Live chat widget
Add a chat widget to each of your websites and talk to customers in real time. Each widget has its own key, look, topics and team.
The chat widget is a small script you add to your website. Visitors start a conversation, and it arrives in your inbox as a ticket on the chat channel. Replies are delivered live, with typing indicators on both sides.
Widgets belong to a brand. Add one widget for each website: each has its own key, look, team and topics, so a chat from your docs site and one from your marketing site can go to different teams.
- Widget: its name, usually the website, and the Team its new conversations go to.
- Preview: the real widget with your unsaved changes. Switch between the launcher, the home screen and a chat, and try it.
- Live: the widget is on your site and shown, or Hidden when Show the widget is off. It reads Not installed until the first visitor loads it.
Add the widget to your site
Section titled “Add the widget to your site”Open the brand's widgets
Open Settings, then Brands and widgets, and click the brand. On its Chat widgets tab, click the widget, or Add a widget for a new website. See Chat widgets.
Copy the install snippet
Under Install, copy the snippet. It loads the widget script from
https://app.opendesk.sh/widget/v1.js, or from your own domain when self-hosted, with this widget’s key.Paste it on every page
Paste the snippet before the closing
</body>tag on every page of the site where the widget should appear.Limit where it loads
Under Behaviour, list the sites that may load this widget in Allowed sites, such as
https://www.example.com. Left empty, it loads on any site.Show the widget turns the launcher off everywhere without removing the script. Ask for an email first has visitors leave an address before they chat, so you can follow up by email.
Send chats to the right team
Section titled “Send chats to the right team”A new chat goes to the team of the topic the visitor picked, else to the widget’s team. Routing rules can still move it, for example by the page the visitor started on.
Add Topics to let visitors say what they need: the widget then asks “What can we help with?” before the first message, and each topic sends the conversation to its team. A widget can have up to 8 topics.
Once a conversation has a team, the widget’s header shows the team’s name.
When you’re closed
Section titled “When you’re closed”Outside business hours, the widget shows your Offline message: by the hours of the team the chat goes to, else the workspace’s. Visitors can still write, and your team answers when it is back.
With Reply by email when they leave, on by default, a visitor who left an email address and is no longer on your site gets your replies by email, from the brand’s address for the team. Their answer by email comes back into the same chat.
Identify signed-in users
Section titled “Identify signed-in users”If your visitors are signed in to your product, pass their user id, email and name to the widget so conversations attach to the right contact and follow them across devices. To stop anyone posing as another user, sign the user id with this widget’s secret. See Identity verification.
Look and home screen
Section titled “Look and home screen”
Look and home screen
Section titled “Look and home screen”- Appearance: the accent colour (the brand’s colour unless you pick one), light, dark or automatic theme, which corner the launcher sits in and how far from the edge, the corners, and the launcher’s icon or label.
- Header: the title (the brand name when empty), the subtitle, an avatar, and Show team faces: up to three teammates of the widget’s team, first names only, available people first. A private team’s members are never shown.
- Home screen: the greeting and up to four suggested questions. A tap starts a conversation with that question.
- Sound for new replies: a soft chime while the visitor’s tab is in the background.
How a conversation works
Section titled “How a conversation works”
How a conversation works
Section titled “How a conversation works”- When the widget opens, it creates a visitor session and receives a visitor token, stored in the browser so returning visitors see their history. A visitor’s conversation list holds the chats of that brand only.
- The visitor’s first message creates a ticket and a contact.
- Agent replies appear in the widget in real time. Internal notes are never sent to the widget.
- Agents see when the visitor is typing, and the visitor sees when an agent is typing.
- Visitors can attach files.
If the brand’s help center is published, the widget links to it so visitors can find answers on their own. Deleting a widget ends its visitor sessions; past conversations stay in the inbox.