How to enable customers to call your agents directly from your iOS application

The VideoEngager SDK for iOS allows you to integrate chat, voice, and video calling into your native iOS mobile applications. This way, you would enable your customers:

• to call your agents directly from your iOS application through Click to Audio and/or Click to Video type of functionalities
• to initiate a chat session over Genesys chat channel

Image based on a design of a Banking App Concept by Vitaly Silkin via Sketch App Sources 

Highlights

• Available for VideoEngager Standalone
• Supports Genesys Cloud
• To support Genesys Engage (estimated release date mid Jun 2021)
• Onmi-channel experience + click to chat, click to voice, click to video
• Localization (supports English (en_US), Spanish (es_ES), Portuguese (pt_PT), German (de_DE), and Bulgarian (bg_BG))
• Video on/off + Front/back camera rotation
• Mic on/off + multiple audio sources (automatic and manual selection)
• Secure File Transfer 
• Torch control

 

Prerequisites

- Xcode 12.0 or higher
- Swift 4.0 or higher 
- iOS 13.0 or higher

Integration

The VideoEngager SDK can be integrated in three steps:

• Step 1: SDK Installation
• Step 2: SDK Initialization
• Step 3: Connect Native app buttons

Step 1 - SDK Installation

We currently support installation only by using CocoaPods. To install VideoEngager simply add the following to your Profile:

platform:ios, '13.0'

target 'TARGET_NAME' do

  use_frameworks!
  pod 'SmartVideo', :git => 'https://github.com/VideoEngager/SmartVideo-iOS-SDK'

end

post_install do |installer|
   installer.pods_project.targets.each do |target|
     if target.name == "GoogleWebRTC" || target.name == "SmartVideo"
       puts "Processing for disable bit code in #{target.name}"
       target.build_configurations.each do |config|
          config.build_settings['ENABLE_BITCODE'] = 'NO'
       end
     end
   end
end

Once Podfile is created / updated, please run pod install --verbose or pod update to install / update the dependencies to your project.

Step 2 - SDK Initialization for Genesys Cloud

The SDK initialization process is consisting of three sub-steps.

1. Initialization Sub-Step 1: Configure SDK to use your Genesys Cloud Organization 

To configure the VideoEngager SDK to use your own Genesys Cloud organization, one needs to supply a SmartVideo-Info.plist file inside the XCode project with the host app. The SmartVideo-Info.plist file is a structured text file that contains essential configuration information for initialization of the SDK. Failure to integrate the file inside your XCode project will result in build time error. Same will happen, if the information list is incomplete. 

In the following table, we provide an overview of the keys and their values that will be required for a proper initialization of the SDK.

 

2. Initialization Sub-Step 2: SDK configuration at run time

• import VideoEngager
• initialize VideoEngager inside the viewDidLoad method of your UIViewController 

import SmartVideo


class MyAwesomeVC: UIViewController {

   // ........

   override func viewDidLoad() {
       super.viewDidLoad()

       // .......

       initializeSmartVideo() {


       // .......

   }


   // .........


   fileprivate func initializeSmartVideo() {
      if AVCaptureDevice.authorizationStatus(for: .video) != .authorized {
           AVCaptureDevice.requestAccess(for: .video) { _ in
               // .......
           }
      }

      if AVCaptureDevice.authorizationStatus(for: .audio) != .authorized {
           AVCaptureDevice.requestAccess(for: .audio) { _ in
               // ....... 
           }
      }

      let environment = setupOrgParamsView.environment
      SmartVideo.environment = environment
      SmartVideo.setLogging(level: .verbose, types: [.rtc, .socket, .rest, .webRTC, .genesys, .callkit])
      SmartVideo.didEstablishCommunicationChannel = didEstablishCommunicationChannel

      SmartVideo.delegate = self


    }

    // ......

}




extension MyAwesomeVC: SmartVideoDelegate {

    func didEstablishCommunicationChannel() {

          // .......

          let outgoingCallVC = OutgoingCallVC()
          outgoingCallVC.hasVideo = self.hasVideo
          outgoingCallVC.modalPresentationStyle = .fullScreen
          self.present(outgoingCallVC, animated: true, completion: nil)

    }

}

3. Initialization Sub-Step 3: Add SDK delegates

VideoEngager SDK offers several optional delegate methods, split into two groups - for handling erros and for handling chat messages. 

import SmartVideo

let myAwesomeMessage = "Hola Agent!"
SmartVideo.sendGenesysCloudChat(message: myAwesomeMessage) 

// messages in Data format are also supported 
// SmartVideo.sendGenesysCloudChat(data: Data)

extension YourViewController: SmartVideoDelegate {

    func genesysCloudChat(message: String) {
         // process incoming chat message
    }

    func genesysCloudChat(data: Data) {
         // process incoming chat message
    }


    func genesysCloudChat(status: String) {
         // process status of chat message
    }

}

// ....


let click2VideoButton: UIButton = {
    let lb = UIButton()
    lb.translatesAutoresizingMaskIntoConstraints = false
    lb.layer.cornerRadius = 10
    lb.layer.borderColor = UIColor.gray.cgColor
    lb.backgroundColor = UIColor.gray
    lb.titleLabel?.font = UIFont.boldSystemFont(ofSize: 16)
    lb.setTitleColor(UIColor.white, for: UIControl.State.normal)
    lb.setTitle("Start Video", for: UIControl.State.normal)
    lb.isEnabled = true
    return lb
}()



let click2VoiceButton: UIButton = {
    let lb = UIButton()
    lb.translatesAutoresizingMaskIntoConstraints = false
    lb.layer.cornerRadius = 10
    lb.layer.borderColor = UIColor.gray.cgColor
    lb.backgroundColor = UIColor.gray
    lb.titleLabel?.font = UIFont.boldSystemFont(ofSize: 16)
    lb.setTitleColor(UIColor.white, for: UIControl.State.normal)
    lb.setTitle("Start Audio", for: UIControl.State.normal)
    lb.isEnabled = true
    return lb
}()


class MyAwesomeVC: UIViewController {


    // ......

    click2VideoButton.addTarget(self, action: #selector(click2VideoButtonDidTap), for: .touchUpInside)
    click2VoiceButton.addTarget(self, action: #selector(click2VoiceButtonDidTap), for: .touchUpInside)

    // ......


}




@objc fileprivate func click2VideoButtonDidTap() {

     // .....

     SmartVideo.environment = .live
     let engine = GenesysEngine(environment: environment, displayName: "Test Customer")
     let lang = "en_US"
     SmartVideo.connect(engine: engine, isVideo: true, lang: lang)

}


@objc fileprivate func click2VoiceButtonDidTap() {

     // .......

     SmartVideo.environment = .live
     let engine = GenesysEngine(environment: environment, displayName: "Test Customer")
     let lang = "en_US"
     SmartVideo.connect(engine: engine, isVideo: false, lang: lang)

}

We support iOS 13.0 onwards.

Demo App

We offer a demo app to help minimize onboarding time of app developers. The demo app contains detailed instructions in a README.md file. 

We listen to our customers 

We, the VideoEngager team, believe that addressing customer pains in timely manner is of utmost importance and key to success for all stakeholders. Our team is highly responsive to customer request. We would like to encourage you to share any suggestions for improvement of troubleshooting  guide. To do so, please contact us by sending email to our support team.