Thirdlane 16.1.1 is a major release — the first 16.x version — and it’s available as both an upgrade for existing deployments and a new install on AlmaLinux 10 or AlmaLinux 8. This post is the channel-led companion to the release announcement: a feature-by-feature walkthrough of what’s new, written for service providers, integrators, and enterprise IT teams operating the platform.
The headline themes:
- Now supported on AlmaLinux 10 (and AlmaLinux 8) — current LTS with a fresh 10-year support window
- Omnichannel Contact Center — voice, WhatsApp, SMS, and chat in a single unified queue, integrated with the built-in CRM
- Built-in CRM — Contacts, Accounts, Leads, Lists, Tasks, Campaigns, Deals, Custom Fields, and a unified Contact Timeline, provisioned automatically per tenant
- AI-powered voice intelligence with pluggable cloud and on-prem providers
- WhatsApp Business as a native messaging channel, plus configurable SMS gateways
- Multi-Site Organizations with flexible intra-site dialing schemes — each site keeps its own extension plan, with configurable inter-site dialing
- Flexible inbound routing — combine schedules and day/night/temporary office mode in a single decision
- New BLF key types — voicemail box state and current PBX mode in addition to extension presence
- Enhanced device provisioning — per-tenant DMS or S3-compatible storage offload
- S3-compatible storage for recordings, voicemail, transcripts, faxes, and provisioning, with per-tenant Bring-Your-Own-Storage
- Full Reports & Analytics module across calls, contact center, CRM, and enterprise
- Customizable branding at global and tenant levels
- Hardened authentication — OIDC SSO and Secure Password Mode (passwords never displayed or stored in cleartext; not even the super-admin can see them)
- Refreshed Configuration Manager UI for admin and user portals — global search, favorites, refreshed branding
- Redesigned and more reliable Thirdlane Connect across web, desktop, and mobile
Each section below pulls directly from the release notes shipped inside Configuration Manager.
Now supported on AlmaLinux 10 (and AlmaLinux 8)
Version 16.1.1 runs on both AlmaLinux 8 and AlmaLinux 10. AlmaLinux 10 is the current LTS — a fresh 10-year support window, a modern kernel and toolchain, and the latest security baseline. We recommend AlmaLinux 10 for new deployments and for any deployment planning a long-term horizon. AlmaLinux 8 remains fully supported through its EOL.
Why this matters:
- Security baseline. AlmaLinux 10 ships with a current kernel and the latest hardened defaults — important for any deployment that’s externally reachable, processes recordings, or sits in a regulated environment.
- Long-term support window. A fresh 10-year LTS clock means new deployments don’t inherit a partial-life support horizon. Plan a single platform refresh now and avoid an OS migration in the middle of the deployment’s useful life.
- Modern toolchain. Java 21, current Python and OpenSSL, and a modern systemd are available out of the box — relevant for the AI integrations, the new REST API surface, and any custom provisioning or webhook receivers you run alongside the platform.
- Cloud parity. AlmaLinux 10 templates are available across major cloud providers, so the install profile is the same whether you’re on bare metal, a private cloud, or a public-cloud VM.
Already on CentOS, RHEL, AlmaLinux 7, or earlier? Or considering a move from AlmaLinux 8 to AlmaLinux 10? Our team can plan and execute the migration with minimal downtime — including the dial-plan, trunk, recording, and tenant-state portability across the OS hop. Contact us to coordinate.
For the full installation walkthrough, see the Installing Thirdlane guide in the platform docs.
Omnichannel Contact Center
The biggest single addition. Voice and messaging now share queues — calls, chats, SMS, and WhatsApp all flow through the same agent inbox with the same routing logic, instead of running as separate channel silos.
- Unified message routing with voice queues — queues handle both calls and messages for true omnichannel support.
- Industry-standard After Contact Work (ACW) policies with disposition requirements, configurable timeouts, ACW time limits with agent-requested extensions, and automatic Asterisk wrapuptime synchronization.
- Configurable Pause codes (8 defaults) and Disposition codes (12 defaults) with per-tenant and per-queue code set inheritance.
- Three-level policy inheritance — Global → Tenant → Queue — with “Inherit” or “Own” mode at each level and real-time propagation of changes.
- Contact Center workspaces at Global and Tenant levels for centralized management of codes, code sets, and policies.
- New Contact Center Admin and Supervisor roles — CC Admin has full access to all queues for the assigned tenant; CC Supervisor is scoped to assigned queues only.
- Interactions screen under Reports for reviewing closed contact center interactions across all channels (voice, chat, SMS, and WhatsApp) with filtering by agent, queue, channel, DID, disposition code, and date range.
- Client and Agent history drill-down from the Interactions grid with content preview for text channels and recording/transcription links for voice interactions.
For more on how this fits the platform, see Contact Center.
Built-in CRM
The built-in CRM is not a bolt-on. It’s wired into the contact center (every queue interaction lands on the contact’s timeline automatically), into the messaging channels (campaign sends draw their audience from CRM lists), into the AI pipeline (summaries and action items attach to the contact), and into Connect (agents see CRM data inline during every call and chat). Service providers ship a working CRM to every tenant on day one — no integration project, no second system to sync, no per-seat licensing tied to an external SaaS.
Every tenant now gets a full CRM out of the box. Contacts, Accounts, Leads, Lists, Activities, Tasks, Campaigns, and Deals — all tenant-scoped, all wired into the contact center and the messaging channels.
- Contacts, Accounts, and Leads with full grid, form, filter, and CRUD support.
- Custom Fields allowing tenants to define additional contact, account, and lead fields with dynamic form injection.
- Lists with two modes — Static lists with manual selection via “Add to List”, and Dynamic lists with live-query criteria matching (status, source, tag, account, opt-in flags, date ranges).
- Tasks with priorities, due dates, assignees, status workflow, and overdue detection.
- Campaigns for bulk outbound messaging via WhatsApp and SMS — with scheduled delivery, timezone-aware date/time picker, send-time windows, and per-contact delivery tracking.
- Deals tracking sales opportunities through pipeline stages (Prospecting → Qualification → Proposal → Negotiation → Closed Won/Lost) with amounts, probability, weighted values, and contact/account linking.
- Contact Timeline showing a unified chronological view of activities and contact center interactions per contact.
- Three-step CSV import wizard (Upload → Map fields → Review) with delimiter auto-detect, header alias mapping, dry-run preview, and reusable import templates.
- Full REST APIs for Contacts, Accounts, Leads, Lists, Custom Fields, Activities, Tasks, Campaigns, and Deals — OpenAPI 3.1 specs with interactive Scalar documentation.
All CRM data is tenant-scoped and exposed through versioned REST APIs and outbound webhooks, so customers who need to push a copy into Salesforce, HubSpot, or a custom data warehouse still can.
See CRM Integrations for how the built-in CRM stacks up against — or pairs with — Salesforce, Zoho, and HubSpot.
AI-powered voice intelligence
Post-call analysis runs as a first-class platform capability, not a third-party tab.
- AI summarization, sentiment analysis, action item extraction, QA scoring, entity extraction, categorization, and compliance checking — all configurable per service.
- AI analysis service provider with automatic model discovery, so admins pick from a current list of available models per provider.
- Consolidated recording detail window with tabbed display of call summary, transcription, action items, and AI insights — accessible from a single Details icon on the recorded calls grid.
- Call history avatar badges indicating when AI analysis is available for a call.
- Custom Speech Services provider for bring-your-own TTS and transcription engines — drop in an executable and Thirdlane routes requests to it. Useful for on-prem and air-gapped deployments.
For provider configuration and bring-your-own-AI patterns, see AI Integrations and the platform-level AI & Call Intelligence page.
Device provisioning
Provisioning is now flexible enough for service providers running thousands of tenants on shared infrastructure.
- Per-tenant offload — provisioning files can go to a dedicated DMS server, to an S3-compatible bucket, or stay local, configured independently per model and per location.
- Per-tenant BYOS for recordings, voicemail, transcripts, and faxes — pick which tenants archive to their own S3 buckets and which use the shared system bucket, with independent local-retention windows per tenant.
- New BLF key types on desk phones — voicemail box status (MWI / new / saved) and current tenant PBX mode (day / night / temporary), in addition to extension presence, so receptionists and shared-line users see mailbox and route-mode state at a glance.
- Phone Models management — browse, filter, clone, and edit per-model templates inline; custom models are a first-class entity.
- External Provisioning mode — point phones at a customer-managed DMS for partners who run their own redirect infrastructure.
WhatsApp & messaging channels
WhatsApp Business is integrated directly through Meta’s API — Thirdlane is a WABA Solution Provider, not a reseller of someone else’s broker.
- WhatsApp Business account management with Meta API integration for phone-number sync and message-template sync.
- DID-to-WhatsApp number mapping directly from the DID form, with tenant-scoped auto-match suggestions and a WhatsApp status column on the DID grid.
- Bidirectional WhatsApp messaging routed through the omnichannel contact center.
- SMS messaging channels with custom SMS gateway provider support — webhook-based provider integration with downloadable Perl, Python, and Node.js reference adapters for carriers without built-in support.
The full positioning is on Messaging Channels.
Multi-Site Organizations (Enterprises)
For organizations that operate multiple sites — franchises, hospital systems, multi-campus universities, chain operators — 16.1.1 introduces a new way to model them.
- Group multiple organizations as sites under a single enterprise with a flexible intra-site dialing scheme (each site keeps its own private extension plan), shared inter-site dialing via configurable prefixes or direct cross-site dialing, a unified directory, aggregate limits, and centralized administration.
- Inter-site extension dialing with three configurable modes: disabled, prefix-based (e.g. *88 + site code + extension), or direct dialing across sites with automatic dialplan generation.
- Enterprise-level trunk assignment — SIP trunks can now be scoped to all tenants, a specific enterprise (shared by all its sites), or a single site.
- Enterprise management UI with a dedicated grid, settings form, and Sites tab showing per-site metrics including extension, DID, and queue usage, call limits, Contact Center, and Teams status.
- Organization REST API — full CRUD for enterprises, site listing, and shared directory at
/api/organization/with OpenAPI 3.1 spec. - Assign to Enterprise workflow on the Organizations grid — assign one or more organizations to an existing enterprise, or promote a single organization to a new enterprise.
- Unassign Selected action on the enterprise Sites grid to detach sites back to independent organizations without deleting them.
This pairs with the framing on Solutions by Industry for verticals where multi-site operations are the norm.
Reports & Analytics
The reporting surface is consolidated and rebuilt.
- Built-in Reports module covering Call Reports, Contact Center Reports, CRM Reports, and Enterprise Reports with interactive charts, data tables, date range controls, drill-down, favorites, and scheduled email delivery.
- Call Logs Database settings now distinguish write credentials used by telephony services from the Manager reporting connection — same MySQL server by default, with optional separate host or read replica and a dedicated test for the reporting connection.
Branding & customization
Per-tenant branding becomes a real feature, not just a logo upload.
- Customizable brand colors at the global level.
- Tenant-level branding with custom logo and brand colors that override system defaults.
- Auto-contrast toolbar text — text and icons automatically switch between light and dark for readability based on the primary branding color.
- Connect Branding with per-tenant customization of the Connect login page including app name, sign-in button color, logo, and favicon, with automatic fallback to global defaults.
- Connect AI master switch — a single per-tenant toggle that enables or hides voice messages, dictation, on-device transcription, and the Connect AI settings page across web, desktop, and mobile.
- Email Templates management with DB-backed storage, migration from legacy file-based templates, HTML preview, and dynamic brand variable injection (
BRAND_APP_NAME,BRAND_LOGO_URL, etc.). - Media Library for uploading and managing images used in branding and email templates, with thumbnail preview grid, copy-URL, and local storage.
- Refreshed default look with a lighter chrome palette and crisper pixel-aligned button borders for a cleaner, modern appearance.
Identity, onboarding & security
OIDC single sign-on, MFA delegated to your identity provider, and a hardened password handling mode for organizations that need it.
- OIDC SSO with multi-factor authentication for Configuration Manager and Thirdlane Connect — works with any OIDC-compliant identity provider including Okta, Azure AD, Google Workspace, Keycloak, Authentik, and others.
- Email-based username alias — users can log in with their email address as an alternative to username.
- User onboarding modes — global setting for temporary password (force change on login) or invite link mode, with email enforcement when invite mode is active.
- Redesigned password change and password recovery screens with branded styling, dynamic password requirements, and inline error recovery.
- Onboarding state column and filter on the User Extensions grid show which users have not yet activated.
- Reset Password action on the User Extensions grid emails a fresh temporary password and forces a change on next login.
- Secure Password Mode — a one-way feature upgrade that eliminates plaintext password storage end to end. User and administrator passwords are never displayed or stored anywhere in cleartext. Administrators (including the super-admin) cannot view, retrieve, or set another user’s password. Users and admins set and rotate their own passwords through email-triggered flows with a mandatory change on next login.
- Email audit checks for user extensions — validates missing, invalid, and duplicate email addresses across all tenants, integrated into System Audit.
- Users are notified by email when their account email address is changed (requires Secure Password Mode).
For the full security model — including STIR/SHAKEN, SBC, SRTP, and tenant isolation — see Platform Security.
Thirdlane Connect refresh
Connect gets a substantial refresh across web, desktop, and mobile.
Multi-session agent workspace. A session strip sits above the conversation pane — every active interaction is a compact pill with channel, contact, status, and unread count, and switching is one click. New interactions open in prominent Offer mode (tinted row, accent bar, pulsing status dot, pulsing Accept button) so handed-off work is impossible to miss. Unread-message badges on rows and pills, auto-focus on accept, and aligned lifecycle status dot colors across the active sidebar and session strip.
Unified voice + messaging. Call waiting control lets agents accept, reject, or hold incoming queue calls while handling active interactions. Agent Pause Codes (Break, Lunch, Training, etc.) with supervisor visibility and reporting.
AI in Connect. Call detail page shows AI analysis insights — summary, sentiment, category, QA score, and action items. Voice messages in chat with waveform preview and attached transcripts when speech recognition is enabled. Live dictation in the message composer using either the browser’s built-in recognizer or an on-device speech recognition engine. On-device speech recognition as an optional one-time download — higher-accuracy transcripts that run offline and never send audio to a server. On-demand transcripts for any incoming voice message with copy-to-clipboard.
Look & feel. Dark Mode with Light, Dark, and System theme options. Polished welcome page with time-of-day greeting, formatted date, avatar glow, and company/department display. Color theme consistency across all three skins (blue, green, monochrome). Redesigned login page with clean white layout, SVG icon, bordered inputs, and a dark navy sign-in button. Inter font replacing SF UI Text for better readability.
Reliability and resilience. Connect now reconnects automatically after network drops with secure token-based session recovery, persists in-flight conversations across page reloads, and on mobile keeps the user signed in via rotating refresh tokens — the cleartext password is no longer stored on the device after the first session refresh. The same session-recovery path applies on web and desktop, so agents don’t lose context when a Wi-Fi or VPN hiccups during a contact-center shift.
Mobile. Mobile Connect login refreshed with light theme, slate palette, branded wordmark, and input styling consistent with web and desktop. Login now supports Google, Microsoft, and SSO sign-in with provider auto-discovery from the chosen server. Rotating refresh tokens for auto-login — the cleartext sign-in password is no longer kept on the device after the first session refresh.
REST API & developer tools
For teams building on top of the platform:
- 38+ documented endpoints covering tenants, extensions, DIDs, trunks, queues, agents, IVRs, time conditions, schedules, contact center, and the built-in CRM.
- Full CRM REST API — Contacts, Accounts, Leads, Lists, Custom Fields, Activities, Tasks, Campaigns, and Deals.
- Organization REST API for multi-site enterprise management.
- Outbound Event Webhooks for real-time CRM, configuration, and communications events with grouped event selectors, test delivery, and per-subscription delivery logs.
- System Webhooks delivering tenant-lifecycle events from every tenant to a single subscription endpoint — built for service-provider provisioning automation.
- OpenAPI 3.1 specs and interactive Scalar documentation for every public endpoint.
The full API surface is documented at APIs & Webhooks.
How to get it
Existing customers. 16.1.1 ships through the standard Configuration Manager update path. Run the in-product update on a maintenance window and consult the full release notes (in Configuration Manager) for upgrade-specific notes — particularly around Secure Password Mode, which is a one-way upgrade.
New deployments. Available as a fresh install on AlmaLinux 10 (recommended) or AlmaLinux 8. AlmaLinux 10 carries the current LTS support window — pick it for any deployment planning a long-term horizon.
Migrating from CentOS, RHEL, AlmaLinux 7, or upgrading from 8 to 10? Our team can plan and execute the migration with minimal downtime. Contact us to coordinate.
Through a partner. Most Thirdlane deployments are delivered by an MSP, UCaaS provider, or integrator. Reach out to your partner first.
Direct from Thirdlane. Request a demo or contact our team for licensing, deployment-model selection, or migration discussions.