Live Chat

Install Live Chat from Marketplace (free). Open Communication → Live Chat for the agent desk. Configure the widget under Settings → Live Chat.

Widget setup

1. Open Settings → Live Chat (requires live-chat.manage), or use Settings from the Live Chat desk.
2. Set greeting, branding (color, launcher text, position, header, logo, agent display name), and optionally require name/email before chat starts.
3. Add suggested replies (quick-reply chips in the visitor widget).
4. Optionally show Powered by EloSync on the widget footer.
5. Configure business hours (workspace timezone). Outside hours, visitors see the offline greeting and can leave a message when offline mode is enabled.
6. Optionally enable email notify agents for inbound/offline messages.
7. Copy the embed snippet onto your website (script loads from your EloSync API host).
8. Keep the widget Active so visitors can start conversations.

Visitors keep their chat across page refreshes on the same browser (session stored locally until it expires or you regenerate the public key). The pre-chat Name / Email fields use dark labels so they stay readable on any host site theme.

Regenerating the public key invalidates existing embeds until you update the snippet.

Agent desk

Tabs under Live Chat:

• Overview — visitors today, chats answered/missed, page views (7d), recent history.
• Inbox — fullscreen 3-pane shell (list, thread, visitor panel).
• Live visitors — who is on site (heartbeat window); open or start a chat.

Inbox

• Conversation list filters: All, Unread, Mine, Unassigned, Open, Closed, Offline.
• Thread header: Claim, Close/Reopen, Escalate. Assign, lead link, and ban live in the visitor panel.
• Composer: Reply (visitor-visible) or Note (internal only). Attach files from the composer.
• Insert canned replies from Reply mode (type / in the composer to filter by shortcut/title; manage canned replies in Settings → Live Chat).
• Visitor panel shows IP, country, browser/OS, page, referrer, pages viewed, last seen.
• Search filters by visitor name, email, page URL, or message preview.
• New visitor messages update in near-realtime when Echo/Reverb is connected (polling remains as fallback). Typing indicators work both ways when realtime is available; message send still succeeds if Reverb is down.

Departments

Create departments under Settings → Live Chat (live-chat.manage), assign only the people who should handle chats, and set a default department on the widget for new conversations. First-chat push/in-app alerts go to that department, not the whole workspace. Production or other teams should stay off the Live Chat department even if they can otherwise open the inbox.

Idle alerts

On the widget, Idle alert (minutes) (default 5; 0 = off) notifies other department agents when an assigned chat has no agent reply for that long.

Leads

When Leads is installed:

• Search and link an existing lead, or create a new lead from the visitor panel and auto-link it.
• Unlink anytime. Linking requires live-chat.reply or live-chat.manage plus Leads access.

Help Desk

When Help Desk is installed, escalate a conversation to a ticket from the thread (live-chat.reply plus Help Desk create permission). The conversation keeps a soft link to the ticket.

Moderation

With live-chat.manage, ban a visitor from the visitor panel. Banned visitors cannot start new sessions.

Notifications

The first visitor message creates an in-app notification and (when desktop/mobile push is enabled) an FCM alert for agents in the widget’s default Live Chat department. After someone replies, only that assignee gets further in-app alerts for the thread. If the assignee does not reply within the configured idle minutes, other department agents get an idle alert. Notifications open /live-chat?conversation={uuid}. Optional email notify (widget setting) applies to that first inbound message.