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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 Web Widget (Classic). For details on the contact form, see Using Web Widget (Classic) 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 (Classic).

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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23 Comments

  • Nicole Saunders
    Zendesk Community Manager

    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
  • Demo CNL1

    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
  • Elissa Tikalsky
    Zendesk Digital Resources Team

    HI @...,

    Unfortunately the offline message text doesn't auto-translate, but you can override/localize this string with the API as described here: https://developer.zendesk.com/embeddables/docs/widget/settings#offlineform. 

    I hope that helps!

    -1
  • Camilo Gomez

    Is there a way to localized the language of the offline form so that it gets translated to the user's language settings?

    0
  • Michael Froeming
    Zendesk Customer Care

    Hi Camilo,

    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.

    For more information on language settings in the widget, see the articles: Displaying the widget in a different language and How do I change or set the language in the widget on my website?

    0
  • 9307-8509 Quebec Inc

    This is to share an extremely frustrating situation I’ve been experiencing in the past few weeks and I hope you will be able to assist us as soon as possible.

     

    So the help support line of Zendesk have been modified for the past 2-3 weeks.

    We now cannot chat with any agents. There is a chat bot/widget that initiates a conversation when inquiring about any support on the website.

    It links us to articles but when wanting further help, the widget mentions that a ticket is automatically created and that an agent will contact us through the widget or email (both)

    I’ve opened 3-4 tickets in the past weeks and NO agents have reached out to me

    The last three, of the same urgent issue, are #9794255, #9794259 and #9794249

    I received one email signaling that they’ve received my request and a ticket was created, followed by another ticket confirming that an agent is reviewing my request.

    But then, nothing, no follow ups. I went on the tickets itself and not updates are shown.

     

    My company, APP GROUP, is launching our biggest sale of the year today at 8pm, and I needed the WIDGET OFFLINE to be activated to properly inform our clients of the business hours and other important info. We are receiving a huge flux of contacts and I need to get this fixed as soon as possible.

    I’ve done everything that the article has asked me to do as its really straightforward but no changes are shown on our site.

    Can you please assist me or refer me to an actual human support?

     

    0
  • Ramin Shokrizadeh
    Zendesk Product Manager

    9307-8509 Quebec Inc Thanks for posting your question and I am sorry you didn't receive a response from our advocacy team. It isn't the experience we normally aim to deliver so I am sure an advocacy manager will look into the issue.

    For your product question, I can provide some guidance on what you want to achieve for your holiday sale. Since you are using the Web Widget, you should be using the contact form over the offline form in Chat. Offline form is designed more for our legacy Chat standalone customers. 

    You can enable the contact form and temporarily disable Chat in the Web Widget by looking at these articles:

    https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408836216218#topic_yj3_sv2_wfb

    https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408824462106

    If you want Chat to be available only on certain pages, you can look at using the suppress Javascript API instead of disabling the channel completely in Admin Center: https://developer.zendesk.com/api-reference/widget/settings/#suppress

    Since you are using Guide in the Web Widget already, some of our customers create a help center article with a specific label associated with it and you can then tell the Web Widget via Javascript API to suggest that article when visitors click on the launcher. In the article, you can detail expected response times or when live chat will become available again. You can learn more about the article suggestion API here: https://developer.zendesk.com/api-reference/widget/help-center-api/#helpcentersetsuggestions

    Hope that helps and good luck with your upcoming sale, apologies again for the poor response time from the messages you sent to the advocacy team. 

    Thanks,

    Ramin

    0
  • Raphaël Péguet

    Dear Zendesk Community,

    With this piece of code we succeeded to have a different offline greetings for each language on our guide helpcenter (even using dynamic content!) but it is not working on our website, do you have a solution/tips please?

    <script type="text/javascript">
    window.zESettings = {
        webWidget: {
          chat: {
            offlineForm: {
              greeting: {
                '*': "Your Customer Service chat is available from Sunday to Thursday from 9:00 AM to 0:00 AM, Friday and Saturday from 9:00 AM to 1:00 AM. Please leave us a message using the form below. étoile",
                fr: "Le chat de votre Service Client est ouvert du dimanche au jeudi de 9h00 à minuit, vendredi et samedi de 9h00 à 1h00. Merci de nous laisser un message via le formulaire ci-dessous.",
                de: "Der Chat Ihres Kundendienstes ist von Sonntag bis Donnerstag von 9:00 Uhr bis Mitternacht, Freitag und Samstag von 9:00 Uhr bis 1:00 Uhr geöffnet. Bitte hinterlassen Sie eine Nachricht über das untenstehende Formular.",
      de-ch: "Der Chat Ihres Kundendienstes ist von Sonntag bis Donnerstag von 9:00 Uhr bis Mitternacht, Freitag und Samstag von 9:00 Uhr bis 1:00 Uhr geöffnet. Bitte hinterlassen Sie eine Nachricht über das untenstehende Formular.
    ",
                it: "La chat del tuo servizio clienti è aperta dalla domenica al giovedì dalle 9:00 alle 24:00, venerdì e sabato dalle 9:00 all'01:00. Si prega di lasciarci un messaggio utilizzando il modulo sottostante.",
               'en-US':"Your Customer Service chat is available from Sunday to Thursday from 9:00 AM to 0:00 AM, Friday and Saturday from 9:00 AM to 1:00 AM. Please leave us a message using the form below."



              }
            }
          }
        }
      };
    </script>

    Thank you & best regards

    0
  • Tipene Hughes
    Zendesk Developer Advocacy

    Hey Raphaël Péguet,

    Thanks for reaching out!

    Just to clarify, you're seeing the greetings appear correctly on the web widget in your help center, but the web widget embedded in your external website is not displaying the appropriate language greetings?

     

    0
  • Raphaël Péguet

    Hi Tipene Hughes,

    Exactly! It is displaying the one we can set up in Chat>Widget>Offline form greeting that doesn't accept dynamic content

    0
  • Tipene Hughes
    Zendesk Developer Advocacy

    Hi Raphaël Péguet,

    Apologies for the delay in getting back to you!

    Thanks for clarifying this for me. To confirm, have you also added the code snippet you shared above to the JavaScript code of your website? Adding it to the JavaScript file of your help center will only affect the web widget as it appears in your help center. 

    0
  • Raphaël Péguet

    Yes I did but I found another way: using the custom form and switching his name by a dynamic content. It is easier than the offline form + it allows the customer to add an attachment,

     

    Thank you!

    0
  • Tipene Hughes
    Zendesk Developer Advocacy
    Glad to hear you've got it working!
     
    Have a great day :) 
     
    Tipene
    0
  • Ryan K.

    Hi there!

    I'm wondering if there's a way to remove the offline form and just place text for the end-user to read? For example:

    "Our live chat support is closed at this time. Please submit a ticket here:"

    It seems like I cannot remove the textfields that are there.

    If I can't replace the text, can I at least change out the text that says "Sorry, we are not online at the moment"?

    Thanks!

    0
  • Christine Felicia
    Zendesk Engineering
    Hi Ryan,

    Using the Classic Web Widget, you can disable the Contact Form if you don't want to present the Ticket Form to end-users. But please note that this applies when the widget is both online and offline. There's no way to configure the form to be presented only when the widget is online, because this setting applies to both online and offline widget status.


     
    Then you can replace the Offline Greeting text here:
     
    Navigate to the Chat dashboard > Settings > Widget > Forms > Offline Form

     
    The widget will appear similar to this:

     
    Hope this helps! See Editing the offline form message for more details.
    0
  • Ryan K.
    • Edited

    Hey Christine Felicia,

    Thanks for your quick response! 

    Two things:

    1. I'd need to keep the contact form active (it's a tool I use to route tickets to appropriate departments).
    2. The text I'm referring to is when I access a direct live chat link (example). When live chat is closed for my team, there's just one big screen that says "Sorry, we are not online at the moment". It also isn't the text that I presently have in my offline form's greeting.

    Image attached below to illustrate the screen:

    I'm wondering if I can change this specific screen's text.

    Thank you!!!

    0
  • Christine Felicia
    Zendesk Engineering
    Hi Ryan,
     
    Currently, there is no way to customize that string and the only solution for custom text is to use the offline form.
     
    If you have some time, I recommend that you start a feedback post on Feedback - Chat and Messaging (Chat) using our Product Feedback Post Template. Our Product Managers are constantly reviewing feature requests submitted in our forum to be considered in our future updates. Thank you!
    0
  • Jeroen Mulder
    • Edited

    Hi,

    I used the above example in the document_head.hbs on the Help Center template.

    I did manage to change the offlineform text but I can't manage to change the concierge text as well.

    Do I make an error in the {} position?

    I forgot a ',' as can be read below in the comment of Dave Dyson.

    Fixed the error in the script so people can copy it.

    <script type="text/javascript">
      window.zESettings = {
        webWidget: {
          chat: {
            offlineForm: {
              greeting: {
                '*': "We are not online right now, please leave a message and we can get back to you shortly.",
             fr: "Nous ne sommes pas en ligne pour le moment, s'il vous plaît laissez un message.",
          nl: "we zijn nu niet online, laat a.u.b. een bericht achter. Dan nemen we spoedig contact op." }
                                          },
            concierge: {
              avatarPath: "https://example.com/img/avatar.jpg",
              name: "Jane Doe",
              title: { '*': "Live support",
          nl: "text."}
            }
              }
          }
      };
    </script>
    0
  • Dave Dyson
    Zendesk Community Manager
    Hi Jeroen,
     
    I think you might be missing a comma after the closing curly bracket before "concierge:" ? 
    1
  • Jeroen Mulder

    Thanks! That did the trick.

    0
  • Dave Dyson
    Zendesk Community Manager
    Awesome Jeroen, glad I could help!
    0
  • Jeroen Mulder
    • Edited

    once again I added a form. The pre chat form. Can't get it to work. Did I forget a , or a {}?

    OK. I found it. Not 1 comma but a lot :-). It works now.

    <script type="text/javascript">
      window.zESettings = {
        webWidget: {
          chat: {
            offlineForm: {
              greeting: {
                '*': "We are currently not online, please leave a message and we will get back to you as soon as possible.",
             fr: "Nous sommes actuellement hors ligne, veuillez laisser un message et nous vous répondrons dans les plus brefs délais.",
          nl: "We zijn momenteel niet online, laat alstublieft een bericht achter dan we nemen zo snel mogelijk contact met u op.",
            pt: "No momento não estamos online, deixe uma mensagem e retornaremos o mais breve possível.",
            tr: "Şu anda çevrimiçi değiliz, lütfen bir mesaj bırakın, mümkün olan en kısa sürede size geri döneceğiz." }
                  },
            concierge: {
              title: { '*': "You can ask us anything...",
              nl: "U kunt ons alles vragen...",
                fr: "You can ask us anything... ",
                pt: "Você pode nos perguntar qualquer coisa...",
                tr: "Bize her şeyi sorabilirsiniz..."}
                                  },
            prechatForm: {
              greeting: {
                '*': "In order to provide better service, we would like to know your name and email address.",
                fr: "Afin de mieux vous servir, nous aimerions connaître votre nom et votre adresse e-mail.",
                            nl: "Om u beter van dienst te kunnen zijn, willen wij graag uw naam en e-mailadres weten.",        
                            pt: "Para melhor atendê-lo, gostaríamos de saber seu nome e endereço de e-mail.",
                            tr: "Size daha iyi hizmet verebilmek için adınızı ve e-posta adresinizi bilmek isteriz."}
                                           }
             }
                  }    
                                  };
    </script>
    0
  • Greg Katechis
    Zendesk Developer Advocacy

    Glad you found those, looks good now! If you don't have a prettifier/linter in your IDE, I recommend something like https://jshint.com/, where you can plunk your JS to see if it returns any errors. Just make sure to remove any HTML (the script tags in this case) otherwise it will return a bunch of errors.

    0

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