“Core to successfully enabling hybrid work is providing your people with the right communications and collaboration tools when and where they need them,” RingCentral chief innovation officer Kira Makagon said.

New advanced phone capabilities simplify experience for end-users and IT admins
The following new capabilities can help IT teams realise significant time savings around bulk management and onboarding of distributed teams. New features include:

Personal call forwarding made simple: Forward business calls to another extension, voice mail, or shared line with a single click when going on break or holiday. Think of it like an “out-of-office” assistant for your business phone.

Auto-dialler to expedite services and dialling: Call pre-programmed numbers as soon as the phone is taken off the hook. For example, automatically dial the security office, emergency response team, concierge, or the front desk to expedite services.

Line seizure for emergency services: Instantly lock down all the lines within particular sites so users can only make and receive calls to/from a phone number designated by emergency services.

Enhancing self-service onboarding and support: The Resource Centre tool built into the RingCentral app provides users with self-service resources to help them access instructional videos, documentation, feature overviews, and help and support.

Capture actionable insights from call behaviour: RingCentral’s line of business analytics are now available through APIs, as a public beta. With deeper insights, teams are better able to gauge performance across call queues, user groups, and individuals to drive efficiency and identify staffing needs.

Eliminate toggling between apps with new RingCentral add-ins
RingCentral now offers users access to more apps within the RingCentral app, allowing them to save time with easier app-switching. Users now have access to the following:

Google Drive Add-in: Be notified of new shared Google Drive files, easily view files, and instantly provide file access to all team members in your RingCentral messaging group.

Google Forms Add-in: Instantly view form responses as they come in.

HubSpot Add-in: Instantly access contact details; find and share details of a company; and share the contact, deal, and ticket information easily with colleagues via team messaging.

Zendesk Add-in: Agents can create tickets, respond to tickets, and be notified in real-time of new tickets within the RingCentral app.

TextBot SMS Add-In: Send and receive text messages to any mobile phone using RingCentral's native Team Messaging feature.

Trello Add-in: Receive notifications for Trello board activity and easily update Trello with completed tasks, new comments, and much more.

Poll Add-In: Quickly create a simple poll, allow team members to submit responses within team chat, and instantly see the results in real time.

Auto-reply assistant: Tired of always replying to the same questions in team messages? Auto-reply bot sends pre-determined replies based on keywords or when out of office.

“It’s no secret that cloud phone systems enable organisations to scale, enhance their mobility, and offer a cost-effective communications platform,” commented J Arnold and Associates principal Jon Arnold.

“This allows their customers to make a seamless transition to the cloud and offers IT administrators the capabilities they need to make setup and management extremely easy and intuitive.”

This first appeared in the subscription newsletter CommsWire on 3 August 2022.