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When help center authentication for messaging is turned on, the Web Widget automatically uses the identity of end users who are signed in to the help center. In this case, the user's messaging interactions in the Web Widget automatically adopt the user's logged-in identity, and the user's name and email can be shared with bots and agents that engage with the user.

This article contains the following topics:
  • Requirement and considerations for using help center authentication for messaging
  • Turning on help center authentication
  • Turning off help center authentication

For more information, see Understanding user authentication for messaging.

Requirement and considerations for using help center authentication for messaging

Consider the following requirements and limitations before turning on help center authentication for messaging.

Requirements

The following must be true to authenticate messaging end users signed in to the help center:
  • Zendesk Agent Workspace is activated.
  • You're using the Web Widget for messaging.
  • You're using the improved messaging backend.

Limitations

The following limitations apply to using help center authentication for messaging:
  • An admin must turn on help center authentication for the web widget.
  • To use help center authentication with the AI Agents Advanced add-on, some custom integrations are required.
  • Help center authentication can't be used for accounts with the advanced encryption add-on.
  • Legacy AI agent flows don't populate the user's email into the system.user.email variable.
  • The Voice API call button isn't supported.
  • An authenticated user's data is synchronized with Sunshine Conversations only when the user logs in to the help center and the web widget is initialized. Additional API-level integrations may be necessary to keep your Sunshine Conversation user data in sync.

Turning on help center authentication

Help center authentication is configured as a Web Widget setting. For most existing Web Widgets, help center authentication is off by default. However, if you configure a new Web Widget, the setting is on by default.

To turn on help center authentication
  1. Access your Web Widget settings in Admin Center.
  2. Click the Installation tab.
  3. Under Add to help center, select Turn on help center authentication.

Turning off help center authentication

When necessary, you can turn off help center authentication for your Web Widget. When you turn off help center authentication, the Web Widget will continue to work as expected. However, users interacting with the Web Widget are unauthenticated.
Note: If you're embedding the Web Widget with your own code in a custom Guide theme, this setting must be turned off.
To turn off help center authentication
  1. Access your Web Widget settings in Admin Center.
  2. Click the Installation tab.
  3. Under Add to help center, deselect Turn on help center authentication.
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