Release Notes 06/16/2024

Deploy

You can expect up to 90 minutes of downtime to deploy this release.

In This Issue

• Web Accessibility

• Debt Flag Triggers

• Disputed Bundle Members

• Email / Text Updates

• ACE Account Summary

• Collection Costs

• Account Documents

• Demographic Updates

• Export Folders

• Payments Updates

• Document Wait Time

• VA 2.0 Get in Touch

• Sent by ELS

Virtual Agent 2.0 Web Accessibility

We are pleased to announce that our Virtual Agent 2.0 has received its Voluntary Product Accessibility Template (VPAT) certification, meeting the AA level of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1 and higher. The WCAG standards ensure that web content is accessible to individuals with disabilities, providing an inclusive user experience for all of our customers.

This certification was achieved through a thorough review conducted by a third-party expert, validating our commitment to accessibility and compliance with industry best practices.

For additional details please reference our Security documentation.

Debt Flag Triggers

Three new triggers are available for use in association with debt flags.

• onAfterAccountFlagInsert

• onAfterAccountFlagUpdate

• onAfterAccountFlagDelete

To identify the specific flag that was "in context" when one of these triggers is initiated, a "JavaScript Condition" flow action can be used.

As in the example below, the JavaScript Condition can be used to identify a specific flag that is "in context" at the time one of these triggers is initiated. Here, the Script used to find the flag "12533" in context is:

debtFlag.identifier === "12533"

For more details about triggers in ACE, please review this article: Available Triggers in ACE and When They Initiate.

Disputed Bundle Members

Bundled accounts may now be disputed separately. This option can be configured under Setup -> System in the Portal Settings section by using the "Dispute Accounts Separately" Boolean.

When this option is set to true and multiple accounts are selected for dispute:

1. Each account will have a separate dispute record created.

2. Each account's dispute will need to be resolved separately.

3. Once a dispute is filed, the summary DISPUTED pill includes a quick link to the dispute record (including a link to a single dispute record for multiple bundle accounts when this option is set to false)

Email / Text

ITMS Delivery Status

Inbound ITMS text message status is now updated and viewable in text message logs. Status updates may take a few minutes after the messages are received to be displayed in the text message logs.

Limit Text Message Delivery Hours

There is now an option available in Text Message Vendors to only allow text messages to be sent to consumers between 8am and 9pm (as identified by the zip code of the account's primary demographic).

ITMS Unsubscribing/Opting Out

The list of emoticons & words that result in a phone number being unsubscribed (opted out) for text messages has been expanded. For specific details, refer to ITMS Opting in and Opting Out.

Alerts for Text or Email Messages

Alerts will now connect the agent or supervisor to the account with the most recent contact of that type.

Example #1:

• An inbound text message is associated with phone #1

• Phone #1 is associated with 3 accounts in ACE

• One of the accounts had a text message with a different phone #

  • this is the associated account with the most recent text message

  • this is also the account that the text message alert will connect the agent or supervisor to

Example #2:

• An inbound email message is associated with email address #1

• Email address #1 is associated with 2 accounts in ACE

• One of the accounts had email communication with a different email address

  • this is the associated account with the most recent email message

  • this is the account that the email message alert will connect the agent or supervisor to

Archiving Text or Email Messages

The ability to select multiple messages at a time and archive them is now available in the Email Manager and in the Text Manager.

Email

Email Log Redesign

The email log has been redesigned for more efficient use.

• There is a dropdown available to choose one of the opted in email addresses for the account.

• There is a section showing all of the email messages related to that email address.

• There is a section where you are able to respond to the latest email message related to that account.

• Default columns and sort order have been updated. The columns to the left of and including the "Email Queue ID" are associated with the default sort order.

• Inbound email messages are displayed in a darker tone so they are more easily distinguished.

• In the Custom Content field, if new line characters are entered, they will be converted to <br/> characters in the sent html email message.

• Debt notes:

  • When an inbound email is received, if it is associated with an account, a debt note will be created for the account.

  • If it is associated with multiple accounts, a debt note will be created for each account.

  • If the inbound email is not associated with an account, as soon as it is linked to an account, a debt note will be created for the account.

• An agent will continue to work inbound emails by opening alerts, but may also work inbound emails by selecting a demographic email address. Each unread email will be delivered to the agent on that page until all unread emails have been responded to, at which point the agent will be taken to the account page.

Email Manager Updates

Several changes have been made to the Email Manager.

• Only the email being responded to will be displayed on the page.

• If an inbound email is associated with multiple accounts, selecting one of the accounts will link you to that account's page.

• When looking at an email that is linked to a single account you will see that account's summary section.

• Once a supervisor has archived or responded to an email message, the next email message associated with the page the supervisor is working on will be presented.

• The Email Manager has two pages, Unresponded and Assigned. Once the page the supervisor is working email messages from is empty, the supervisor will be automatically presented with the messages from the other page.

• If an inbound email address is only associated with a single account, the supervisor will have the option to store email attachments to the account.

• If emails are responded to, they will no longer show up in the Supervisor's "Assigned" page.

Please Note

Account Linking has been moved down from the top of the page. It only needs to be used if an email is not already linked to an email address and account in ACE.

Email Base Template

A new BASE email template is available that can be populated and formatted as you would like for email replies. By default the body is empty so the agent or supervisor can draft their email response. Other pre-defined templates may continue to be selected for use. In email-related pages (Email Log, Email Queue, Demographic Email, Email Manager), the BASE template is the one that will show up by default for your responses.

Searchable Email Send Date

In the Email Search page, you can now search for Emails by send date in addition to sent date.

Email Client Category

There is a new category available in Email Preferences to be used for email profiles used only with client communication. You can find more information about Email categories in this Modify Category Opt-in Settings article.

ACE Account Summary Updates

There is now a "DO NOT TEXT" pill that will show up in the summary section when an account Debt Information's "Do Not Txt" Boolean field is set to true.

There are now Account Attorney fields that can be added to the summary section. This is particularly useful to ensure agents can easily see account attorney contact information when the consumer is working with an attorney. Guidance regarding adding fields to an Agent's Account Summary User Interface are available at this link: Account Summary UI Template.

Collection Costs

There is a collection costs field now available in the SQL Designer debt_stats view. It represents the sum of collection costs accrued to date for an account and the results are pre-formatted as currency for reporting.

Account Documents

Permission to work with and update account documents no longer requires the permission role to Manage Accounts.

It now only requires that the user have these explicit permissions DOCUMENT_DEBT_NEW and DOCUMENT_DEBT_SAVE which have been automatically updated to permission roles that already included the DOCUMENT_DEBT_VIEW permission.

Demographic Updates

Demographic Phones

The last call result code is added to the demographic phone list.

Demographic Names

New French prefix options are available in demographic name dropdown lists for M, MME and MLLE. They are also now supported in ETL loaders.

Export Folders

An export folder can now be selected at the Vendor level in place of selecting an Export User ID. Being able to select an export folder reduces or eliminates the need to move produced files to a specific folder after it's been created.

Payments

Update Payment Transaction Agent

The agent can now be changed at the payment transaction level. When changed, the agent change will cascade to spread transaction and commission will be recalculated.

The permission associated with this ability is ACCOUNT_PRIMARY_COLLECTOR_SET and it should be automatically updated to existing permission roles associated with the ability to change an agent.

CCD / Commercial ACH

The Debt Collection Type stored in the account page's Debt Information section controls the SEC code for ACH payments. When the Debt Collection Type is COMMERCIAL, the SEC code will be CCD.

Note

The SEC code is only stored after a payment is made on the account.

Document: Transfer From Wait Time

The Document: Transfer From Job Task now has a Boolean field where "Wait for File" can be set to true in association with another new field, Wait for File Timeout (Minutes).

For example, in an enrichment job, the job task with this option set to true might follow a Document: Transfer To Job Task where the enrichment vendor received a file for enrichment. During the wait time, this Job Task will run and attempt to pick up the expected results file. Once a file has been received, it will move on to the next Job Task and/or will complete if there are no other job tasks in the job.

If the file to be picked up does not become available within the time frame identified, the job will move on to the next Job Task and/or will complete. In that event, there will be a job log message indicating that the Job Task did not find a file to pick up.

VA 2.0

There is now a "Get in touch with us" option from the VA 2.0 Details page.

Sent by ELS

A column is now available in the Letter Log to see if a letter was sent by ELS.

Fixed These:

• The job task, "Email: Pops email from remote server" was retrieving sent emails in addition to inbound emails. Now it is only retrieving inbound emails.

• The Email Deliverability Dashboard was not displaying results when 'Today' or 'Yesterday' was selected. It is now fixed.

• The Email Manager was returning OpenAI errors when trying to respond to an email not associated with a debt. This issue is no longer happening.

• Chat log messages were not showing up consistently in the correct order received. They are now.

• When a consumer refreshed a plan-payment page in VA 2.0, an error was being presented. That no longer occurs.

• The Google login for VA 2.0 was only working when a consumer was already logged in to their Google account. Now, when a consumer attempts to login to VA 2.0 via Google, if the consumer is not already logged in to their Google account, VA 2.0 will prompt them to do so.

• ACE users were having trouble selecting a different worklist in the “Worklists” field in the Notate Account section of an account page. This has been fixed.

• Validation Notice dates were being stored when validation notice letters were not eligible to be sent to the consumer. This created scenarios where accounts erroneously appeared eligible for credit reporting. This problem has been corrected.

• The onAfterClientAccessDocumentUpload trigger was not being initiated when files were uploaded by a client access user to Dropbox or to an account with the Client Access UI permission. That has been fixed.

• The Last Paid Date in the summary section of accounts was not always being updated as expected. This has been corrected.

• Removing a vendor from the letter profile was not saving correctly. It is now.

• The logo was disappearing after a new VA 2.0 profile was created. That has been fixed.

• In Email Vendor configuration, "Outlook" has been updated to "Microsoft 365"

• There was an issue identified where customers were unable to save new VA 2.0 profiles. This has been fixed.

• Email templates that did not required opt-in per category configuration were not showing up in the drop down list for selection as expected. They are now.

• Email templates were not all showing up in the flow action for “Send Demographic Email”. They are now.

• Deactivated email profiles were not showing up in the Email Vendor profiles page. They are now.

• There was a scenario related to Nuvei use with VA 1.0 and phone numbers being entered with non-numeric characters which was resulting in errors. It has been fixed.

• Customers were unable to delete bankruptcy records. That has been fixed.

• Logging in as a guest to VA 2.0 when the “Require Extra Auth” feature was enabled was not working. It is working now.

• System configuration for propagation and merge was not being followed as expected for extra accounts after loading new accounts with "Disable Bundling" set to true and then rebundling accounts. This has been fixed.

• Customers were unable to create folders in file manager. That has been fixed.

• The “Last Accessed By” field in the File Manager was not updating as expected. It is now.