Azure Communication Services June 2023 Feature Updates

The Azure Communication Services team is excited to share several new product and feature updates released in May 2023. (You can view previous blog articles here.)  

This month’s update describes the features below: 

• Calling SDK for Windows
• Raw Media for Native and WebJS
• End of call survey
• Calling SDK Updates
• File Sharing in Teams Interoperability Chat
• Alphanumeric Sender ID Expansion

Calling SDK for Windows

The Azure Communication Services Calling SDK for Windows is now generally available. You can use this SDK to natively create rich audio and video experiences in Windows for your customers, tailored to your specific needs and preferences. With the Calling SDK for Windows, you can implement real-time communication features such as voice and video calls, Microsoft Teams meeting integration, screen sharing, and raw media access. You can use this SDK to boost your application’s collaboration and optimize the communication between you and your users.

Review the QuickStart to explore the possibilities of creating a Windows call experience; you can quickly get started with the latest technologies and tools. You can also sample the code and customize it to your needs to create applications that allow users to make calls from any device, anywhere in the world.

Raw Media for Native and WebJS platforms

Raw Media is now generally available for native platforms: WebJS, Windows, Android, and iOS. Raw Media offers a set of APIs that give you access and control over the audio and video streams in your calling applications. With Raw Media, you can share your screen, apply filters (audio and video), and more to enhance your calling experiences. 

Visit the QuickStart to discover how you can add raw media capabilities into your applications.

End of Call Survey for JS Calling SDK

Azure Communication Services has launched End of Call Survey to general availability. Developers can now collect customer feedback and analyze survey results in Azure. The API lets applications gather data points tied to a user’s perceived quality of their overall call, audio, video, and screen share experiences.

It’s difficult to determine a customer’s perceived calling experience and determine how well your calling solution is performing without gathering subjective feedback from customers. Anyone who wants to improve their call quality can use this survey to help identify quality issues such as dropped or poor calls. Without a survey to hear the voice of the customer, developers will only have objective measurements such as bitrate and latency to identify call issues.

Developers can visualize their survey results with sample queries in Azure Monitor Log Analytics to see a high-level overview of their customers’ perceived call quality and identify potential areas to improve call quality. Developers can also create custom queries to analyze their survey results. If developers already have a survey, they can easily modify the API to fit their existing survey.

Learn more in the End of Call Survey overview

Background Blur for Web SDK

Azure Communication Services is proud to announce the general availability of background blur and background replacement for WebJS calling. This feature enables developers to build background visual effects and background video replacement into the calling experience.

Background blur is a feature that allows users to remove distractions behind a participant in a video call. For example, this feature is especially useful in a telehealth call, where a provider or patient might want to obscure their surroundings to protect sensitive or personally identifiable information. Background blur can be applied across all virtual appointment scenarios, including telebanking and virtual hearings, to protect user privacy. In addition to enhanced confidentiality, background blur allows for more creativity of expression, allowing users to upload custom backgrounds to host a more fun, personalized calling experience. This feature is currently available on Web Desktop and will be expanding to additional platforms in the future.

Learn more about Web background blur overview.

Calling Updates

Azure Communication has launched two APIs for general availability on the Calling SDK.

getEnvironmentInfo API

There are many different browsers available in the market today, but not all of them can properly support audio and video calling. The getEnvironmentInfo API call will help developers learn if the browser they are considering using is supported to make VoIP and video calls. To determine if the browser your application is running on is a supported browser, you can use the getEnvironmentInfo to check for browser support.

Learn more about how to use the getEnvironmentInfo API.

Accessing the call volume getVolume API

The getVolume API now makes it easier to determine the incoming and outgoing volume level on both audio and video calls. This provides developers the ability to check and display to end users the current local microphone volume and/or the incoming microphone level. With this information developers can let their end users know when the volume levels may be too low and could lead to participants not being able to hear each other properly on calls.

Learn more about how to use this ‘getVolume’ API.

File sharing in Microsoft Teams Interoperability Chat

File sharing in Microsoft Teams interoperability meetings is now available in public preview for web platform (JavaScript). File sharing enhances the Virtual Visit experience where doctors, agents, consultants, etc. need to share a file with their customer from Microsoft Teams client.

Visit the Enable file attachment to learn more.

Alphanumeric Sender ID

Alphanumeric sender ID SMS in the United Kingdom, Australia, France, Ireland, Italy, Spain, Switzerland, Netherlands, Finland, Portugal, Poland, Austria, Czech Republic, Austria, Romania, Lithuania, and Norway is now in public preview. During this preview, our customers will be able to use the ACS SMS SDK to send messages to recipients in these countries using Alpha Sender IDs.

Alphanumeric sender IDs are custom sender names (e.g. Contoso) that can be used in place of traditional phone numbers when sending SMS messages. Instead of receiving a message from a generic phone number, customers will see a personalized sender name that reflects the brand or business that's sending the message.

Alphanumeric sender IDs offer benefits for businesses using SMS for service notifications and customer engagement. They establish a brand identity, increase message open rates, and improve conversion rates. They also enhance trust, particularly for industries relying on customer confidence. Additionally, alphanumeric sender IDs enable customization and segmentation for targeted campaigns.

Visit SMS overview to learn more.