8x8, a cloud communications platform provider, has updated the 8x8 Open Communications Platform to help companies accelerate digital workplace initiatives and optimize employee productivity and customer experiences from anywhere on any device.
"A modern, seamless platform matters. Owning the fully integrated cloud technology stack, from voice, team chat and meetings to contact center, enterprise APIs and programmable applications, enables us to rapidly inject new, innovative capabilities across the 8x8 Open Communications Platform via our microservices architecture," said Dejan Deklich, chief product officer at 8x8, in a statement. "This benefits organizations significantly as it removes friction for both administrators and users, allowing them to easily mix and match, manage and use the communications, collaboration and customer engagement features they need in a fast-evolving, operate-from-anywhere business environment."
The latest 8x8 Open Communications Platform updates include the following:
- Role-based access controls;
- Compliance with emergency services regulatory requirements, allowing administrators to send automatic emergency notifications, determine target recipients, and customize the notification content;
- Integration with Microsoft Azure Active Directory for single sign-on configuration;
- The ability to customize video meeting branding with backgrounds, logos, and vanity meeting URLs;
- Detailed meetings analytics to track product usage and user adoption and to identify and manage audio and video quality issues;
- Enhanced Ring Groups Summary reports with faster, easier reporting, more flexible metric comparisons, and the ability to filter and access call detail records;
- The addition of scheduling and API options to propagate and share reports;
- Improved navigation and display options, with new dynamic filtering options.
8x8 also updated 8x8 Work, its integrated app for voice, team chat, and video meetings, with the following product enhancements:
- Automatic presence status sync with Google and Microsoft Office 365 Calendars to set user presence based on calendar events;
- Dark mode to mute chat and SMS notifications and block spam calls and numbers,;
- Support for Amazon Fire OS devices.
Additionally, 8x8 Meet is now included in the 8x8 Work app or available as a stand-alone meetings solution, and now includes the following:
- Enhanced security with end-to-end encryption;
- Improved collaboration for large groups with support for up to 100 active participants per meeting;
- Optimization of upstream and downstream video quality to adjust for bandwidth consumption or network quality; and
- In-meeting YouTube video sharing with automatic audio source prioritization.
8x8 also expanded its global presence, making 8x8 Voice for Microsoft Teams generally available for users in 42 countries; making 8x8 X Series available in the Republic of Ireland; and offering full PSTN replacement in South Africa, Greece, Kazakhstan, and Peru, bringing the total to 42 countries across six continents.