HUD3 Launches

Apparently, Fonality has decided to launch HUD3 (also called HUD 3.0), the latest version of their latest communications client at ITEXPO. I was aware HUD 3.0 was coming soon, but did not know it was launching at ITEXPO until I saw T-Shirts being worn by fellow TMC team members in the registration area with HUD3 written on them. I used my top secret security clearance badge   to get into the off-limits exhibits area, which was still in the setup phase. I went over to the Fonality booth to see if I could confirm if HUD3 was launching and sure enough their booth display announces HUD3.

I guess Chris Lyman decided ITEXPO was the best place to announce the news. I'm going to have to scold Chris for not giving me the heads up on their new Heads Up Display (HUD) software.

Anyway, the T-shirts include a url to www.gimmehudnow.org, which if you go to the site you can clearly see the new HUD 3.0 logo.

From various sources I do know what HUD3 will feature over HUD2. For one, it will allow you to transfer someone into one of the existing conference bridges on the PBX. There will be a separate HUD window that provides a view of all the conference bridges, and any conference participants in each one. Users with the appropriate permissions can even kick people out of conference bridges or mute them. Another feature added in HUD3 is the ability to record conference bridges. HUD2 only let you record calls to/from your extension. 'Add Outlook Contact' feature lets you add the person who is calling into the queue as a Contact into Outlook.

HUD3 also features call center alarms, and they added avatars to the Toast popup window that appears in the lower-right corner, as seen here:


Actually the avatars are called Photo caller ID which lets you put a face with a number. I'm not sure if HUD3 is strictly an upgrade for trixbox Pro customers or if some of these new features will be extended to the free HUDlite software, such as avatars which unlike the advanced call center functionality doesn't require trixbox pro. I'm also curious if HUD3 supports a SendURL function that takes the CallerID or IVR menus traversed and passes these variables to your CRM platform, such as SugarCRM. This would provide some nice screenpop and CRM integration. I have a meeting with Chris Lyman tomorrow so I'll learn more then. Though the exhibits open today, so I'll just check out their booth and find out later today. Gotta love ITEXPO where lots of cool VoIP news is announced!

Update:
Just learned another new feature in HUD3 that allows you to turn on/off your call forwarding rules directly in HUD3. Previously, you had to log on to the web control panel to turn on/off your call forward rules. Simply by setting your presence to "Offline" or "Away" in HUD, you can effectively change your forwarding rules automatically.

HUD3 will let you listen to voicemail from within HUD. That's a pretty cool feature. HUD3 uses XMPP (Jabber) instead of IRC and it leverages SSL to make the IM communications secure. It even lets you IM Google Talk users since Google Talk also leverages XMPP.