Chat

This topic describes how to configure and use the chat functionality in both Workspaces and Web Access. Chat enables a single end-user to communicate with a single analyst using a message window. The end-user and analyst can either both be using Workspaces or Web Access, or one could be using Workspaces while the other is responding using Web Access.

Enabling chat

By default, chat is disabled. There are several stages to enabling chat:

1. If you want to use chat in Workspaces, enable SignalR for the required BridgeIT applications.
2. Enable the chat System Settings, which also enable you to manage chat availability either manually or using a calendar, and configure chat start, end, and unavailable messages.
3. If you want to use chat in Workspaces, recycle the Application Pool.
4. Set the required privileges.

To enable SignalR for the required BridgeIT applications:

1. In Configuration Center, for each BridgeIT application where you want to use chat, click Edit.
   The Edit Application dialog appears.
2. In the Enable SignalR list, select Enable, then click OK.
3. Repeat for any other BridgeIT applications where you want to use chat.

When you have enabled SignalR for the required BridgeIT applications, you can enable chat using the Console.

To enable and schedule chat availability:

1. In the Console, on the Settings menu, click System.
   The System Settings page appears.
2. Set Enable chat in Workspaces and Enable chat in WebAccess as required.
3. Under Chat Settings, enter the Start chat message, End chat message, and Chat offline message.
4. Either set Chat Availability to Online, or select a calendar in the Availability Calendar property, then click .
   Selecting a calendar in Availability Calendar disables Chat Availability; selecting None in Availability Calendar re-enables Chat Availability.
   When chat becomes unavailable, no new chats can be initiated, although initiated chats can still be accepted and continued.
   Consider creating a specific Chat calendar so that Chat availability does not start as soon as your support hours start and also ends at a time that means that Chats can be completed within your support hours.

For information about calendars, see Defining your support hours. Whenever you modify support hours or holidays, even for new calendars, you must restart the Application Pool using Configuration Center.

If you have set Enable chat in Workspaces to True in the System Settings in the Console or made a change to a calendar, you need to recycle the Application Pool.

To recycle the Application Pool:

1. In Configuration Center, open the required instance.
2. Under Application Pools, click Recycle alongside the required Application Pools.

Finally, you need to set the following privileges for all roles or groups that you want to have access to chat:

• Configuration Components\Configuration\Chat set Execute to .
• Modules\Chat\Non-Process Related Objects\Chat Message set Create and Read to .
• Modules\Chat\Non-Process Related Objects\Chat set Create, Read, and Update to .

Setting the Chat name

You can add the Chat Name attribute to the Analyst and End-user windows to enable you to specify a different name to appear when using Chat. This can help with privacy concerns. If no Chat Name is specified, the Title on the User object is used.

Using chat

After you have enabled chat and set it to Online in the System Settings, when an end-user logs in, the Chat button appears at the bottom right of the browser window.

To initiate a chat, the end-user restores the Chat dialog by clicking , then clicks Request Chat. This causes the number next to the Pending Chats icon in the Web Access toolbar to increment for analysts, and also displays a notification popup to all analysts.

When an analyst clicks the Pending Requests link in the notification popup or clicks in the Web Access toolbar, the Pending Requests dialog appears, displaying the list of pending chats with the end-users' names and how long they have been waiting. The analyst clicks Accept alongside the chat that they want to respond to.

When the analyst clicks Accept, the end-user's chat dialog reports the name of the analyst who has joined the chat.

The chat progresses as the end-user and analyst type messages and send them to each other either by clicking Send or pressing Enter. To finish the chat, click End. Click Copy to copy the entire contents of the chat.