HaloCRM Roadmap
Find out about all the upcoming developments in HaloCRM
In Progress
WeChat Channel
New channel to allow for communication with your customers using WeChat.
Conversational Ticket View
New conversational, customer-focused view for managing customer service and sales. Designed to reduce duplication and drive customer satisfaction.
Distribution list / marketing email double opt-in
A new area of Halo to send mass/bulk emails to email lists that are created using the report builder
Telegram Integration
Create Tickets from Telegram messages and send messages to Telegram users
Multi-Page Ticket Logging
Ability to split a ticket form down into multiple pages based on field groups, with a progress completion bar.
Up Next
Viber Channel
New channel to allow for communication with your customers using Viber.
Text Global Channel
New channel to allow texts from Text Global into HaloCRM.
Future
Recently Completed
Added the ability to use the end-user chatbot in Slack
It is now possible to create applications in Slack and associate them with chat profiles in your Halo instance. This allows users within your Slack workspace to communicate with a custom-defined chatbot that you have configured.
The new functionality can be configured on the new End-User Chat tab of the Slack integration.
Unlike the rest of the Slack integration, this functionality requires you to create your own Slack developer app. This gives you the ability to customize the appearance of the application for your end users.
To make the creation of these apps straightforward, the Create Manifest button can be used to generate a JSON file that can be imported straight into Slack to create new applications. This ensures that your apps are configured with the correct permissions and endpoints.
Once the app is created, you can register it in Halo and assign it a chat profile allowing the correct chat flow to be used whenever a user starts a conversation via the app.
Once the app has been installed into Slack, users can start new conversations in the Messages tab of the app using the /startchat slash command. They can also end current conversations with the /endchat slash command.
Various prompts/inputs will be available to the user throughout the conversation, helping to guide them through your configured chat profile. An example prompt where a user has asked the bot a question and the bot has returned knowledge base articles to the end-user can be seen below.
Added the Rapid7 Integration
A Rapid7 integration is now available, allowing tickets to be created from Rapid7 using runbooks in Halo. Webhooks from Rapid7 will need to be setup to trigger the runbook when an investigation is created.
Once the integration is enabled, the runbooks will automatically be added. Alongside this a schedule will be made for the alerts runbook to obtain future alerts on the investigation.
The closure runbook can be implemented to close investigations in Rapid7 when a ticket in Halo is closed.
Added the ability to translate email templates
To enable this functionality you must enable the setting "Allow multi-language email templates" in Configuration > Email.
With this enabled you can set individual email templates to be multi-language.
To translate an email, you need to use configure custom email variables. For these, you need to specify a name for the variable and the value for the text. This text can then be translated into any language you have configured in Halo.
These can be configured globally for use on multiple email templates or at individual email template level. The values for these variables can contain $ variables.
These variables can then be used in the email template for both the subject and the body using the following format: <<Variable Name>>
When sending an email, the language of the recipient will be determined from their settings. For users, it will use the language the have selected, otherwise it will fall back to the site-level language setting. For emails to agents, it will use their specified language. If none of those settings are specified, it will use the global language setting.
When sending emails from a ticket, the language of the user will be used, even when sending an email to multiple recipients. The only exceptions are when using actions with the system use of "Email Agent" or "Add note to Parent Ticket", and emails on opportunity tickets will not translate until a user record has been created from the opportunity.
Please note that translations will not yet apply to the following:
- Bulk emails, such as emailing service subscribers or distribution lists
- Actions with system uses that email all approvers of a ticket
- Emails to suppliers
Improvements to the Exchange Calendars integration
The new functionality is only available when using the Graph API connection method, combined with an Azure application that uses application permissions.
Immutable IDs
Immutable IDs can now be activated for this integration. This prevents issues caused by the ID of an Exchange appointment changing when certain properties on the appointment are changed.
Additional permissions must be granted to your Azure application to use this functionality.
Webhooks
Webhooks can now be configured to receive instant updates for Created, Updated, and Deleted events from Exchange.
As highlighted on the setup screen, subscriptions for an agent will be created/deleted automatically when toggling the integration on/off in their preferences. Any active subscriptions will be renewed either when a webhook is received for an event for that agent, or daily via the task scheduler.
You can manually manage the subscription for each agent in the table provided. The Add button also contains an "All" option to create a subscription for all outstanding agents.
Note: Immutable IDs must be enabled to use the webhook functionality.
General Improvements
The integration setup screen has now been split into tabs to more easily manage the configuration.
An inbound and outbound request tab has also been added for better visibility of the webhooks received and the requests made by the integration.
Various improvements to Configuration Items
To improve the functionality and ease of use of configuration items in Halo, various improvements have been made. To enable this new functionality the setting "Allow automatic linking of Assets and Services" in Configuration > Services must be enabled.
This allows configuration items to be managed as one single entity whilst functioning as both an asset and a service.
NOTE: If using access control for either assets or services, access control will be enabled for the other entity upon enabling this setting.
Asset Type
Asset types now have 2 settings for "Is Service" or "Is Business application". They can only be one of these at a time. These settings can only be set for new asset types and cannot be changed once set.
When enabled, the asset type can then be linked to a service category that the services linked to assets of this type will be part of.
Additionally, asset types can now have related services. These will be inherited by any assets of that type. This can be used for any asset type, not just the ones linked to services.
Assets
When creating an asset of one of these types, a service will be created that is linked to this asset. The following fields will be inherited from the asset to the service:
- Asset Tag to Service Name
- Business owner
- Technical owner
- Criticality
- Notes
- Related Articles
- Related Assets
Additionally, if an asset "Is a business application" then the related service will have the following setting on:
- Is a Monitored Service (Track Service Status)
- Show in Service Catalogue for End-Users
- Allow Subscribers to log Incidents
Whereas, if an asset "Is a Service" these settings will be off.
All other fields, including custom fields, will be shown in tabs against the asset, so the service and asset can be managed from one screen. These tabs will only show against assets that are linked to a service and can be reordered using tab layouts.
All the same options that are available on a service, such as logging a ticket or emailing all subscribers, are available on the asset as well.
Once an asset has been created with one of these types, the type cannot be change to one that is not either a service or a business application.
Service
If creating a service from the services area of Halo, it will not have the option to be linked to an asset. Additonally, if you click on the record for a service linked to an asset it will take you to the asset screen to manage the details.
Tickets
With this functionality enabled, the related services field on tickets will be restricted to only ones linked to assets.
If an asset is related to a ticket and it is linked to a service, the corresponding service will be related to the ticket.
Similarly, if a service is related to a ticket or set as the primary service and it is linked to an asset, then the asset will be related to the ticket.
Any child assets of a related asset that are marked as a service or a business application, will also be related to the ticket along with their services.
The primary service, related assets, and related services fields can also be renamed per ticket type.
Added the AuthRocket Integration
An AuthRocket integration is now available, allowing users to be created from AuthRocket using runbooks in Halo.
Once the integration is enabled, the runbooks will automatically be added. Alongside this a schedule will be made for the runbook.
Added the ability to import Shifts from Microsoft Teams
You can now configure a separate Teams connection for importing shifts.
NOTE: This Miscorosft API is currently only supported for the Global Service Authority.
Once connected, you can configure mappings for teams in Microsoft Teams. This will create a webhook to automatically import the shifts from Teams. Only shifts assigned to a user in teams will be imported. The shifts will only be added into Halo for agents that have been synced with Microsoft Entra ID and have the setting "Enable shift imports" turned on against their account.
There is a button to enable this for every agent in a team.
In addition to the webhooks, the integrator can be set up to import shifts as a backup in case any are missed.
Virima integration is now available
A Virima integration is now available, allowing for the import of assets.
To use this integration you must generate an API key and know your Virima tenant id. You then need to enter the URL for your Virima instance, as well as the key and tenant ID to connect the integration.
Site Mappings
Virima does not have a concept of sites or customers, so to determine which site an asset should be created against you can use site rules. These rules are based on field values, and if matched will assign an asset to the site of the mapping.
The user of an imported asset will be matched to a user based on their email address. This matching will be done on the username, email, and network login fields, and you can specify an additional field to try matching on as well.
The matched user can be used to override the site mapping.
There is also a setting to not change an existing asset's site.
Asset Imports
All types of assets will be imported from Virima. All fields can be mapped from Virima to Halo, with the option to manually specify a field name if required. Software is also imported for each asset, with an option to match these to customer licences.
The asset types of the assets can either use a fixed type for all assets, be determined from one of the fields, or use asset type mappings that are determined using rules based on the values of the mapped asset fields. The mappings can either use a specific type or use a field to determine the asset type.
If none of the rules are matched, a default asset type will be used, which can be configured to not allow the import of any assets that don't match any of the rules, allowing for certain assets to be excluded from the import.
Asset relationships can also be imported from Virima, with a future update also allowing the Vivid relationship diagram from Virima to be displayed as a tab on the asset in Halo
Additionally, there are settings to: deactivate assets deleted from Virima and what status to set them to when doing this, not create new assets, not update existing asset types, and the status for new assets.
Assets can be imported manually or on a recurring schedule using the Halo integrator. When using the integrator, only assets updated or created since the last sync date will be imported. You can clear the last sync date if required.
AT&T integration is now available
AT&T integration has been added to the 'Product Catalogs' integration group:
API credentials are required to set this up and are sourced from AT&T directly. A default vendor and product group must be selected to create new products under when adding AT&T products to quotations.
With the module enabled a new button to "Add AT&T product" will appear on the quote details screen. This opens a search screen so that you can see what services AT&T can offer at your customers specific site address. All segments of the address must be populated before searching; this is filled out automatically if the address is already set on the quote.
Using the "compare" filter option applies visuals to results returned from AT&T to be able to quickly compare key characteristics as well as display pricing differences:
Once an AT&T product has been selected, this will be added as a line to the quote and created in Halo as a monthly recurring product.
Halo Push Notifications can now be sent to Agents Web Browsers
Within a Notification, you can now choose to send browser push notifications by enabling the "Send a browser push notification" setting.
When one or more notifications have this set, Agents using a browser that supports Firebase Messaging will be prompted to grant permission for Halo to send them notifications once they log into Halo.
The notification will be delivered to the browser and how it shows will depend on the browser. For example, Chromium browsers can display a notification in the Windows notification centre.
Clicking on the notification will open the relevant link in a new Halo tab, and mark the notification as read.
A few other changes have been made to notifications to support this;
- The delivery method option "Popup in notification pane" has been renamed to "Show in Halo only" as all notifications show in the Halo notification pane.
- A new checkbox setting has been added labelled "Popup in notification pane" which is active by default. This determines whether a notification pops up within Halo when it is delivered.
When using browser notifications, to avoid duplication of popups it's recommended to disable the popup within Halo and allow the browser to display the notification only, although both can be used at once.
