8x8 rolls out enhancements to XCaaS offering

8x8 has launched enhancements to its 8x8 XCaaS (Experience Communications as a Service) to further support hybrid workforces.

8x8 XCaaS is built on the 8x8 Experience Communications Platform, a single-vendor cloud technology platform for both employee and customer engagement, which includes an integrated contact centre, voice, video meetings, team chat and embedded APIs.

New 8x8 company-wide collaboration features support better video meetings, deeper integration with 8x8 voice for Microsoft Teams, and enhanced workforce mobility.

Developments to video meetings includes the ability to add more meeting participants and leverage existing investments.

More meeting participants: The 8x8 Work app now handles larger video meetings, supporting up to 500 active desktop users in a single meeting, and all with the ability to collaborate and share video, audio and screens.

This capability is available for all 8x8 X Series plans that include video meetings without any additional license costs.

Leverage existing investments: Expanded access includes more endpoints, allowing attendees to join 8x8 video meetings and share screen content from huddle rooms using legacy SIP devices.

This enables organisations to leverage existing hardware investments at a time when demand is impacting deployment of newer technologies.

Developments to 8x8 Voice for Microsoft Teams includes greater visibility across the organisation and integrated business messaging.

Visibility across the organisation with 8x8 Presence Sync: The presence status of Teams-based users is updated in real time, and is visible in 8x8 Work and 8x8 Contact Center, facilitating sales, service and support agents to connect and collaborate with Microsoft Teams-enabled experts to resolve issues faster.

Integrated business messaging: The 8x8 Voice for Microsoft Teams direct routing solution provides an organisations hybrid workforce with individual business phone and fax numbers.

This enables employees to send and receive SMS or MMS messages or faxes directly from any Teams native interface to further extend the experience for users.

Finally, enhanced workforce mobility updates includes the ability to share from mobile devices, a tap to reply feature, add context for handoffs and share voicemails with other users.

Share from mobile devices: Mobile participants are able to share content while accessing video meetings via the 8x8 Work Mobile iOS and Android apps.

Tap to reply: The 8x8 Work Mobile app allows users to reply inline to new 1:1 and team chat messages directly from their mobile devices notification section without having to open the app, making it easier to respond to messages.

Handoffs with context: Users on the 8x8 Work Mobile app can warm transfer active calls to the desired recipient, and provide pertinent information for added context.

Share voicemails with other users: Voicemails can be shared with colleagues in team chat rooms using 8x8 Work Mobile to speed collaboration and issue resolution.

8x8 global vice president of product management, Rob Pilgrim, says, "Organisations recognise the importance of modern communications experiences for powering business agility, especially as they drive new work requirements for a distributed workplace.

"We continue to innovate across 8x8 XCaaS, allowing organisations and their employees to maximise productivity and responsiveness as they collaborate from anywhere, on any device in the app of their choice.