This article describes some current limitations in functionality for web and mobile messaging. If you're planning a move from live chat to messaging, see Migrating from live chat to messaging for capability changes to consider. Keep in mind that messaging does provide some capabilities that live chat does not. For a list of these features, see Messaging vs live chat: Which is right for you?
Note that these limitations are applicable to the messaging default settings. Some may be managed using other methods, which are included in the limitation descriptions
This article contains the following sections:
General functionality limitations
The following limitations apply to optional functionality additions and integrations available in live chat, but not currently available for messaging.
- Service-level agreements: Time-based SLAs (First Reply Time, Next Reply Time, and Periodic Updates) are not supported for messaging tickets, as SLAs do not work reliably as agents typically don’t change the ticket status after each reply. However, status-based SLAs are supported.
- Skills-based routing: You cannot route messaging conversations based on agent skills; however, other routing options are available.
- Sell integration: While the Sell integration is currently unavailable, messaging agents can continue to create Leads in Sell from the Agent Workspace.
- Third-party integrations: Some external Chat-Support integrations will not function on accounts migrating from live chat to messaging. Contact Zendesk customer support for assistance, if needed.
- Banning visitors: Web Widget and messaging functionality cannot be restricted per-customer or by IP address. However, Sunshine Conversations SDK does provide a workaround.
- Multi-agent conversations: Conversations cannot be served by more than one agent at a time.
- Conversion tracking: Business goals cannot be set based on conversion tracking.
- Visitor metadata: Visitor metadata is not collected.
- Private file attachments: Agents and customers can add public attachments of up to 50MB; however, private attachments are not currently supported. See Working with attachments for more information.
- No support for the Data Center Location add-on: Data residency for non-US and EU customers will be available in the future.
- Chat shortcuts with dynamic content: You can use Chat shortcuts in messaging conversations, but Chat shortcuts with options or dynamic content are not supported.
API limitations
The following limitations apply to Chat and other API functionality.
- Javascript API-controlled behavior/appearance per page: An exception to this limitation is the Open/close Web Widget frame per page functionality.
- Chat Conversation APIs: Most CCAPIs will continue to work as expected. CCAPI-based chatbots, however, may be impacted, depending on your messaging configuration.
Volume limitations
Some messaging capabilities have the following volume restrictions.
- Do not exceed 1,300 online Chat agents actively serving chats. If necessary, you can have up to 2,000 Chat agents actively serving chats, but you will need to reduce the number of concurrent chats served on your account to prevent potential performance degradation.
- 4,000 concurrent conversations/with 200,000 total conversations per day.
- 500 configured integrations (web/mobile/social).
- 1,000 steps/nodes in a messaging bot.
Mobile limitations
The following list contains limitations applicable to messaging implementations in the iOS, Android, and Unity SDKs.
- UI customization: It is possible to modify a small set of UI colors in the Admin Center. There are currently no customization options beyond this. We will be adding additional customization capabilities in the future.
- Active conversations: Agents are limited to one active conversation per channel. To access another conversation, they must leave the initial conversation, or end the conversation by closing the associated ticket.
27 Comments
Q2 2021 is already long past :) Also, typo on the last "Limitations" headline.
Thanks for catching those, Francis! They've been fixed.
Aimee Spanier We already use Zendesk and have been keeping an eye on the "User Authentication" limitation (which is deal-breaker for us).
Do you have any further update regarding this particular feature. Originally it was listed as by end of Q3 and then bumped to end of Q4. Do you think it's likely to be bumped again?
Hi Daniel,
Thank you for your message! We are still on track to deliver Authentication within messaging by the end of the year. We are doing our best to release it as soon as possible. 🤞🏻
- Miranda.
Hi there,
Is there any update on SLA reporting for messaging? Will that be something you support soon?
Miranda Burford is there any update on the user authentication now that we're in the new year?
Mark Weisberg - https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4412967699098-Announcement-Introduction-to-end-user-authentication-in-messaging
Thanks for sending that post, Daniel. Exactly what I was about to do!
- Miranda.
Is there any update on the limitation:
Hi Kalle Windefalk - for customers whose accounts created prior to October 4, 2021 are hosted in Zendesk's infrastructure in EEA for which these limitations wholly apply.
For accounts created after the date, customers can have their data hosted in the United States as part of Zendesk’s Chat to Pods Early Access Program (EAP).
There are plans to remove this limitation for our longstanding customers this year.
Hope this clarifies things!
Hi, Zendesk team.
First of all, let me say that I got in touch with your Support team twice and the handling was exceptional, so thank you for that and keep on with the good work in that department.
There's a main tool clearly missing which impacts any one who has subscribed to your services and uses your Messaging functionality: there's no way to blocking users from getting in touch via Messenger while still being allowed to send emails (and/or "submit requests"). If a user is on a non-stop swearing at us, there are two options: we either block them from contacting us through every channel (and every email/request submitted by them is automatically redirected to the "suspended tickets" view), or we keep receiving, accepting, and closing their chats every time they type down a line. None of these is an optimal solution, as we still want our users to be able to contact us by email if any account-related matter arises.
I would understand up to a certain degree if we were not allowed to block users from using Twitter, Facebook Messenger, or any other third-party social media tool. Not being allowed to block a user from getting in touch through a specific Zendesk in-built channel should be repaired. Hopefully I don't sound insensitive and unrighteous, but I would deem it urgent priority.
Cheers.
Can you clarify what "public attachments" means versus "private attachments"?
CJ Johnson,
"Public Attachments" are the normal attachments on emails. On the other hand, "Private Attachments" when enabled will require agents and end users to sign in to view attachments.
More information can be found in Enabling Private Attachments.
What is the plan to allow Third-party integrations?
And more specifically, we are using the Pendo widget, and it looks like Pendo does not support integrations with Zendesk Messaging using the new Zendesk web widget.
Olá,
É possível contabilizar quantos usuários clicaram em resposta pré-estabelecida no fluxo do bot?
Espero que esteja tudo bem! Ainda não é possível capturar esta informação. Você consegue verificar todas as métricas e atributos disponíveis para o Fluxo do Bot neste artigo!
Espero que isso ajude!
Can you guide how to integrate an external ChatBot with Zendesk Messaging? Is it forced to be done through Sunshine with additional cost?
With Zendesk Chat we were able to use https://api.zopim.com/web-sdk/#api-reference to build 1) a personalized ChatUI and 2) also integrate our ChatBot and 3) have seamless LiveChat handover to agents using Zendesk Chat.
We could not find articles to confirm if all of that is possible with Messaging.
I know you released authentication for messaging early this year so removed that as a limitation in this article. However since it currently causes tickets to not have a name/email and results in conversations NOT being linked to existing customer records...that should really be called out as a limitation. See these comments from a few weeks ago:
Hi Lila,
If you are looking for a workaround, I responded to another thread with our experience:
https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4411666638746/comments/5156579283866
I agree with your sentiment re: limitation. It's definitely not an out-of-the-box solution at the moment - but it's very slowly getting there.
Thanks,
Daniel
Hi! Are there plans to remove/fix the limitation with SLAs and messaging tickets? We have messaging tickets that we respond to via email rather than messaging (as no one was available to handle it in real time) but the SLA doesn't appear.
Does the Alias feature work in messaging?
Changing a team member's alias in Support will not affect their name in Messaging or Chat. To change the name displayed when messaging, you will need to edit the team member's display name in Chat. See Editing your personal settings in Zendesk Chat.
Hello! Does the Live Chat Incremental Export API work for Messaging as well? If not, is there an API that will allow us to export metrics to calculate "% of chats answered within 30 seconds" ?
We are able to calculate this metric easily through Zendesk reporting; however, we cannot set up SLAs for Messaging (limitation) and are also having trouble finding an API that explicitly supports Messaging (most refer to Live chat) (Amazon AppFlow does not have enough specificity).
Would appreciate clearer documentation for the APIs on what iteration of chat is supported/unsupported.
Thank you!
My company is getting ready to start using Messenger as our live support option. Reading through this article, its mentioned that time-based SLAs are not supported for Messenger tickets, but that status-based SLAs are.
How do you create status based SLAs? I've searched the support site and am not finding any guidance and there is no option for creating them in Admin Center.
Hi, admin!
Any plans to increase the bot's step limit (1.000)? With the Sunshine solution is possible more steps?
Hi all,
Is there any update on this limitation?
I'm sorry the Live Chat Incremental Export API work only for live chat, I understand that you're impacted by the SLA limitation for messaging, but the good news is that a release was plan for early 2023.
Thank you for your understanding and patience, I would recommend following this thread to get notifications for any new updates about the release of the SLA feature for messaging.
Best,
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