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WeCom

What’s New in WeChat Work v2.5.8

WeChat at Work v2.5.8 is out and there are massive updates for Work’s CRM capabilities. You can read the original posts in Chinese for updates to the user apps and admin backend.

Interoperability with WeChat

WeChat Work has restored the ability to link to the company’s own CRM profiles for external contacts. This was very briefly visible a couple versions back before disappearing. This is a very big deal.

Contact migration, rumored to be coming out for awhile now, is now live. When an employee leaves your company, you can send notifications to all of their external contacts in WeChat so they can connect with that person’s replacement. This is also huge.

WeChat Work admin users can now enable employees’ position to be displayed on their WeChat digital business cards for external users.

Administrators can also enable employees to edit some of their own external profile settings. Previously these could only be managed from the admin backend. Enable the new settings from the backend:

Employees can then edit those fields from their Work app:

Employees can now send WeChat Mini-Programs the company uses to external contacts in WeChat.

Mini-Program developers get an optimization to get the WeChat log-in state of users in Work WeChat, avoiding the need to adapt WeChat Mini-Programs for Work WeChat.

Other updates

WeChat Work apps can now be administered and deployed to multiple linked company accounts.

Work users can now make use of WeChat’s longtime ability to translate messages within a chat.

It’s now easier to send files in a Work chat from the Cloud File Storage app. You can also now download multiple files by folder or batch:

The Approvals app now logs actions and comments as a thread for each it so managers have better visibility on their internal process.

The Work app QR code scanner gets updates allowing for automatic and manual zoom, similar to a recent update in WeChat.

The desktop Work app now returns search results for group chat members.

There is a new developer API to get employees phone records from the Company-paid call app.

The Punch in/out app now supports shift-based scheduling in attendance machines.

WeChat Work super admin users can now edit all tags in the Contacts backend.

Support for using WeChat Work within WeChat, similar to how it all started when it was “WeChat Enterprise Accounts”, has been restored to help aid adoption as employees transition to the WeChat Work app.

Connect Official Accounts to WeChat at Work

Install Grata’s apps in your WeChat at Work account to connect customers on your WeChat subscription and service apps to your mobile workforce for on-demand customer service and sales. Check out Grata’s comprehensive bilingual Guide to WeChat at Work.

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WeCom

What’s New in WeChat Work v2.4.22

WeChat Work v2.4.22 was released today. You can read the original posts in Chinese for updates to the user apps and admin backend.

WeChat External Contacts

The biggest news of the update is that voice and video calls are now supported between WeChat Work users and their external contacts using WeChat.

Another exciting update is that employees can now share their external contacts business cards to contacts via SMS and email with an attractive template. The links and QR codes allow the recipient to add the employee as an external contact in WeChat.

The JavaScript API for selecting external contacts has been updated to allow developers to filter out external contacts the employee has already selected from the list of contacts.

Group Chats

Group chats now support polling of members.

Updating group chat governance, employees whom have not been granted permission to add external contacts by their admin, are now, regardless, able to be added to group chats with external contacts.

WeChat Work Apps

The Reporting app gets another small update to help management see the progress as each team member submits her report.

Management can schedule reporting deadlines directly from their mobile.

The HR Approval Requests app has a new interface for editing vacation days for individual employees or a group of employees.

Files can now be shared to a chat directly from the shared cloud storage drive.

The Work web browser has a new sharing option to share links directly to the Company Moments app timeline.

WeChat Work Admin Tools

Verifying your Work account can now be done from your mobile. You can submit your Business License and other supporting documentation and then track the progress and chat with customer support if needed.

Connect Official Accounts to WeChat at Work

Connect customers on your WeChat subscription and service accounts to your mobile workforce for on-demand customer service and sales by installing Grata’s WeChat Work apps. More details at grata.co or check out Grata’s comprehensive bilingual Guide to WeChat at Work.

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WeCom

WeChat Work v2.4.20 Updates

WeChat Work v2.4.20 was released today with a couple very exciting updates. You can read the original posts in Chinese for updates to the user apps and admin backend.

WeChat External Contacts

WeChat is teasing the upcoming release of external contact group chats and a feature to migrate external contacts after an employee leaves the company. This could be big help for solving one of the perennial pain points enterprises have with staff turnover.

Chats with external contacts get new support for sending and receiving files, locations, favorites, articles, and WeChat mini-programs.

WeChat Work digital business cards get a major design upgrade, now supporting several templates. These can be shared to group chats in WeChat, with contact requests showing up to the employee’s WeChat Work app.

Organizations that already have WeChat Pay setup can now seamlessly bind their Pay account to their Work account for sending and receiving payments to both employees and external contacts.

WeChat Work admin can now manage their WeChat connection from a new link on their Work App workspace.

For developers, there is new API support for getting external contacts WeChat Union ID to map contacts to WeChat Official Account followers or Mini-Program users. There is also a Javascript API for manipulating external contacts.

Connected Businesses

This is a huge upgrade, that allows multiple WeChat Work accounts to establish links with other Work accounts, for example, between a brand and its outlets, between partner companies, or between an enterprise and its suppliers. From the Work backend, you can manage connected businesses in the address book:

The contacts from these connected businesses are added to your employee’s contacts page in the WeChat Work app:

Desktop Apps

The desktop apps now support Traditional Chinese. You can change interface language in the settings page.

The Mac app has added a search bar for the current chat, searching chat history, files, images, and video.

Other updates

Deleted items now go to a recycle bin that will hold files for fifteen days in case they were deleted by accident.

WeChat Work owners can now verify WeChat Work accounts from their phone, by linking a verified WeChat Official Account they own.

Incoming video and voice call notifications now display on Apple Watch.

WeChat Work Apps

For managing leave requests, you can now add different types of leave and track the days of leave remaining by type for employees.

These controls have also been updated in the app, so there’s no need to login to the web backend.

Connect Official Accounts to WeChat at Work

Install Grata’s apps in your WeChat at Work account to connect customers on your WeChat subscription and service accounts to your mobile workforce for on-demand customer service and sales. More details at grata.cn or check out Grata’s comprehensive bilingual Guide to WeChat at Work.

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WeCom

WeChat at Work v2.4.18 Updates

WeChat at Work v2.4.18 is out today with several useful updates. You can read the original posts in Chinese for updates to the user apps and admin backend.

Interoperatability with WeChat

This press release is again headlined by the ability to message between WeChat and WeChat Work. The External Contacts functionality is still in application-only beta.

The web admin backend for external contacts gets a new view to monitor all of the customers your employees are adding as contacts in WeChat Work.

There’s also a new Javascript API for developers to open chats with external contacts from within WeChat Work, as well as a callback URL for relevant events.

WeChat Mini-Programs now work within WeChat Work. Admin can add them to employee’s app page and they can be shared in chats. Mini-Programs can also be displayed on employee’s external profiles that customers view from WeChat.

WeChat Pay functionality expands, giving users the ability to send red packets within Work chats, as well and send and receive payments to and from external contacts.

Inviting Contacts

For enterprises that are running multiple chain locations/outlets from one WeChat Work account, each department admin can now get their own Work QR code for inviting their team.

The department-level admin can set the default department to which their contacts are added after scanning.

Work Apps

The reporting app has new data visualizations for capturing data trends.

Windows Desktop

The Windows desktop app is testing a useful new feature (optional) that will display to contacts whether or not you are at your computer.

There’s also a new smaller typeface view, to display more messages in the app window.

The Windows app now lets you group all of your muted chats into a folder so they are less disruptive.

And there’s new functionality to customize keyboard shortcuts for common actions.

Connect Official Accounts to WeChat at Work

Install Grata’s apps in your WeChat at Work account to connect customers on your WeChat subscription and service apps to your mobile workforce for on-demand customer service and sales. More details at grata.cn or check out Grata’s comprehensive bilingual Guide to WeChat at Work.

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WeCom

WeChat at Work v2.4.16 Updates

WeChat at Work v2.4.16 is out today with lots of updates. You can read the original posts in Chinese for updates to the user apps and admin backend.

Add external contacts from WeChat

The biggest update is a semi-open beta launch of external WeChat contacts. Work users already had the ability to add external contacts, but only those who were also using WeChat at Work. Now WeChat and WeChat at Work can talk:

Work users get their own individual QR codes for adding external contacts and can also scan WeChat personal QR codes and directly invite their current WeChat contacts; however only employees who have verified their identity can add WeChat contacts. Since identity verification is only available to Chinese ID cardholders, this feature is only limited to Chinese nationals for now.

Your Work business card is shared as an image to WeChat contacts.

Viewing a Work contact profile in WeChat, the user sees they are verified to your business.

You can customize the appearance of external contact profiles on the Work backend, including adding custom profile fields which support text, URLs, and mini-programs.

After adding an external contact, employees can designate the contact as a customer:

Designated customers can be synched to your own CRM database, where you can download your employee’s contacts and each contact’s WeChat basic profile information. When Work users view customer profile details, they view the details from your own database.

You can set granular permissions on the backend for which employees have rights to add external contacts.

Apps can create group chats

WeChat at Work apps can now create group chats and send messages to a group. The example provided is a travel app that creates a group chat for employees traveling on the same itinerary.

Star Frequent Contacts

You can now star frequent internal and external contacts so they are pinned to the top of your contacts list in a new Starred Contact folder.

WeChat at Work App Store

Updates to the WeChat at Work app store make it easier for Work admin to discover and add relevant apps to your company account directly from the Work mobile app.

Employee Rewards

Company red packets are now complemented with a separate Rewards feature to help enterprises encourage adoption of WeChat at Work by rewarding employees who invite colleagues and who use the app.

Employee view

Backend editor view

Reporting App

The Daily Report app has been upgraded into a more generalized reporting app with new templates for business and sales stats, venue or website visitors, and other reporting.

Group chat management

There are two new settings available in group chats that can be enabled as needed in specific group chats. One allows only the admin to add and remove users. The other setting requires any users inviting other participants to the chat to have their invites approved by the admin first.

Connect Official Accounts to WeChat at Work

Install Grata’s apps in your WeChat at Work account to connect customers on your WeChat subscription and service apps to your mobile workforce for on-demand customer service and sales. More details at grata.cn or check out Grata’s comprehensive bilingual Guide to WeChat at Work.