In this article, we'll walk you through the steps to enable messaging and activating it throughout your account. The tasks described in this article must be performed by an account administrator.
This article includes the following sections:
- Enabling Zendesk messaging in your account
- How enabling messaging changes your account
- Activating messaging in a Web SDK
- Updating Chat settings
- Disabling Zendesk messaging
Enabling Zendesk messaging in your account
Once you confirm that you meet the requirements for Zendesk messaging beta, you can enable it in your account.
To enable Zendesk messaging on your account
- In Admin Center, click the Channels icon (
). The following message should appear:
- Click Sign up for messaging beta.
- On the Messaging beta page, click Enable messaging.
- Read through the Terms and conditions. At the bottom of the page, check I agree to the messaging beta terms and conditions, then click Enable messaging. You're automatically returned to the updated Messaging beta page:
- Click Manage channels. When the Channels page reloads, you should see the Web SDK listed as an active channel:
How enabling messaging changes your account
Zendesk messaging is enabled at the account level as described above. When enabled, a number of changes occur throughout your account that impact related functionality. In this section, we’ll go over the changes to the following account areas:
Web Widget
Enabling messaging on your account gives you the option to convert an existing Web Widget to the Web SDK on a per-brand basis, or create a new Web SDK for a brand that did not previously use the Web Widget. Like the Web Widget, the Web SDK is an embeddable customer support channel. But the Web SDK allows you to include a more powerful, customizable conversational bot to interact with your customers, thanks to the new Flow Builder tool.
Further changes occur when you activate the Web SDK, which we’ll discuss in Working with messaging in the Web SDK.
Answer Bot
Enabling messaging also activates Flow Builder, a tool that lets you to click-to-configure Answer Bot. With Flow Builder, Answer Bot continues to be the first responder to customers, but gains a lot of new abilities as well.
Importantly, Flow Builder includes a default conversational flow, which is published and visible in the Flow Builder page. The default flow begins functioning immediately through the Web SDK when it’s enabled.
If you have multiple brands in your account, Flow Builder is activated on every one of those brands. Each brand has a separate default flow that can be configured independently.
See About Answer Bot for Zendesk messaging for more information.
Social messaging channels
If you have social channels configured within your account, when messaging is enabled, Answer Bot is automatically integrated into those social channels. The flows you build with Flow Builder will run on all configured channels, social included.
It’s important to note that currently, if you are using multiple brands, only the flow created in your default brand is used across all social messaging channels.
Agent Workspace
Agent Workspace gains some increased functionality as well, including enhanced conversation history and responding to messaging conversations at any time. See Receiving and sending Zendesk Messages in the Agent Workspace for more information.
Chat
When you enable messaging, there are a number Chat-related changes that apply to both agents and administrators.
For more information, see How the Zendesk messaging beta release impacts Chat settings.
Activating messaging in the Web SDK
To enable messaging in the Web SDK
- In Admin Center, click the Channels icon (
) in the left sidebar. Your active channels appear.
- Click the brand you want to activate.
- On the brand's Edit Web SDK page, check Enable messaging for [brand name].
- Click Save.
- Repeat these steps for each active brand you want to use with the new Web SDK.
Once enabled, you can begin customizing the Web SDK. You can disable messaging for an SDK at any time.
Updating Chat settings
A Chat administrator needs to perform the following tasks:
- Organize your agents into groups. For example, you can create a group of agents who handle specific channels, such as messaging, See Adding agents to groups.
- Set up Support Triggers to route messaging conversations to these groups.
- Configure Chat limits settings on the Chat dashboard to control how many active messaging conversations your agents receive.
- Educate agents on the Agent Experience.
Disabling Zendesk messaging
If you wish to roll back to the existing experience, we recommend that you disable any active Web SDKs first and do so in an off-peak period. Please note that when you convert a Web SDK back to a Web Widget (Classic), any active messaging conversations will end & any in-progress tickets will remain pending. Before doing so, we recommend that you close out any active live chats, take agents offline, and close any tickets that were submitted through the messaging channel.
If you disable messaging in the SDK for a brand, it removes messaging functionality for that brand, but retains any SDK and Flow Builder messaging settings you have configured. Disabling messaging at the account level deletes these settings, and the following changes occur:
- Any migrated Web SDKs revert to their previous Web Widget configurations.
- New Web SDKs are converted to Web Widgets.
- Social messaging channels no longer have Answer Bot functionality, and revert back to their previous configurations.
- Conversational bots created in Flow Builder are no longer functional.
If you no longer want to use Zendesk messaging, but may return to it in the future, we recommend leaving messaging enabled at the account level, so you can reinstate it in the future with your previously-configured settings intact.
To disable Zendesk messaging for a brand
- First, disable messaging at the SDK level. In Admin Center, click the Channels icon (
) in the left sidebar.
- Hover your cursor over the brand you want to update, click the options icon (
), then click Edit.
- Deselect the checkbox next to Enable messaging for [brand name].
If you do not want to use Zendesk messaging in the future, you can disable it at the account level as well.
To disable Zendesk messaging at the account level
- In Admin Center, click the Channels icon (
) in the left sidebar.
- Click Learn about messaging beta.
- On the Messaging beta page, click Disable messaging.
21 Comments
Hi There!
Really appreciate this new feature of messaging specially the Flow Builder.
I just have a concern when using the facebook messaging, the conversation is not visible within the facebook account.
The facebook account admin cannot oversee or reply on the messages using facebook anymore, or I just missed something on my setup?
Thanks for anyone that can help me out.
Hi Donald, the conversations that happen with your page are replicated in the Facebook experience for that page so you'll be able to see them all there
Here is an example from our demo Answer Bot page showing my conversation with Answer Bot, then an agent, but viewing it (live if desired) from the Facebook messenger inbox
Hi Mike,
Thanks for you response. I can see it now, I just don't know why I can't find it yesterday.
One thing here that I noticed, replies from the fb page messenger were not reflected in Zendesk ticket.
From the customer side, it looks like there is only ever a single conversation? If they have multiple issues, it can't be broken into separate conversations?
It's not clear how this maps to Zendesk tickets, again is it always the same ticket? If a customer sends a new message after a ticket is closed is it a follow up ticket?
Agree with you here Andrew.
Same on both fb messenger and in chat widget when using the same instance of browser and computer, the history stays there.
In Zendesk it will create another ticket once the previous one has been closed.
Hi Andrew, currently there is only ever one active conversation (ticket) open with a customer at a time. When the ticket is marked as solved, if a users sends another message it'll simply re-open the previous ticket (like any other normal ticket flow). Likewise, as Donald noted once the ticket moves to closed, the conversation is handed back to Answer Bot and it'll respond the next time the user engages with the web SDK, and (assuming they escalate to an agent again) it'll create a new ticket for this new issue. Previous conversations are easily accessible through the user history panel though (it's not a follow up).
Hi Mike,
Speaking of Answer Bot that is being used here, will it require to have the addon installed and it's associated cost being applied?
Because I was able to set it up even if the Answer Bot trial I installed before was already expired.
It currently does not require an Answer Bot subscription / trial
Hi Aimee SpanierSpanier
I'm trying to follow the steps here, however, in Admin Center I don't see a Channels section. The account I'm using is on Enterprise and has Agent Workspace enabled, what could be the reason for this?
Hi Lupael, in certain cases there is an issue that causes this. At the risk of sounding cliche, try turning agent workspace off then on again - this actually triggers the right settings to be activated again, as a temporary workaround to solve this.
Mike Mortimer ,
Thanks for your suggestions. That's working now
How does this new product work with conversations API? how will 3rd party built bots work within this new flow? (from a quick test i've made ive seen answer bot is enabled by default)
Hi Mike,
We have the same problem as Lupael. Disabling and re-enabling the agent workspace didn't help us. What could be wrong?
But in our sandbox, such actions helped and everything worked.
Lupael, great to hear that solved it
Unto, this new solution doesn't work with the conversations API - 3rd party bot providers should look at building on top of Sunshine conversations - https://smooch.io/bots/
Artur, I'll create a ticket so we can look into your specific issue with you
Hi everyone,
Can Messaging be used in a Multibrand setting? Can I run different configurations for each brand?
Thanks for your help.
Hi Max D'Ambrosio,
Yes. Messaging can be used in a multi-brand setting. You can enable messaging on a per brand basis and you can run different Flow Builder configurations for each brand.
After you enable messaging within your account, you'll need to either convert an existing Web Widget over to a messaging Web SDK or you can now create a new Web SDK from scratch (for brands where you haven't created a Web Widget previously). Simply choose 'Web SDK' from the 'Add Channels' dropdown menu on your Channels page within Admin Center.
When you jump over to Flow Builder, you'll have the option to choose which brand you'd like to edit flows for.
Hope this helps!
- Miranda.
Thanks Miranda Burford
Hi,
I am also not able to get the Channels section on my Admin Center even after turning off and on the Agent Workspace. Is it possible to create a ticket to take a look at this issue?
Thanks for your help.
Hi David ANGST,
Sure thing. I've created a ticket so we can investigate. Let's continue the conversation there.
Thanks,
- Miranda.
Hello!
In regards to Social Channels - when initially enabling Messaging (not converting web widgets to SDK at this stage) will this impact our social channels? Or will we have the ability to toggle the functionality on/off?
If it will change the state of our social channels, do we know exactly what the behavior will be?
I am currently completing a test by plugging in a staging website into our production agent workspace but do not want to impact the 19 other brands we have connected to Social channels.
Any advice? Also - Starting a trial account to test this is not ideal and I do have an understanding that at this stage the compatibility of testing this in the sandbox is not there.
Any help would be great! =]
Hi Clik, yes enabling the messaging beta (even without converting the web widget to the messaging web sdk) will impact your social messaging channels - Answer Bot will become the first responder. There is no way to toggle Answer Bot by channel currently. You can learn more about it here. Please note however that we are working on disabling Answer Bot for social channels so this impact will be removed in the next couple of weeks. My advice would be to wait until this change goes out before enabling messaging.
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