Shifting to remote work introduces some challenges as well as opportunities.

Personally, one of the big ones is making sense of the blurring lines between personal and professional time. Although I try to maintain a schedule, I find it hard sticking to one especially when it comes to interacting with fellow team members, vendors, or suppliers who are located in different geographies.

There are times when I called them just when they were logging off or, in some cases, outside their regular work times. Thankfully, I work with a wonderful bunch of people and they have always responded politely. Now, I could do a quick google search to check the timezone (believe me, I do) but sometimes I forget. Even though my collaboration tools help me communicate and stay connected, at times they can be intrusive.

That is where the latest release of 8x8 Work for Desktop comes in to solve this problem. When a user dials an international number, the country name and local time are displayed on the dial pad header (in the expanded mode). This allows users (like me) to avoid calling people at odd hours. Cool, right!

The other key highlights of 8x8 Work’s latest product release are:

Desktop Experience (7.1 version):

  • Avoid infinite scrolling with the ability to filter call recordings and voicemails by name and number
  • Transfer an active call easily, via direct transfer or to a voicemail from the chat roster (expanded mode)
  • New video icon for video meetings
  • Avoid interruptions when you are working on something important or while in a meeting by disabling desktop notifications when the ‘Do Not Disturb’ status is ON
  • Know how a call was routed to you or your team, whether through the main phone line or ring group for better visibility

Mobile Experience (10.2 version):

  • Create private and public rooms with just a few clicks for easy collaboration
  • Unable to answer a call? Respond easily by selecting one of the predefined text messages
  • Block spam calls at user level from the Calls tab
  • Customize private and public rooms with Room Avatars
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  • Select multiple messages, copy and export them through 3rd party apps (examples: Whatsapp, Gmail, etc.)

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Customers can expect these features over the next few weeks. Download the latest version of 8x8 Work for Desktop and 8x8 Work for Mobile from the Amazon, iOS, Android app stores today.