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Managing offline form settings

Aimee Spanier
  • Edited
Zendesk Documentation Team

When your widget is offline, visitors can leave a message with their contact information in the offline form.

Note: If you’re using Chat with an integrated Zendesk Support account (all Chat versions), you can use either the offline form or the contact form component of the Web Widget. For details on the contact form, see Using Web Widget to embed customer service in your website.

This article discusses the following topics:

Editing the offline form message

By default, this form is enabled with the message shown "Sorry, we aren't online at the moment. Leave a message and we'll get back to you." You can edit the message that appears or disable the form completely.

The process for setting up the offline form is the same for both Chat Standalone and integrated Chat + Support accounts; however, if you are on an integrated account, the offline form is disabled automatically if you are using the contact form in the Web Widget.

To edit the offline form message

  1. In your Chat dashboard, go to Settings > Widget and click the Forms tab.
  2. In the Offline Form section, make sure the form is enabled by toggling it On.
  3. Edit the text in the Offline Greeting field, then click Save Changes at the bottom of the page.

To disable the offline form

  1. In your Chat dashboard, go to Settings > Widget and click the Forms tab.
  2. In the Offline Form section, click Off, then click Save Changes at the bottom of the page.

Enabling messaging channels

If you want to link out to your social messaging channels when the widget is offline, you can toggle on the following channels:

  • Facebook Messenger
  • Twitter Direct Messages

Facebook Messenger

To add your Facebook account, you will need to specify your Facebook username or page ID. We recommend using the page ID because it is constant whereas you can change your username.

To get your page ID

  1. Open your Facebook page and click on the About tab.
  2. Scroll to the bottom of the More Info section and you will see the specific Page ID. Copy and paste that number into the offline form settings page.
Note: If you are using the Zendesk Message product and have already connected a Facebook account, double clicking on the field will reveal a drop-down that allows you to select which page/account should be visible on the offline form.

Twitter Direct Messages

To add your Twitter account, you will need to specify your Twitter User ID.

To get your Twitter User ID

  1. Log in to your Twitter account.
  2. Go to Your Twitter Data page.
  3. Under the Username field, copy and paste the User ID number into the offline form settings page.

When turning on Twitter Direct Messages on the widget, you will want to ensure that you have turned on "Receive Direct Messages from anyone"in your Twitter account.

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31 Comments

  • Michelle Dong
    Is the "Offline Form" section still available for Basic accounts? I'm missing it on my account.
    0
  • Ramin Shokrizadeh
    Zendesk Product Manager
    Hey Michelle, Thanks for the question. As you are using the contact form via the Web Widget, it removes the offline form functionality in chat. If you want to use the offline form instead of the ticket form in the web widget for some reason, deactivating the contact form in the Web Widget settings will return the offline form settings in the Zopim Widget settings. As a joint Zopim+Zendesk customer, I would personally recommend you use the ticket form in the Web Widget over the offline form. -Ramin
    0
  • Crawford Philleo
    Is there a way to append the offline form to include a space for users to leave us more information about their request, like an order number?
    0
  • Ramin Shokrizadeh
    Zendesk Product Manager
    Hi there Crawford, Since you are using Zendesk and Zopim, you might want to look at using the Zendesk contact form option in the Web Widget over Zopim offline messages because it allows you to offer a custom field (like an order number). You can get more info on the Web Widget contact form here: https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/203908456-Using-Web-Widget-to-embed-customer-service-in-your-website We have no immediate plans to offer custom fields in the offline form. Thanks, Ramin
    0
  • Menno Holtkamp
    We are using the Zopim Chat Widget in combination with our Zendesk account. I am currently trying to change the offline message using the API (not using admin interface so we can maintaining ability for i18n), but it seems this does not work? $zopim(function () { $zopim.livechat.offlineForm.setGreetings('Custom text in local language goes here!'); }); Additionally, we would like to use the general 'set' function: $zopim.livechat.set(); Little documentation can be found about the possible options... Only some trivial settings in the example: https://api.zopim.com/files/meshim/widget/controllers/LiveChatAPI-js.html#set Rationale Some of our customers do not understand the concept of "WebShop" and try to place orders through chat, therefore we would like to slightly alter the text to discourage this behavior.
    0
  • Ramin Shokrizadeh
    Zendesk Product Manager
    Hi Menno, If you are using the Zendesk Web Widget and want to use the Zopim JS APIs, you need to wrap the code with a : zE(function() { Without using the zE(function() { none of the Zopim specific APIs will get applied. -Ramin
    0
  • Alejandro Barreto

    Is there a way to integrate the offline form into a native mobile application (iOS/Android)?

    0
  • Ramin Shokrizadeh
    Zendesk Product Manager

    Hi Alejandro,

    Offline form is supported in our mobile SDKs, the docs can be found here:

    https://developer.zendesk.com/embeddables/docs/ios-chat-sdk/introduction

    https://developer.zendesk.com/embeddables/docs/android-chat-sdk/introduction

    Thanks,

    Ramin

    1
  • Mirjam Happel

    We have our internal users logged in through SSO, so they don't have to "introduce themselves". More precisely. we don't want them to be able to change the personal details as this creates major issues on the backend. How can I still use the offline form, but not have the requester be able to change the contact details?

    1
  • Ramin Shokrizadeh
    Zendesk Product Manager

    @Mirjam I have answered your question in your other post: https://chat.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/217777858/comments/360001287648

    0
  • Mirjam Happel

    @Ramin Thank you I just thought to ask here too just in case. thank you.

    0
  • Marta Van den Bergh

    Hello,

    I am trying to understand what triggers offline form - no agents online or the office hours? Is there a way to set up the offline form to always appear outside the office hours, even if some agents are online? We use the mobile app and sometimes we forget to switch it off for weekends etc., but we don't want to confuse our users and give them an impression we are ready to attend them.

    Thanks

    Marta

    0
  • Ramin Shokrizadeh
    Zendesk Product Manager

    Hi Marta,

    If you are using operating hours, it enforces the agent status (except the logins from the mobile apps). To ensure the widget is set to offline on the weekends while using the mobile apps/operating hours, you will want to use the setStatus API to force the widget to offline on the weekends.

    You can learn more about the setStatus API here: https://api.zopim.com/files/meshim/widget/controllers/LiveChatAPI-js.html#setStatus

    Thanks,
    Ramin

     

    0
  • William Grote

    Is there a way to adjust the system notification email when the offline form is filled out so that all the agents are Bcc'd the email,  not just added as To ??

     

    Or is there way to admin who gets the offline notification at all, with all the agents getting the same email, the chance for duplicate responses is high

     

    I tested it and the email notification gets sent to every agent and all their emails and names are visible? we have compliance rules that this conflicts with, so for now I have to disable the feature entirely?

     

    From: Zendesk Chat <noreply@zopim.com>

    Date: 9/15/19 9:43 PM (GMT-05:00)

    To: msimpson@rpost.com, wgrote@rpost.com, jchatelain@rpost.com, jmenzin@rpost.com, nvillacarlos@rpost.com

    Subject: Offline Message : testing - please respond to whoever sees this.

    0
  • Ramin Shokrizadeh
    Zendesk Product Manager

    Hi William,

    Currently, there is no setting to change the to/bcc logic and we have no immediate plans to change this. The offline message notifications is mostly beneficial for smaller teams/businesses and we recommend larger businesses to use Chat to Support ticket creation instead.

    Creating tickets will help solve the agent conflict problem you described because you can see who is reading/updating tickets inside the Support interface. 

    If you have compliance requirements to follow, your best bet is to get your agents to disable the offline message notification setting or consider moving to the Support product and use ticket creation instead.

    -Ramin

     

    0
  • Krysta Privoznik

    Hi there, a couple questions:

    1. How do I ensure that the offline form goes out on weekends?

    2. How do I create a notification to our internal team that an offline form has been filled out and needs follow up?

    Thank you!

    0
  • Brett Bowser
    Zendesk Community Team

    Hi Krysta,

    1. You'll want to set up your operating hours under Settings>Account>Operating Hours. You can exclude weekends from here so the offline form is displayed instead.

    2. Each agent can navigate to Settings>Personal>Profile where then can enable the Offline message notification under Preferences.

    Let me know if you run into any issues getting this up and running.

    Thanks!

    1
  • Donato

    Hi,

    is there any way to "force" show the offline form during the opening hours?

    My scenario is: I need to reduce the pressure from the chat but only from specific page.

    We activate the chat with javascript call ":$zopim.livechat.window.toggle()"

    Is there anyway to call the offline form directly ? or some similar workaround?

    Thanks in advance

     

    0
  • Devan - Community Manager
    Zendesk Community Team

    Hello Donato,

    The only way to accomplish this natively would be to have all agents go offline. I'll share your question with the rest of our community in our weekly digest and see if anyone can suggest a workaround. 

    Best regards. 

    0
  • Donato
    • Edited

    Hello Devan - Community Manager

    thank you for your prompt reply.

    The thing is that I need to stay online for other services as I use the chat in different point.

    Hoping to see some workaround from the community 

    Thanks in advance

     

     

    0
  • Elissa
    Zendesk Community Team

    Hello Donato

     

    A couple work arounds that may be helpful:

    If you'd like, you can use our Web SDK to build a custom chat widget that is more customizable. I expect with that you could create the form you want and have it show up selectively on the pages you prefer. Or, you could create clones of the custom chat widget with and without the form and put different ones on different pages.

    Another alternative (if you also have the Support product) would be to use the Web Widget instead of the Chat Widget. The Web Widget allows you to have custom forms, and you can use the "suppress" function of the web widget API to selectively suppress the form on certain pages and show it on others. You can see more detail on that here: Can I disable some Web Widget features on specific pages.

     

    I hope that helps!

    0
  • Josh Arnold
    • Edited

    I have run a small ecommerce site shopatvescape.com and have Zendesk installed. I am the only "team member". I have an offline form setup and turned on the widget settings. I then set my status dropdown to "Away" when support hours are over. For the last month no matter what I do the Chat on the site never shows me being offline. So no matter what I do or what I search on the chat helpmate here, I can't get my site chat to go offline. Can you please point me in a direction here?

    Thanks in advance for the help.

    Josh

    0
  • Elissa
    Zendesk Community Team

    Hello Josh Arnold

    It sounds like this is a quick fix! When you set yourself to Away that does not actually put your account offline. The Away status makes it not possible for things to be routed to you automatically, and lets your colleagues know you're not accepting chats, but it still leaves your account online for people to request a chat. What you'll need to do is set your status to Offline. This actually does turn off your account, stop offering chat to customers, and shows the offline form. You can read more about the different statuses in this article: Configuring your chat availability settings.

    I hope that helps! Let me know if you continue to have trouble.

    0
  • Josh Arnold

    Elissa,

    First, thank you for your response. That makes a lot of sense. Here is the problem. I am not seeing "Offline" as an option. I may be staring directly at it, but I can't find anywhere where I can set my status or the account status to offline. I have read through the article linked to and I can't find it there where I can set it to Offline. Maybe I am having a permissions problem where it doesn't show it as an option. Can you please tell me where the "Offline" option should be? I am the only team member and when logged in the online place I can edit is on the profile page. On the Team Member page I am listed as administrator so I am at a loss here. One more thing. I do have the Zendesk chat app on my phone, and use it along with my computer browser together to handle chats. Maybe one is conflicting with the other. Any help would be much appreciated.

    Thanks

    Josh

    0
  • Elissa
    Zendesk Community Team

    Hello Josh Arnold

    I'm so sorry for the mistake there. The status is actually called "invisible". That "invisible" status puts you offline as an agent. If everyone is invisible or logged out, then your account is offline.

    Good catch on the mobile app as well. You are correct that this can cause trouble. You want to make sure that your mobile app is always set to "invisible" status when you want to be offline. If you close the chat app while it is set to "online" or "away" that will be your account status.

    Sorry again for the mistake!

    0
  • Josh Arnold

    Thank you SO MUCH. That solved it! I am thrilled. I read through so much documentation and never understand specifically how to take the chat offline. This solved it. Thanks so much for the help.

     

    Josh

    0
  • Elissa
    Zendesk Community Team

    Hi Josh Arnold

    You're so very welcome! I'm glad you were able to get it sorted out after all!

    Thank you also for pointing out this is not really covered in our documentation. I'll work on getting a quick article up just to let people know their chat mobile app may be causing status issues. Thanks again!

    0
  • Smith Joel

    We are having a problem with the offline form. After the customer submits the form, they get an automatic reply stating something like somebody will get back to them shortly. Unfortunately, "shortly" sets an expectation that is not always accurate due to our business hours. I am not seeing anywhere where we can change the wording of that reply.

    0
  • Nicole S.
    Zendesk Community Team

    Hi Smith,

    If you are on a Team, Professional, or Enterprise plan, you can edit the message as described in the article above under "Editing the offline form message". If you are on an Essential plan, you will not be able to edit this message.

    0
  • Sylvester Danckaarts

    How do I make sure that I have different translations for the Offline form text ? The default text is 'Sorry, we aren't online at the moment. Leave a message and we'll get back to you' but we have visitors from all over the world.

    0

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