Is it possible to hide the chat widget department field?

Question

Is it possible to completely hide the department field on the pre-chat form?

Answer

The department field can be hidden from visitors by calling the departments.enabled function with an empty array.

<script type="text/javascript">
  window.zESettings = {
    webWidget: {
      chat: {
        departments: {
          enabled: []
        }
      }
    }
  };
</script>

This will prevent visitors from selecting a department. A department can still be set using a trigger or the departments.select function.

For more information about automatically setting the department via trigger or API, see the article: Automatically route chats to departments.

Before:

After: