Salesforce Open CTI for Cloud to Cloud CTI

June sees the arrival of Salesforce.com’s Summer’12 release, and whilst we are always excited to see what new features make it into each release, this one is particularly interesting for us!

Three years ago when NewVoiceMedia first looked at integrating our cloud based telephony with the leading cloud CRM provider the recommended solution was to build a software-based CTI adapter that users would install on their individual machines.

As a cloud company trying to integrate with another cloud company this didn’t make sense for us and so we decided to take another route, and used Salesforce’s existing salesforce telephony integration API to connect cloud to cloud.

This gave our customers substantial benefits over the software-based CTI adapter – the ability to use any internet connected device including Macs or iPads, as well as the ability to route and prioritise calls across multiple geographic locations.

Cloud to Cloud with Salesforce Open CTI

The Summer’12 release shows that we were on the right track, as Salesforce.com delivered Salesforce Open CTI  – a cloud based CTI solution that leverages the existing Salesforce API and removes any need for a software-based adapter.

Open CTI will enable third party developers such as NewVoiceMedia to build custom softphones that sit within the Salesforce page layout facilitating click to dial and screen popping.  Technology providers that have previously been using the software-based CTI adapter will need to re-write their code to run in the browser instead of on the machine itself.

Little change for our customers

For our customers there will be little to notice from the release as NewVoiceMedia has already been using this method of integration, however some additional benefits will be seen:

Native Click to Dial: customers will no longer require our custom Click to Dial fields meaning easier user adoption.

More Click to Dial: customers will notice more telephone numbers in more objects becoming dial-able.

Reduced API calls: for customers that are nearing their 1000 API calls per user per day Open CTI reduces the number of API calls NewVoiceMedia will require.

Better Softphone positioning: Instead of just using the sidebar in Sales Cloud and a custom component in the Service Cloud Console customers will see the softphone in a CTI call-out box at the bottom of their screen.

It’s also useful to remember that NewVoiceMedia’s integration with Salesforce already goes well beyond the new Open CTI functionality using the API to route and prioritise calls based on data you hold in your Salesforce system.

As an agile development company we have loved the opportunity to receive the release notes, and deliver a working solution in time for the Summer’12 release in under 2 weeks.  We’re proud that on launch day our clients can start benefiting from the new changes and we hope to move every single customer across within 4 weeks of the Open CTI launch.

This is the power of the cloud telephony and we’ve been excited to lead the way.

For more information on Open CTI you can download the Salesforce.com Summer’12 Release Notes, or read our Advanced Guide to Salesforce Telephony Integration.