D365 Customer Service: New Dialer Experience(preview)

As part of 2023 release wave 2 Microsoft has made several improvements to the dialer in Dynamics 365 Customer Service. This dialer is available for agents to use if the voice channel in Dynamics 365 Customer Service has been configured in the environment.
The new dialer has an improved design and enhanced dialing features, such as phone number editing capabilities, a call history list, and administrative settings for countries and regions. Agents can access the dialer by clicking the phone icon from the top bar from within the customer service workspace app.
The new dialer experience went into preview in October of this year, so you can review what these new features look like today. Keep in mind this is a feature that needs to be enabled by an admin. In this article I will not only go over the new dialer experience, but I will also show you how you can enable the preview in your environment.

Features

The first thing that I noticed with the new designer is that it is optimized when it comes to the screen real-estate. You’ll notice that the actual dial pad is hidden by default, which makes sense because it’s faster and easier to just use the number keys on the keyboard to enter the phone number that an agent wants to dial. If an agent prefers using the dial pad instead, they can click on the dial pad icon on the top right side of the panel (on the left side of the gear icon) to access it.

Recent Calls List

The second thing that immediately caught my eye is the recent calls list. You’ll notice that the dial pane automatically shows the last 20 phone numbers that were dialed or that called in. This makes it a lot easier for agents to call these phone numbers again, as they won’t need to look for the phone numbers; they are already visible in the recent calls list. You’ll also notice that if the phone number is related to a Dynamics 365 row, the name of the row (I.E contact, account) will show in the recent call list. To make a call from the recent call list, an agent can simply hover over the recent number they want to dial again and click on the phone icon (with the word ‘call’) that appears. Initiating a call this way will immediately dial out to the selected phone number. If a call is being initiated from a Dynamics 365 row, the phone number will be shown in the dialer, (which is the same as the current experience). The agent can edit the number if needed, prior to making the call.

Editing Phone Numbers

Another great improvement is the ability to edit a phone number before actually dialing it. For example, if an agent initiates a call from a row in Dynamics 365 or if they manually enter a phone number, they can move the cursor anywhere in the phone number and edit the phone number. With the current dialer, if part of the number is incorrect, the agent will have to use the backspace button to erase the numbers until they get to the faulty part of the phone number. The next experience lets the agent click anywhere inside the phone number and modify the number. Another thing you’ll notice is that when a phone number is entered, it will automatically be formatted in the dialer. For example, if an agent enters 9545558554, the dialer will format the number to show 954-555-8554. This also helps agents recognize invalid or incomplete phone numbers quicker.

Country Support

This feature is brand new and allows administrators to allow and restrict the countries an agent can dial out to. Agents can access the list of countries they can dial by clicking on the country drop down on the left side of the phone number. Administrators can configure the countries agents have access to on the outbound profile(s). The profiles indirectly get assigned to one or multiple agents, which makes configuring the country permissions very easy. (NOTE: You can configure a queue for outbound calls. The outbound profile gets associated with a phone number, a queue, and a capacity profile. The phone number is also associated with a queue. Agents in the queue will be granted access to the outbound profile this way, but in order to make outbound calls, each agent will also need to have a capacity profile assigned, in order to give them access to make outbound calls.)

This feature will make sure that agents can only dial out to phone numbers in the approved countries. If an agent enters a country code, they don’t have access to, the call button will be grayed out and the agent will not be able to make the call. If needed, multiple profiles can be assigned to an agent. The agent will have access to dial to the sum of all the allowed countries. For example, if outbound profile 1 allows for calls to be made to the United States, and outbound profile 2 allows calls to the Netherlands, an agent with both outbound profiles will be able to make calls to both countries. Agents with outbound profile 1 will only be able to make calls to numbers in the United States. It’s also important to mention that agents that have multiple outbound profiles will not need to do anything extra when dialing a phone number. Dynamics 365 Customer Service will be smart enough to select the phone number with the profile that has access to the country that is being called.

Enable the Preview

You can enable the new dialer experience (preview) by navigating to make.powerapps.com. From here you’ll need to navigate to solutions and then you’ll need to open the default solution. Once you’ve opened the default solution, you’ll need to search for ‘settings’ under ‘Objects’ on the left-hand side.

You’ll see ‘Settings Definitions’ and ‘Setting environment variables’ below ‘Settings’. Open the ‘Setting environment variables’, and search for the ‘Enhanced outbound dialer experience’ setting environment variable. Click on the setting environment variable to access the details, (a side pane will open) and click on ‘Add existing value’. Make sure to set the value to ‘Yes’, then save and publish your changes. When you return to the customer workspace app, make sure to refresh the page, and you should see the new dialer experience! I hope you enjoyed reading this article! Be sure to check in again next week for a new article or subscribe here to never miss another post!