After the administrator completes initial configuration of the components in the Web Widget from the Zendesk Support interface and works with their developer to add the Web Widget to their website, they can work with their developer to further customize the Web Widget, if desired.
This article is an overview for administrators about what advanced customizations are possible with the Web Widget. This article is meant to answer the question, "what else can I do with my Web Widget?" It explains the customization process for administrators, and also points to developer documentation that web developers need in order to do the work.
If you’re a web developer (or an administrator who is comfortable doing website development on your own) and are looking for complete documentation about the API settings and commands described in this article, or additional code samples, see the developer documentation for the Web Widget API instead.
This article discusses these topics and widget customizations:
- Planning for Web Widget customizations
- Navigating Web Widget API documentation
- Displaying the widget in a different language
- Prefill forms with user contact information
- Disabling ticket attachments
- Re-positioning the widget
- Offsetting the widget placement
- Customizing the color of the widget elements
- Changing visible ordering in the widget
- Suppressing features on specific pages
- Customizing widget text
- Adding a subject line to the contact form
- Hiding the "View Original Article" button
- Limiting search results
- Customizing the Help Center search placeholder text
- Advanced configuration of Talk in the Web Widget
- Advanced configuration of Chat in the Web Widget
- Offering end-users multiple contact options
- Formatting code for multiple widget elements
For information about adding the Web Widget to your site, see Using Web Widget to embed customer service in your website.
For a complete list of Web Widget documentation, see Web Widget resources.
Planning for Web Widget customizations
Most Support administrators aren’t web developers and work with someone else to implement customizations to the Web Widget. They don’t customize the Web Widget and websites on their own. They work with a web developer at their company, or an outside developer that they use on a contract basis to implement the changes.
The web developer is the person who does the customization work, and they do it by adding some code (the Web Widget API) to the HTML of the website. However, the administrator still has a role to play in the work. They need to understand what customizations are possible for the Web Widget, and tell the web developer what they want.
Some administrators have experience with HTML and choose to do the customization work themselves, acting as their own developer, and that's fine. Either way, customizing the Web Widget is actually a process for the administrator that requires some planning and involves these steps:
- Review the information in this article to understand what advanced customizations are possible.
- Meet with key stakeholders at your company to create a list of requirements for your Web Widget. What colors do want to use? How do you want the Web Widget to behave?
- Prepare a list of the customizations you want. Be as specific as possible and include links to API documentation that your web developer can reference.
- Give the list to your web developer, who will customize the Web Widget by modifying the HTML of your website.
Navigating the Web Widget API documentation
Here’s some important information to help developers navigate the Web Widget API documentation on the Zendesk developer site.
Updated, organized developer docs and API syntax— The Web Widget API syntax has changed, and we’ve also reorganized the Web Widget API developer documentation to make it easier to find the command or setting you’re looking for. The documentation is now organized by product channel (Help Center, Tickets, Chat and Talk) or by core settings and commands. For more information, see the developer documentation for the Web Widget API.
New Chat APIs—For information about how the old Chat (Zopim) APIs map to the new Web Widget APIs, see Migrating from the Chat Widget syntax to the unified Web Widget syntax.
Displaying the widget in a different language
By default, the Web Widget embedded in a website displays text in the end user’s language, based on the language of their browser. For example, if the end user's browser language is set to de for German, the widget will appear in German for that user. If the widget is embedded in a Help Center, it displays text based on the Help Center language setting.
The Web Widget supports a subset of Zendesk's supported languages. If the end-user's browser language is not supported by the Web Widget, the widget defaults to English. If the widget is unable to obtain the language from the end-user’s browser, the widget defaults to the language specified in Zendesk Support.
You can customize the widget so that it always appears in a specific language using the setLocale command. This command sets the language for only the widget and doesn't override your host page’s language.
For more information, see the developer documentation for the setLocale command.
Prefill forms with user contact information
You can save visitors to your site a few seconds and some annoyance or frustration by prefilling their name, email address, and phone number into contact forms. This includes ticket forms, pre-chat forms, and Chat offline forms. Use the identify and prefill settings.
You can also set user information to be read-only using the prefill setting, which is nice because you can avoid having duplicate user accounts in Support for the same person.
For more information, see the developer documentation for the identify and prefill settings.
Disabling ticket attachments
If you have enabled attachments for your tickets, users can attach files to tickets submitted from the Web Widget, by default. However, you can disable this option, if needed.
For more information, see the developer documentation for the attachments setting of the contactForm object.
Re-positioning the widget
The default position for the Web Widget is the bottom-right of the browser; when a user clicks on the Web Widget, it opens by expanding upward.
You can select a location for the Web Widget that varies from page to page (placing it on the left or right side of the page, or moving it to the top of the page where it expands downward when clicked). Use the position setting to position the Web Widget in the top-left, top-right, bottom-left, or bottom-right of the page.
For more information, see the developer documentation about the position setting.
Offsetting the widget placement
You can use the offset setting to reposition the Web Widget on your desktop or mobile devices. Use the initial position setting as the point of reference, and then use the offset setting to move the Web Widget horizontally, vertically, or both from that position (in pixels).
For more information, see the developer documentation for the offset setting.
Customizing the color of the widget elements
You can specify an overall color scheme for the Web Widget (theme color) and a custom color for the text in the launcher, contact button, and header (theme text color) from the Web Widget administration page (see Configuring components in the Web Widget).
However, if you want to customize specific elements, you need to use the color setting. You can choose a unique color for each of these Web Widget components:
- Launcher
- Button
- Button text
- Results list
- Header
- Article links
For accessibility purposes, the Web Widget automatically adjusts colors using an algorithm to guarantee a minimum contrast ratio as specified by the WCAG guidelines.
For more information about customizing the color of Web Widget elements, see the developer documentation for the color setting.
Changing visible ordering in the widget
Suppressing widget features on specific pages
You can enable the Contact Form, Chat, Talk, and Help Center in the Web Widget and then use the suppress setting to change the features offered on particular pages of your site to suit your needs.
- Have Help Center deflection on some pages
- Have Chat or the Contact Form without deflection on other pages
- Offer tiered service levels to signed in and identified users
For more information, see the developer documentation for the suppress setting.
Customizing widget text
You can change the text of the Web Widget components in the table below, and you can also customize the Help Center search placeholder text.
Component | Details |
---|---|
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Object: launcher Setting: chatLabel Description: Text on the launcher button when Chat is enabled and Help Center is not onDefault text: Chat |
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Object: launcher Setting: label Description: Text on the launcher button Default text: Help, Support or Feedback (defined on the Web Widget Admin page) |
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Object: helpCenter Setting: title Description: The title of the Help Center page Default text: Help |
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Object: contactForm Setting: title Description: Title of the contact formDefault text: Leave us a message or Contact us (defined on the Web Widget Admin page) |
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Object: helpCenter Setting: messageButton Description: Text on the button in the Help Center form that loads the Contact form (~20 character limit) Default text: Leave us a message or Contact us (defined on the Web Widget Admin page) |
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Object: helpCenter Setting: chatButton Description: Text on the button shown in the Help Center form that loads the Chat (~20 character limit)Default text: Help, Support, or Feedback (defined on the Web Widget Admin page) |
You use the translations object to change some of the default text displayed in the Web Widget. Translations are grouped by feature—for example, Launcher, Help Center, and Contact Form.
You can explore a list of potential language codes in Language codes for Zendesk supported languages.
The locale translations are triggered by the end user's browser language. You can also force the widget to always appear in a specific language and override the end-user's browser language setting. For more information, see Displaying your widget in a different language.
Adding a subject line to the contact form
With the subject setting on the contactForm object, you can set the Web Widget to include a subject field in the default contact form.
The default contact form is designed to promote engagement and offer a streamlined user experience when completing the contact form. While the default contact form does not include a subject line, you may want to add one to enhance the support experience for some customers.
For more information, see the developer documentation for the subject setting on the contactForm object.
Hiding the "View Original Article" button
The View Original Article button bridges the article in the Web Widget and the article in the Help Center itself. You can hide this button by using the helpCenter object, and setting the originalArticleButton property to false.
For more information, see the developer documentation for the originalArticleButton setting for the helpCenter object.
Limiting search results
With the filter setting on the helpCenter object, you can limit the results of searches performed from the Web Widget to articles based on category, section, and labels. For more information, see the developer documentation for the filter setting.
Scroll down for some additional examples that are not included in the developer docs that illustrate some of the ways you can limit search results.
To limit search to a specific section:
<script type="text/JavaScript">
window.zESettings = {
webWidget: {
helpCenter: {
filter: {
section: '200154474-Announcements'
}
}
}
};
</script>
To limit search to a specific category:
<script type="text/JavaScript">
window.zESettings = {
webWidget: {
helpCenter: {
filter: {
category: '200053794-General'
}
}
}
};
</script>
To limit search to content in multiple categories:
<script type="text/JavaScript">
window.zESettings = {
webWidget: {
helpCenter: {
filter: {
category: '115000669485,201742209'
}
}
}
};
</script>
To limit search to content with a specific label:
<script type="text/JavaScript">
window.zESettings = {
webWidget: {
helpCenter: {
filter: {
label_names: 'orders'
}
}
}
};
</script>
To limit search to content in a specific category and with specific labels:
<script type="text/JavaScript">
window.zESettings = {
webWidget: {
helpCenter: {
filter: {
category: '200053794-General',
label_names: 'Label One,Label Two,Label Three'
}
}
}
};
</script>
Customizing the Help Center search placeholder text
The default placeholder text in the Help Center search box is How can we help? You can customize this text so that it matches the user’s language, or so that specific text appears in certain languages. For more information, see the developer documentation for the searchPlaceholder setting.

If Contextual Help is enabled, you can also configure the Web Widget to open to recommended articles, making it easier for your customers to self-serve. For more information, see the developer documentation for the setSuggestions command for the helpCenter object.
Advanced configuration of Talk in the Web Widget
You can create multiple configurations that define how Talk behaves in the Web Widget. With each configuration you can customize call routing and display options for Talk in the Web Widget, based on your needs and preferences.
-
The agent group that you want Web Widget callback requests to be routed to
-
The priority of Web Widget callback requests
-
Display Request a callback, Call us, or both of these options in the Web Widget
-
Display an estimated wait time in the Web Widget
If you have only created a single configuration of Talk in the Web Widget, this will automatically be the default configuration that displays in the Web Widget whenever Talk is available.
If you have created multiple configurations of Talk in the Web Widget, you can use the Talk nickname setting to target the desired configuration.
For more information, see the developer documentation for the talk object, the nickname setting, and Configuring Zendesk Talk settings for the Web Widget.
Advanced configuration of Chat in the Web Widget
If you are using the Web Widget integrated Chat experience, you can offer Zendesk Chat functions in the Web Widget so that visitors to your website can chat with agents, and send and receive files that might help with their problem. Agents can also send proactive messages to visitors, to see if they want or need any help.
For more information, see the developer documentation for the chat object.
For information about how the old Chat (Zopim) APIs map to the new Web Widget APIs, see Migrating from the Chat Widget syntax to the unified Web Widget syntax.
Offering end users multiple contact options
You can allow end users to choose a contact option. You may want to customize your website so that some pages allow end users to make a choice and others don’t. The exact behavior depends on whether Chat or Talk is configured for the Web Widget, and whether a chat agent is online. You can customize the default text of contact options, if needed.
Here's a list of the default text:
Contact option | Default text |
---|---|
Contact button | Contact us |
Chat label (with agent online) | Live chat |
Chat label (with agent offline | Chat is unavailable |
Contact form label | Leave us a message |
For more information, see the developer documentation for the contactOptions setting.
Offering contact options with Chat
If Chat is configured for the Web Widget, end users are automatically routed to a chat, if a chat agent is available. However, you can allow end users to choose between chatting with an agent or completing a contact form, even if a chat agent is available. If a chat agent is available when the user clicks the launcher, but the agent signs off before the chat begins, the end users may see a message indicating that the agent is not available.
It's a known issue that when end users choose to chat, they cannot use the back button to return to the other contact options. To do so, they need to completely end the chat or refresh the page.
Offering contact options with Talk
If Talk and other contact options are enabled in the Web Widget, and agents are online, contact options are automatically enabled.
Formatting code for multiple widget components
Items that are specific to the Contact Form, Help Center, and Zendesk Chat are nested under those headings (contactForm, helpCenter and chat) in the HTML of your site, while global items are included separately.
- The position of the Web Widget on the screen has been changed using the offset setting. Offset is a global item, which is why it has its own entry.
- Help Center search—doesn’t include the View Original Article button. The title “Search for help” for English-language users, and “Have your say” for all other languages.
- Chat is disabled.
- The contact form title is “Message us” in English and “Contact us” in other languages.
- The launcher button text is “Make a request” in English and “Get help” in other languages.
<script type="text/JavaScript">
window.zESettings = {
webWidget: {
offset: { horizontal: '400px', vertical: '400px' },
helpCenter: {
originalArticleButton: false,
title: {
'en-US': 'Search for help',
'*': 'Have your say'
}
},
chat: {
suppress: true
},
contactForm: {
title: {
'en-US': 'SMessage us',
'*': 'Contact us'
}
},
launcher: {
label: {
'en-US': 'Make a request',
'*': 'Get help'
}
}
}
};
</script>
240 Comments
@meirav, You can add Help Center functionality to your Web Widget and use Contextual Help to suggest articles. You can add external links to your Help Center article and the widget will open those links in a new tab.
For the Contact Options component: if Chat is offline, will Contact Options still be visible, or will it default to the Contact Form?
@zac If there isn't a chat agent available when the end user clicks then it will just offer the contact form. If there is a chat agent available when the end user clicks but the agent availability changes between the click and the end user's selection, a message will appear on the chat line that says "Chat is unavailable" that will switch to "Live Chat" when an agent becomes available again. The text is customizable.
@erica I love this thread. Thanks for all the great help and suggestions. One question I have is whether or not you can add text to the contact form. For example, something above the Name field that gives all of your contact options. Or, better yet, maybe something in the web widget where I could put that information on the widget's search results page?
Example:
Hi guys
Here's my widget on the staging server https://petmapz.staging.wpengine.com/
Or display that link instead of the view more.
How can I do that?
@Erica Wass , Eager to hear from you.
Thank you
Hi,
I just found a new bug in Firefox Browser when adding .setLocale('he') rtl language.
html css is completely erased after adding the <script> to switch language and causes the widget structure to look weird, I know Firefox is not near Chrome % of users but it is still Top Browser, Users via FF now get poor service experience, how can i prevent this?
Here's Example:
Thank you.
Yaniv.b
Does the help text color really have to be the same as the widget color? Seems like they are linked which as a web designer makes no sense at all to me. When I change my widget color, all the text after entering a question is colored the same as the widget? Is it possible to have a separate color, suitable for reading than the widget color itself?
@joshua Thanks so much for writing. We don't currently have that available but I have made a note of the desire to include additional contact information. You have a few other options, in the meantime that could help.
** You could also use contact options in your Web Widget which would allow the end user to choose between contact form and chat (then you wouldn't need the email address listed).
** You could also add an article to the results list called "Call us at ####" and you could include that article by default as part of contextual help zE.setHelpCenterSuggestions.
** You could also add custom text where it says "Help" at the top of the search box to something like Help (or call ####).
@amr Thanks for writing. If you turn off contextual help the end user will only see a Help Center search box. The link to the Help Center from the Web Widget is in the article itself "View original article." I'm be curious to learn more about the goals underlying your request.
@Sean:
Thanks for writing. That's not currently planned but I'm going to make a note of the request. Do you have an example of what you've got versus ideally what you'd like that I can link up?
We would love to have the web widget form load in the middle of the page and have the window taller so that there is no vertical scrollbar. Is there anyway to do this without adding some Javascript or jQuery code that waits for the iframe code to load and then changes the CSS?
The following code works great to offset the widget on desktop machines.
However, I would like the Feedback widget budget to stay in the corner of the screen and to just offset the widget form that appears after the button is clicked. Is there a way to do this?
Hey Nate! I'm checking with our Community Moderators to see if they have any input on this for you.
Hello,
Our use case is that we have several different ticket forms based on client. Is it possible in the web widget to enable the correct ticket form based on organization or account?
Thanks,
Dana
Hello,
I'm facing the same issue as here and here. After closing the chat, it's unable to open. I'm using zE.activate, tried with hideOnClose true and false, none of them seem to work. Do you have any idea how to solve this issue?
Thank you,
Antonio
Hi Antonio and the rest who face this issue,
Let me know how this behavior works for you on customized button,
<script>
// Zendesk Web Widget script here.......
zE(function() {
zE.hide();
})
function show() {
zE.show();
zE.activate();
}
</script>
Then you trigger the function show() using your customized button or text.
<button onclick="show()">Click me!</button>
or
<img href="javascript:show()" src="image.com"/>
This would be:
1. the widget would be hidden on load
2. if the custom button is pressed, it would change the widget from hidden to show, then it will also pop-up the chat window using zE.activate();
If your Help Center is enabled the zE.activate would launch the help center search, However if a chat is already ongoing, it would activate the Chat window instead.
I Hope this helps.
Thanks to
Ramwell Claudio (Zendesk Support)
Thanks Yaniv for sharing this information. I tried the solution but it is not working for me. When I apply this solution and click on chat link, the widget blinks once and then disappears totally.
Please keep posting if you get any other update from Zendesk. Thanks in advance!
@Dana -
Yes, it's possible to do that, though you'll have to write some javascript to enable it. You can find more information on what that would look like in this section of our developer documentation.
Hi guys,
can I show more than 3 articles top suggestion on web widget?
Thanks
Hi Tri -
Have you enabled the "view more" button? There isn't really a way to surface more than 3 suggestions, but that button does allow users to click in to additional results.
How do I add multiple settings to the contact form. I can add 'Subject' and 'Title' separately but when I add them both, neither of them appear.
@Nicole thanks for reply. yes I have enabled the "view more" button, but I think thats only works for search result, not suggested article on help center widget.
Hi @yaniv and all.
I have follow your instruction above. I face another problem, for the first time user click the custom button, the widget window appear, but after I minimize the widget window and click the button again, the widget window not show. do you face the same problem?
Thanks
Hello,
Our use case is somewhat similar to @Dana Fine's: we have a few important customers who would prefer we not direct their users to our helpcenter (because they have their own internal organization helpcenters), though for the vast majority of our customers have in-app access to our helpcenter would be really great.
So I'm wondering if it's possible configure the web and mobile widgets to be suppressed/hidden from just a few, specific organizations?
Thank you
Try using the below. It works for me. Am able to open the chat window again upon clicking the button.
@Andy thank you for your reply.
Keep in mind to have the new fields you create (Admin-Manage-Ticket fields) visible and editable as this article says.
Once they're visible/editable you can add them within the widget from "Admin-Channels-Widget".
Hope this helps!
@Enrique Albamonte
Thanks for reply but this doesn't help. I can make change one at a time, however if I want to make two changes e.g.change title AND add Subject field, neither will appear. Each will appear when added as a single change but when two changes are made neither will appear.
Is there a way to use any of these options to change the text of the "View original article" button?
There is a way to remove the button (here) but I don't see any way to change the text, as described for other buttons. I tried applying the text customizations for other features to this button, but so far nothing worked. Either I'm doing it wrong, or it's just not supported.
Another option for my case is to "inject" a button into each article that is displayed in the widget. I can't use the article page template for this, as the widget does not use the template, just the article content. If I want to inject the same button on every page, it has to be done on the fly.
Any help would be appreciated!!
@Daniel This would require some personal customization but is certainly possible. I would encourage you to use the Web Widget API to hide and then show your widget. Details on how to use the hide API can be found here:
https://developer.zendesk.com/embeddables/docs/widget/api#ze.hide
Details on how to use the show function can be found here:
https://developer.zendesk.com/embeddables/docs/widget/api#ze.show
Hi all,
Does anyone know if it's possible to change the default font type in the Widget? We'd like to change the entire font face used.
We would also like to be able to open an article in a new window when clicked rather than open it in the widget.
Thanks in advance.
Hey Marci!
I would think you'd be able to do with some custom Javascript, but let me check with some of our coding gurus to verify!
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