Using APIs to configure Answer Bot in Web Widget (Classic)

Although Answer Bot is operational as soon as it is enabled in the Web Widget (Classic), you can configure some functionality by modifying the JS API, including:

• Suppressing Answer Bot
• Temporarily suppressing contact channels
• Updating the appearance of Answer Bot
• Filtering Article Recommendations by label

Related articles:

• Enabling Article Recommendations in Web Widget (Classic)
• Answer Bot resources
• Web Widget (Classic) resources

Note: For information Answer Bot functionality with messaging and Flow Builder, see About Answer Bot for web and mobile messaging.

Suppressing Answer Bot

If there are situations where you don't want to present Answer Bot, you can now use the JS API to suppress it, similar to what you would do with other channel options:

window.zESettings = {
webWidget: {
answerBot: {
suppress: true
}
}
};

For more information, see the suppress JS API call.

Temporarily suppressing contact channels

You can use a JS API to force attempted self-service before the contact options are displayed:

window.zESettings = {
webWidget: {
answerBot: {
contactOnlyAfterQuery: true
}
}
};

When this is set to true, users will be required to attempt to self-serve (by simply asking their question / stating their problem), after which the contact channel choice options will be presented as usual.

Updating the appearance of Answer Bot

You can control the displayed widget title, bot name, and avatar through the basic JS API shown below. By default, the "Bot" tag will always be present to help indicate to users that the experience is not with a human.

Add the following code snippet BEFORE the Answer Bot widget script is loaded. Then, you can control and define the title, bot name, and avatar image source, for example:

<script type="text/javascript">window.zESettings = { 
webWidget: { 
answerBot: {
avatar: { 
url: 'https://link-to-some-image', 
name: { "*" : 'Zendesk' 
} 
}, 
title: { "en-US": "Support" 
} 
} 
} 
};
</script> 

Filtering Article Recommendation suggestions by label

You can use the JS API to set the labels which are passed through to Answer Bot. Then, Answer Bot search for suggestions using only articles that contain those labels.

Add the following code snippet BEFORE the widget script is loaded. Then, you can set your labels:

<script>zESettings = { webWidget: { answerBot: { search: { labels:
                        ['hello', 'world'] } } }}</script> 

This option can useful in the following scenarios:

• Creating a url mapping that sets labels based on where the user is on the website (perhaps they are in a particular product category, you can set labels to ensure only articles for that product are filtered on).
• Filtering articles for a particular platform based on the detected device.
• And many more...