Category Archives for Announcements

Call Room Branding and Other New Features

We are excited to announce that in addition to branding the calls on your permanent links, you can now brand your room calls, too! Thanks to a new option on the Branding screen in your dashboard, you can have your default branding apply to any room calls that your account users join.

Note: The branding is applied to the room after the call is established. While the participants are waiting to connect, generic call background is shown.

Here is how to enable this feature:

1. Navigate to the Branding screen in your account dashboard.
2. Check the checkbox that says “Apply the default branding to all account users’ room calls”.
3. Click “Save changes”.
4. From now on, any room calls that your account users join will get branded with your account’s default branding (upon call establishment).

In addition to call room branding and miscellaneous bug fixes, we have also added the following features:

• Voice-only call links: Append the ?startcall=voice parameter to your links to make the call start with the camera off. For example: https://www.gruveo.com/@acme?startcall=voice. This works for both room and permanent link calls.
• Purging of the call log: The new “Purge call log” link on the Call Log screen lets you permanently delete the call log for your account.

We hope that you find these new features useful. As usual, don’t hesitate to get in touch with us if you have any questions or need support.

New in Gruveo: Call Log, Dashboard by Default and Other Major Improvements

The past couple of months have been very busy for us at Gruveo. Our usage has increased significantly, and the feedback we have been receiving from new and existing users alike has been truly invaluable.

We have been working hard to address the biggest Gruveo pain points, and we are happy to announce the release of a new milestone that adds major improvements to the Gruveo web application. Here are some of the highlights.

Dashboard by Default

Before the today’s update, logging in to Gruveo brought you back to our homepage, from where you had to click your name and then “Settings” to get to the dashboard. Not anymore! You now get to your dashboard immediately after logging in.

The New “Set up a Call” Page

You spoke, and we listened. With the two options for setting up a call on Gruveo (permanent links vs. call rooms), it can be hard to decide which one you should be using for your next conversation.

That’s why we have added the new Set up a Call page to the dashboard. This page lays out your options in a clear and understandable manner, as well as lists all your permanent links and lets you generate a call room link with one click. No more confusion!

Create Room Links Right in Your Dashboard

We used to recommend our browser extension as the easiest way to generate room links. Now you can create room links right in your dashboard from the “Set up a Call” page.

The new room link generator lets you create a random link, copy it to your clipboard as well as go to the call room. You can type in a custom link, too!

Goodbye, the Dialer on the Homepage

With the new “Set up a Call” page in place, we have removed the option to start a Gruveo call on our homepage by typing in the room name or the permanent link.

Call Log and Incoming Calls Report

Accessing the call log and getting reports on the incoming Gruveo calls has been one of the past few months’ most requested features.

The new Call Log page in the admin user’s dashboard displays a log of all incoming calls across the Gruveo account. You can see the call date/time, link called, caller location, call status (missed/declined/answered), who answered the call, as well as call duration.

On top of that, the Call Log page lets you export the data for the selected date range to a CSV or Excel file.

The Incoming Calls Report page breaks down incoming call statistics per permanent link, with data such as total incoming calls, missed calls, declined calls, answered calls and total call duration.

Call Reporting via Webhooks and Custom Call Tracking (Experimental)

For the customers interested in receiving their call statistics in real time, we have added the ability to post call information to a custom webhook at the end of each call. You can use this feature with e.g. Zapier webhooks to trigger actions for each incoming Gruveo call in your account.

The data posted to the webhook includes call date/time, link called, caller location, call status, who answered the call, call duration and more. On top of that, any custom GET parameters you add to a permanent Gruveo link (for example, https://www.gruveo.com/@mybusiness?param1=123&param2=456), will be reported in the webhook as well.

Please get in touch with us if you’d like to try the new webhook reporting feature.

Profile and Billing Moved to Drop-Down Menu

As we’re adding more features to the user dashboard, we decided to move a few critical items to the user drop-down menu. This is where you will now find the Profile and Billing links:

More to Come

We hope you will find these new features useful. Our team remains committed to further improving Gruveo, so expect more new features soon!

Gruveo’s COVID-19 Response

Update January 25, 2021: We are switching back to our original trial duration of 14 days. The 14-day duration will apply to any trials started on or after January 25, 2021. The duration of the trials that were started earlier remains unaffected. We continue offering the 20% non-profit discount.

As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to unfold throughout the world, we feel it’s our responsibility to get Gruveo’s one-click video conferencing into the hands of the people who need it most.

To that end, we are introducing the following measures, effective immediately:

1. The Gruveo free trial has been temporarily extended to 45 days for all new subscribers. This means that you can now use Gruveo in your organization completely free for 45 days.
2. We are now offering a 20% recurring discount to all non-profits on a permanent basis. If you are a non-profit organization, please reach out and we will activate the discount for your account.

Remember to say safe and follow WHO’s guidance on protecting yourself and others.

Exciting Improvements to Call Recording

We have recently rolled out a series of exciting improvements to call recording functionality. Gruveo now lets you have your recordings saved to Dropbox or Google Drive, as well as automatically start the recording for each call.

Dropbox and Google Drive Support

In addition to storing of up to 5 GB of recordings in your Gruveo account, you now have the option to save any recordings you make to Dropbox or Google Drive. To switch the storage for your recordings, do the following:

1. Go to the Call Recordings page in your Gruveo account
2. Choose the desired storage option in the “Storage” drop-down box
3. Follow the instructions to connect your Dropbox or Google Drive account
4. Click “Save changes”.

The new storage option will apply to any subsequent call recordings you make.

Automatic Call Recording

It’s now easy to have your Gruveo calls recorded by default, too. To enable automatic recording, go to your Call Recordings page, check the checkbox next to “Automatically start recording for each call” and then “Save changes”. From now on, call recording will be automatically started for each of your Gruveo conversations. You will still have the option to turn off the recording during the call.

We are happy to be releasing these new call recording features, and we look forward to you putting them to some good use in your business! Head to our Help Center to learn more.

Important Changes to Room Calls for Unregistered Users Starting February 13

Making video communications simple worldwide.
— Gruveo’s mission statement

We launched in 2013 with the mission to make video calling simple for everyone. Over the past 7 years, Gruveo has evolved into a business solution helping companies around the world serve their customers better with an enhanced video calling experience. In May last year, we announced our team management feature which enables our customers to manage their accounts event more efficiently.

In order to optimize our resources and continue providing the top service our customers have grown accustomed to, we’re making important changes to how unregistered users can use Gruveo starting on February 13.

What is changing?

Starting on February 13, all calls in Gruveo rooms will require a Gruveo subscriber (“call organizer”) to get connected. A room call will not get established until the call organizer joins. Any invited callers waiting for a connection will see a “Waiting for call organizer to join” message.

If the call organizer disconnects from a room call and doesn’t return, any invited callers will stay connected for another 10 minutes, after which the call will end.

Calls on direct Gruveo links will work as before.

Legacy free account removal

With the February 13 update, we will also be removing legacy free Gruveo accounts created before October 2017. If you want to keep your account and Gruveo handle, please contact us so we can help you migrate to a Gruveo subscription.

If you have any questions about the upcoming changes, please don’t hesitate to get in touch.