This article details how to install and configure Zendesk Chat-Support integration from within Zendesk Support. For information about setting up Chat-Support integration from Zendesk Chat, see Setting up Zendesk Support from Zendesk Chat.
Note that the information in this article only applies to accounts that are:
- Using the standard agent interface
- Are adding a new Zendesk live chat account from within their Zendesk Support-only account
It does not apply to accounts that are:
- Using the Agent Workspace
- Using Zendesk Suite
- Linking an existing Chat-only account with an existing Support-only account.
This article contains the following sections:
- Installing Zendesk Chat in Zendesk Support
- Setting up agents' chat permissions
- Navigating Zendesk Chat in Support
- Configuring ticket creation options
- Assigning Support tickets based on the agent who handled a chat
- Making Zendesk Chat available to end users
Installing Zendesk Chat in Zendesk Support
In order to set up Zendesk Chat from within Zendesk Support, you must be a Support administrator.
To activate and install a new Zendesk Chat trial in your Support account
- Click Admin(
) , then select Channels > Chat or select Chat from the product tray. - Click Activate Chat trial.
- Your Zendesk Chat account is created and opens automatically.
- In the welcome window that appears, follow the introductory slides until you are prompted to fill in your Display name and other details, then click Next.
- The next slide will show you your widget code which you can use to embed Chat support on your website - You can either copy and paste it into your site code now, or leave it for later and click 'Go to Visitor List' to open the dashboard.
To serve chats you can:
- Open your Chat dashboard from the product tray, or Admin > Channels > Chat, or
- Download the Zendesk Chat app from the marketplace allowing you to handle chats from a window within the Support agent interface.
Setting up agents' chat permissions
When you create a Chat account from within Support, how you manage chat permissions depends on the type of Support account you're using:
- Newer Support accounts with Admin Center manage permissions in the Admin Center. See Setting roles and access in Admin Center.
- Older Support accounts manage permissions in the agents' Support profiles. See the procedure below for instructions.
Note that when you create a Chat account from within Support, your Zendesk Support account owner and administrators will become the Zendesk Chat account owner and administrators.
To turn chat permissions on or off for an agent
- Open the user's profile.
- Toggle the Zendesk Chat field to On or Off.
Note: You can only turn chat permissions on for as many agents as your Chat subscription allows. To view details about how many Chat agents you have available, click Admin(), then select Channels > Chat.
- To change the agent's alias that appears Chat, edit the Chat Namefield.
Chat-only agents have full agent access to Chat but only have limited access to Support. Chat-only agents are not available to customers using Zendesk Suite.
Chat-only agents can:
- Create and view tickets
- Add private comments to tickets
Chat-only agents cannot:
- Edit tickets
- Be made the assignee on a ticket
- View reports
To make someone a chat-only agent
- Open the user's profile.
- Under Role, select Chat-only Agent.
Navigating Zendesk Chat in Support
After you set up Chat-Support integration, the Chat icon appears in two places:
- Join, leave, or respond to chat conversations by clicking the Chat top toolbar icon.
- Access the Chat dashboard, which contains Chat settings and account details, by clicking the Products icon and selecting Chat.
Configuring ticket creation options
You can configure different settings for how tickets are created for both chats and offline messages, as well as whether chat transcripts appear in the ticket as a public reply or private comment.
To configure ticket creation
- From the Chat dashboard, select Settings > Account > Zendesk Support tab.
- Under Ticket Creation -- Chats, select settings for chat tickets:
- Automatic Ticket Creation: To automatically create a Support ticket when a chat starts, select Automatic. For agents to manually create tickets, select Manual.
-
Transcript Visibility: Select Publicor Private to determine how the transcript is added to the ticket.
Private comments are visible only to agents, while public comments are also visible to ticket requesters and any other end users that are CCed on the ticket. Details about the visitor's location, IP address, and referring URL are also automatically added to tickets, but are always added as private comments.
- Ticket Assignment: Select First Agent to always assign tickets created from chats to the first agent who served the chat, regardless of whether the chat was transferred to another agent. Select Last Agent to assign tickets to the agent who ended the chat. Note that with this option, tickets are still initially assigned to the first agent and are reassigned to the last agent only after the chat has ended.
- Under Ticket Creation -- Offline Messages, also configure the Automatic Ticket Creation and Transcript Visibility settings as described above.
- Click Save Changes.
Assigning Support tickets based on the agent who handled a chat
Note:This setting only affects tickets created from chats handled in the standalone Zendesk Chat dashboard. This does not affect tickets created using Chat in Zendesk Support, as described above.
You can set up who tickets created from chats are assigned to in an agent's profile. Agents can do this themselves or administrators can set it up in an agent's profile. If you don't enter this setting, tickets aren't automatically assigned to anyone.
To edit who chat tickets are assigned to for yourself
- From the dashboard, navigate to Settings> Personal.
- Click the Zendesk Support tab.
- Enter a Zendesk agent's email in the Zendesk Support Email field.
- Click Save Changes.
To edit who chat tickets are assigned to for someone else
- From the dashboard, navigate to Settings> Agents.
- Click the name of the agent whose profile you want to edit.
- Enter a zendesk agent's email in the Zendesk Support Email field.
- Click Save Changes.
Making Zendesk Chat available to end users
You can make the Zendesk Chat widget appear to end users in a few different ways:
- Add the Zendesk Chat widget directly to your website. See Adding the Chat widget to your website.
- Enable the Zendesk Chat widget in your Help Center. See Providing targeted support in your Help Center with Zendesk Chat.
- Use the Zendesk Support Web Widget. See Using Web Widget to embed customer service in your website.
40 Comments
Hello,
Can you direct me to where I can find information about adding my ZD macros to Zopim chat?
Hi Alexandra!
I'm afraid there's no way to share or transfer your Zendesk macros over to Zopim. It'll be necessary to recreate them manually in Zopim.
Please let me know if you have any other questions!
Hi, is it possible to display the Zopim chat only on one specific page of our Help Center? Specifically, the Submit Request page for one of our languages only? Anyone can visit our Help Center and read articles, but they need to login and be recognized as a paid user in order to email us directly--we want to restrict chat to those paid users only, and only for the US (where the bulk of our contacts occur).
Also, how does this integrate with the standard mobile version of the Help Center (or does it)?
Thanks!
Hi Larisa,
Yes, it is possible.
Pseudocode:
if ( window.location.href.indexOf("mydomain.com/hc/en-us/thepage")!= -1 & HelpCenter.user.role!="anonymous")
{
// add here the Zopim script
}
Just update this string: mydomain.com/hc/en-us/thepage with the right one.
Add the script here:
>Also, how does this integrate with the standard mobile version of the Help Center (or does it)?
This specific use case will not work if you have the "Mobile Layout" option enabled. Only if you display the full desktop version on mobile OR if you built your own responsive HC UI for mobiles.
Kind Regards,
Cool, thank you! So, if we do have the "Mobile layout" option enabled, will *all* customers see a chat option, or *no* customers will see a chat option?
Hey Larisa,
No customers will see the chat option. The "Mobile Layout" can't read custom JS code, so my above code (conditions) will be ignored.
Kind Regards,
Sergiu, I tried your solution above (adding the code to the JS portion of the Help Center) but the chat does not show up on the New Requests page. I tried taking out the user role so it's the equivalent of
if ( window.location.href.indexOf("mydomain.com/hc/en-us/requests/new")!= -1)
so that it shows up on the page regardless of signed-in status, and it still doesn't show up. I do have myself logged in as an agent in IE, with chat status Online, and am trying to access the new request page as a customer in Chrome--I can access the page fine, but the chat widget does not appear (and yes I added the widget script from Zopim).
Hey Larisa,
I will move this into a ticket.
Is there a way to make the Zopim chat button available to my agents and admins as well?
Hey Frank!
I'm going to see if I can get someone who's knowledgable about Zopim in here to help you; in the mean time, feel free to check out our Zopim Help Center as well!
Hello Frank, do you mean on the Agent Interface?
Are you wanting to use this for inter-agent chat?
Maybe you could explain the intended application in a bit more detail.
Sure.
My intention was for my tier 1 agents (light agents) to be able to chat with our tier 2 agents (admins) from the chat bubble at the bottom of our support page, since they're in different cities. I believe our Zopim Chat bubble used to be visible for our admins and light agents but we recently rebuilt the site.
Hi Frank!
If your light-agents are signed in to your Support site under their light-agent profile, they will not have access to the chat functions within Zendesk. They can sign in as end-users and potentially chat with your agents that way. Another option would be to add them as support agents for Zopim, but that would mean increasing your seat-count for chat purposes.
Even logged in as a full agent admin I can open a chat with our chat agents... I just go to whatever page has the chat code (in our case we have several sites) and open a chat. Are you sure that your chat code is working at all?
Yeah, it works fine for end-users and anonymous visitors, but not light agents or admins.
I remember one of my coworkers had contacted Zopim about this at one point in time, and it was only after that were we able to get live chat working for admins/light agents. I'm not sure what he did.
Something odd there. I'm an admin and I can use it fine. I'd go to the Zopim site and try their chat - their support is generally awesome!
Hi, I just set up zopim through zendesk and used zendesk widget to load zopim, I have trouble making the zopim API to work with zendesk widget. The options from Zendesk Web Widget API are really limited compared to Zopim's Javascript API. I really want to use Zopim's API such as customize the widget position and hide the widget when offline, but if I use the Zendesk widget, I can't seem to be able to use Zopim's Javascript API. I really need to use that API, is there any way to do it such as integrating Zopim directly without going through zendesk widget?
Hey Andrew,
you have multiple options:
=1=
Use the Zopim Widget instead of the Web Widget (but you won't be able to offer the HC search option => deflect tickets)
The Zopim script:
<script>
window.$zopim||(function(d,s){var z=$zopim=function(c){z._.push(c)},$=z.s=
d.createElement(s),e=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];z.set=function(o){z.set.
_.push(o)};z._=[];z.set._=[];$.async=!0;$.setAttribute('charset','utf-8');
$.src='//v2.zopim.com/?account_key';z.t=+new Date;$.
type='text/javascript';e.parentNode.insertBefore($,e)})(document,'script');
</script>
just replace the account_key with your key:
=2=
To be able to use Zopim JS API via the Web Widget, you have to declare the zopim function ($zopim(function()) from inside zE(function().
Example:
zE(function() {
$zopim(function() {
// Zopim API
}
}
Also documented here:
https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/204277806-Multibranding-Zopim
=3=
We just released in Beta additional Web Widget API endpoints:
https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/community/posts/218033707-Start-here-Web-Widget-customizations-beta
Hope it helps.
Hi, I have two agents at Zopim. How can I integrate both agents in Zendesk? I accidentally integrated Zendeks with a new Chat accouunt, how can I delete it and then re-integrate with my two existing chat accounts?
Hi,
Apologies if the answer to my question is somewhere in the comments or KBAs but i was wondering if i setup operating hours for my chat, is it possible to have a customized form shown to the End-User if its past operating hours ?
Thank you
Hi Saman,
You could try to use this option:
This is how this potentially might look like:
https://chat.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/212016168-Creating-a-schedule-with-operating-hours-Professional-and-Enterprise-
Hope it helps.
I can't seem to activate Zendesk chat. We already have the widget installed on our site and have enabled it in our settings. And in the Chat system, I have marked my chat agent account as Online. But the Chat button is still not showing up in our Help widget in the bottom right of our website.
I tried to follow your instructions above to go add Zendesk Chat from the App Marketplace, but it doesn't appear to be there! What am I missing?
Hello, Courtney!
I'm very sorry to hear that the Chat button is not showing up for you.
I am sending you an email to review your settings to see why that may not be working. Please, keep an eye out for that!
Hi Folks!
is it possible to run the chat on different domains with the same account at the same time?
thanks.
br
Hi Murmi,
Yes. You can place the the widget on multiple different portals and accept chats at the same time.
Have a look at these articles as well:
https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/204277806-Multibranding-Zopim
http://zop.im/multibrand
Can you help me.I am having problem in paid subscription and i am not able to contact zendesk. As i already sent mail.
Hi Crystal,
Happy to help in any way we can :)
What sort of issues are you having with your account? I see you already have a ticket created with our Finance Team so if this is billing related then they will follow up with you as soon as they can.
Let us know if there's anything else we can assist with regarding your account.
Cheers!
Zopim still appears in URL
Question about the Last Agent Ticket Assignment setting:
The description above says it is assigned to the last agent after the chat has ended. In testing this in a non production instance of ours, I have found it waits for the end user to leave (i.e. if the last agent leaves first--before the end user--the ticket is not updated until the end user leaves).
What happens if the end user doesn't leave? Sometimes end users leave the window up for a while instead of exiting it and I'd hate for the ticket to not be updated/assigned to the correct (last) agent or a prolonged period of time because of this...
Hi Lila Kingsley,
In the event that the end user doesn't leave on a site with the widget, their session stays open for 20 minutes before the session is automatically ended.
*Idle status is defined as no mouse or keyboard input on the site for 10 minutes. The user does not need to interact with the widget itself, but must be actively working on the page the widget is loaded on. Additionally, there can be a variance of up to 5 minutes depending on their connection to Chat.
The chat will stay inactive if the above idle conditions are met. You may also see When do chats time out? for more information. Roughly there will be about 20 minutes gap before the tickets gets reassigned to the last agent.
I understand that you would like to be able to end the chat on the end-users side so that the tickets gets reassigned to the last agent. As of now there is no native Zendesk way to do it. You might be able to achieve this through API, and you may check this post for more details: Ending Chat for both parties I would recommend upvoting and cross-posting your use case in the following Chat Community Post: Feature Request: FORCE Chat to END to help provide visibility to our Chat Product Managers.
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