Genesys Cloud - Main

I'm hoping that some of you can share the positives and negatives of using either the Desktop App and Web Browser versions.

We've had a large number of our users on the desktop app but after the recent issue of the blacked-out notification boxes led to multiple new versions being pushed over a few days and the time it is taking to manually update all of our users we are wondering if the browser version would be a better option.

One thing I found is that it looks like we would need to use Genesys Cloud Background Assistant (GCBA) overview in order to continue with screen recording in the browser.  Has anyone had issues with this?  Recordings are something we definitely need to keep.

Is there anything to be aware of with integrations such as sharing info with our CRM?   We want to verify we wouldn't lose any functionality we currently have in the app by using the browser.

#Unsure/Other

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Daniel Cross
Systems Administrator
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GCBA is needed, yes and it's a bit of a pain to make sure it keeps updated as is the case with the app.  We have had issues where some client IT departments haven't kept on top of the GCBA updating and have missed several releases.

The other problem we have with the app is around conditional access policies.   That one's been around for a few years and I suspect won't be fixed without potentially almost a rewrite of the app.

I suppose my real question would be to Genesys as to what they think the real support life is of the desktop app.  I can't help but think there'll be a point in time in the next couple of years that they make a strong push to everybody going browser instead of app.  G

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Vaun McCarthy
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We use PatchMyPC for updating the desktop client. This integrates with MS Intune. We have it set so that the user can snooze the update if needed. This is important for agents. Works great and we can keep track of who doesn't have the update in MS.

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Steph Voelker
Systems Administrator
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Good question Daniel. GCBA is a great solution for many customers for providing screen recording in the browser.

Regarding the recent issue you mentioned, the black-out notification boxes weren't necessarily anything to do with the desktop app or any versions of the desktop app released. A web API recently utilized by the web app was introduced in versions of Chrome after a particular release, so people on versions of the desktop app based on Chromium versions from before that had the issue. This is a large reason why we have the line in the requirements about only officially supporting the latest version of the desktop app, so that the web app developers can feel confident in using APIs available in that version of Chromium. Things like this happen fairly often with the Chromium release pipeline but this one, unfortunately, was very visible due to its placement and effect (the "problematic" API controlled the text color based on a multiplying factor... with it not being available, that text ended up very dark against a very dark background. Murphy's Law says that text couldn't have been over a light background).

I'm a bit confused as to your statement about the desktop app having "multiple new versions being pushed over a few days". We've largely maintained our standard release cadence and nothing special was done for the notification issue. The desktop apps are a thin wrapper around the web app you'd use in the browser, so perhaps those updates are what you're ascribing to the desktop app?

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Brian Dupuis
Genesys - Employees - Sr. Director, PureCloud UI
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As the master admin for our instance of Genesys Cloud, and as someone who has used both the dedicated Windows app as well as the browser app, I prefer the browser app by a wide margin. Just having dedicated Back & Reload/Refresh buttons in the top-left corner of the browser app is functionality that I immediately miss when I'm stuck using the Windows app. I use the Back button dozens of times a day. Our agents in the contact center are required to use the Windows app and they complain frequently that they don't have a back button available to them. On top of that, being able to do simple things like use Ctrl+F in order to search a long page of data is very convenient. 

The one big advantage of the Windows app is that it seems to me like it manages queries and loads pages more efficiently than the browser app. I'm not sure of why that is, but anecdotally I have found it to be true.

Good luck with your decision. Cheers. 

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Patrick Rohlf
Contact Center Technologies Implementation Engineer
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Been doing this a LOOONNNG time and IMHO, we should be moving away from the desktop client for many reasons:

1. Keeping up with Chromium is like herding kittens - there is no effective way to make sure you are the correct desktop version when Chromium changes and when they are out of sync, trying to debug where the problems is becomes a futile effort.
2. GCBA ensures that recordings are always recorded - Agents will discover VERY quickly that if their Desktop app "crashes" for some UNKNOWN reason, their screens are not recorded until the supervisor lets them know.  GCBA as a service eliminates that "workaround"
3. Flexibility of browsers - I am in 4 or 5 ORGS at a time and having one ORG for my home, one for clients, and one for development makes it so much easier than setting up different profiles or having to log in and out of the App to get to different ORGs.  Plus, I never know when my IT department will decide Chrome or Edge becomes browser non grata.  
4. Incompatibilities.  Yes, there are combinations of embedded, desktop, and browser apps that will work, but God bless the person that figures that out!

Anyway, just my 2 or maybe almost 5 cents.

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Robert Wakefield-Carl
ttec Digital
Sr. Director - Innovation Architects
Robert.WC@ttecdigital.com
https://www.ttecDigital.com
https://RobertWC.Blogspot.com
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