Authentication in Apple Messages for Business

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Feature Release

This is the announcement for an upcoming ASAPP feature. Your ASAPP account team will provide a target release date and can direct you to more detailed information as needed.

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Overview

ASAPP now supports customer authentication in Apple Messages for Business. With this new functionality, customers can securely log in to their accounts during interactions, allowing them to access personalized experiences in automated flows and when speaking with agents.

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Use and Impact

Customer authentication is intended for any interaction where making use of account information creates a better experience for the customer:

• Any live interaction with an agent: Enable your agents to greet and validate who they’re speaking with, review historical customer conversations, and quickly reference relevant account attributes.
• Automated flows: Present data related to a customer’s account (e.g., booking details) or take actions on behalf of the customer (e.g., make a payment).

Identifying a customer in an interaction also adds valuable context when reviewing historical interactions in Insights Manager for reporting or compliance purposes.

Expanding support for customer authentication in this channel should:

1. Reduce the share of interactions that are directed to agents due to customers being unable to access automated flows that require authentication.
2. Reduce the share of interactions that are directed to agents due to customers being unable to access automated flows that require authentication
3. Expand the share of interactions with agents that benefit from account information and conversation history, reducing effort to identify customers and search for account information

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How It Works

User Experience

Once implemented, any instance in an ASAPP automated flow that triggers customer authentication today will do so during an interaction in Apple Messages for Business.

When this occurs, Apple Messages for Business will ask the user to login via a button. Once the user clicks the button, they will be brought out of the iMessages app and redirected to a webpage/browser window to sign in. Users will have to sign-in with their credentials every time their authentication token expires.

Architecture

User Authentication in Apple Messages for Business utilizes a standards-based approach using an OAuth 2.0 flow with additional key validation and OAuth token encryption steps.

This approach requires companies to implement and host a login page to which Apple Messages for Business will direct the user for authentication.

Visit Apple Messages for Business integration guide for more information.

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FAQs

1. What are the steps required to implement authentication?

   This primarily depends on if a suitable login page and token endpoint already exists or requires customer development. Your ASAPP account team can provide exact details on the specifications these must meet.

   Configuration is required by ASAPP and on the Apple Business Register. Chat flows that use APIs may require modification to match the rendering capabilities of Apple Messages for Business but this can be done incrementally.

   Testing of the feature can be done in a lower environment prior to production launch. ASAPP implementation time is 6-12 weeks depending on flow complexity, and total customer integration time is dependent on customer dependencies.

2. If our user base has a broad range of device versions and iOS versions, will they all have the same authentication experience? If not, what needs to be done to ensure that they do?

   Yes. For iOS versions 15 & 16+, the user experience for authentication will be the same. However, users with devices that run iOS versions earlier than 12 will not be able to access authentication.

   From a technical perspective, different token endpoints will need to be supported simultaneously to allow users across iOS versions 15 and 16+ to access authentication. More specifically, distinct endpoints will be needed to support users with iOS versions 15 or 16+, as well as devices running these iOS versions to test.

   For iOS versions 16+, ASAPP will soon support Apple’s newest authentication architecture, which we strongly encourage implementing once it becomes available.

3. Does authentication happen inline within the chat experience?

   No. In the current virtual agent experience, a user will see a login button and then be redirected to a webpage to enter their credentials and complete the login action. They will then be automatically redirected to the chat experience within 10 seconds of successfully authenticating.

4. How many attempts will a user be given to authenticate? Are there configurable limits to this?

   This is governed by how many retries the customer login page allows.

5. When is conversation history carried across channels, both from the customer and agent’s perspectives?

   • If a customer is authenticated in the Apple Messages for Business channel, they will see their conversation history for previous authenticated Apple sessions but not their history from other channels.
   • If during an authenticated Apple session, the customer moves to another channel (e.g. Web SDK) and authenticates, the Apple conversation from that session will appear in the new channel. Additionally, as the customer engages via the Web SDK, agent responses will continue to appear in Apple Messages for Business until the token for the Apple session has expired.
   • In all other instances, the conversation history from Apple Messages for Business will not be visible to customers when they start subsequent conversations in other channels.
   • From the agent’s perspective, conversation history from all channels is visible in Agent Desk so long as customers have signed in using the same credentials.