnel in Panama, the strategically-located commercial hub for the shipping and international logistics industries.

This further extends 8x8's global presence, via its cloud-based PSTN replacement capabilities, to 48 countries and counting.

6. Enhanced Reporting for Contact Center Analytics

The addition of time range filters enables users to easily and automatically generate overnight reports. This reduces manual overhead for night shifts and ultimately saves time. Also, new historical widgets can be used to enable data filtering through new criteria, such as queue and media. This provides customers with more granular dashboards showing agents and agent groups across specific queues for added flexibility for reporting.

7. 8x8 Connect’s language localization

To support global teams, 8x8 Connect is now available in seven languages: English, Indonesian, Simplified Chinese, Thai, Japanese, German, and Spanish. This improves accessibility for users, especially local businesses, who manage marketing campaigns in their preferred languages.

8. Security & Compliance – SOC2 and HIPAA

The 8x8 Embeddable Communications and API platform adheres to international privacy laws and security standards, achieving internationally recognized certifications including SOC 2 Type II and HIPAA compliance. This demonstrates 8x8’s commitment to protecting all user data and assures users that security is our priority.

These features will enable organizations to drive better in-meeting and post-meeting experiences, reduce costs, and provide tailored experiences for a distributed workforce. Learn more about how the 8x8 Experience Communications PlatformT can help your organization.

Want to see what else we delivered with this release? Check out the detailed release highlights and keep an eye out for our Spring release and more announcements in the months ahead.