ProductsChat Board

⚙️Settings

Office Hours

You can set the office hours timetable from Settings > Miscellaneous > Office hours. Office hours are used for:

  • Sending the offline message.

  • Disabling and hiding the chat during out-of-office hours.

  • Disabling the chatbot during regular office hours and enabling it during out-of-office hours.

More information

  • Blank values in the timetable settings are considered out-of-office hours.

  • The office hours are in UTC format. Your UTC is generated automatically when you click the field Settings > Miscellaneous > UTF offset. To manually get the UTC offset of your area, go to: https://browserspy.dk/ or wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_UTC_time_offsets and copy the offset (e.g. for UTC −12:00, enter -12). Only integers are accepted. If your offset is not an integer (e.g. UTC -12:30 or UTC -12:45), try searching for an alternative UTC offset. If you can't find an integer offset, you will need to manually adjust the times in the office hours table to fix the gap.

  • The date and time format of the timetable matches automatically the one used in the country of the browser language of the user.

Knowledge Base Articles

Knowledge base articles provide instant answers to customers to help reduce customer support volume. To manage the articles, go to Settings > Articles. Articles support HTML code, which can be used to add images, videos, and other content. Here are some HTML code examples that you can use:

Name
Code

Button

<a href="https://www.google.com" target="_blank" class="sb-rich-btn sb-btn">Click here</a>

Image

<img src="https://via.placeholder.com/1500x600" />

Image with Lightbox

<div class="sb-image"><img src="https://via.placeholder.com/1500x600" class="sb-image" /></div>

Video

<video controls><source src="video.mp4" type="video/mp4"></video>

YouTube and Vimeo

Enter the embed code provided by YouTube or Vimeo

Display articles

  • The articles can be shown in the chat dashboard by enabling them from the Settings > Chat area.

  • The articles can be shown in a dedicated page by inserting the code <script>var SB_ARTICLES_PAGE = true;</script> into any page showing the chat. To set the location of the articles area Enter the code <div id="sb-articles" class="sb-loading"></div>. If you're using the WordPress version you can use the shortcode [sb-articles].

  • Alternatively, articles can be shared via the rich message shortcode, [articles].

More information

  • Translate the categories from Settings > Translations by adding the translation name and its translation. The original translation name must be in English.

  • If you use categories, all the articles must be assigned to a category.

  • If there is at least one translated article in the user's language, only the translated articles are displayed.

  • If some block is not saved, e.g. text block, disable all browser extentions and try again.

  • Articles are synchronized automatically with the Dialogflow knowledge base if the Artificial Intelligence app is installed.

  • You can create an internal chat link to an article with the button rich message.

  • You can create a link to a specific article with the URL attribute article=ID, replace ID with the article ID. Example: https://chatboardapp.com/articles-demo?article=Ucsx6.

  • You can create a link to an article category with the URL attribute category=ID, replace ID with the category ID. Example: https://chatboardapp.com/articles-demo?category=LnNaZ.

  • The articles are always included into the training of your OpenAI chatbot.

Language and Translations

Chat Board is fully multilingual and provides powerful features to detect the user's language on the fly.

Edit translations

To edit the languages of both chat and admin, go to Settings > Translations. Some settings, such as e-mail contents, are directly translatable and therefore do not need to be translated here.

Chat language

Chat Board is already translated into 41 languages. There are many options available to set the language:

  • OPTION 1 Go to Settings > Chat and check the Translate automatically option. This feature will automatically use the chat language of the user's browser or the language saved in the user profile.

  • OPTION 2 Add the URL parameter lang=LANGUAGE-CODE to the script that loads the chat, replacing "LANGUAGE-CODE" with the two-letters language code you would like to display. E.g. https://dashboard.chatboardapp.com/account/js/init.js?id=123456&lang=es. This feature will force the chat to always use the same language and the option Chat > Translate automatically will be ignored. Go to wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ISO_639-1_codes for the complete languages code list (see column 639-1). For Traditional Chinese use zt, for Simplified Chinese use zh, for Brazilian Portuguese use pt.

Admin language

To translate the admin area follow the steps below:

  • Translate the texts in your language from the Settings > Translations.

To set the admin area language you have three options:

  • Activate the option Settings > Admin > Automatically translate admin area. This feature automatically translate the admin area to match the agent profile language or the agent browser language.

Translate custom contents

You can translate almost any custom content like rich messages, titles, descriptions, automatic messages, chat header, and more. To include translations, visit Settings > Translations and click on the New translation button. Then, enter the English content you wish to translate in the first field and its corresponding translation in the second field. The original text must be in English. If you have the artificial intelligence app you can also translate all contents to any language automatically through the multilingual via translation feature.

Information

  • If a translation string is missing, add it by clicking the button Add new translation.

  • If a translation string is not working, make sure to remove all white spaces and break lines at the start and the end of the string.

  • Some special chars like & are replaced by the HTML equivalent code (see https://www.w3schools.com/html/html_entities.asp). Ex. & is replaced by &amp;.

Departments

Departments give you the power to distribute conversations and assign various agents to specific departments. For example, you can create a department entitled "Sales" and assign specific conversations to that department. To start using departments, follow the steps below:

  • Go to Settings > Miscellaneous and add, delete, and manage the departments. After saving, reload the page.

  • Go to Users > Agents and edit an agent, you will see a new field where you can set the department of the agent.

  • Reload the page and you're done! In the Conversations area, you will now see an option to set the department.

Settings

  • Display in dashboard Displays the departments' list in the chat dashboard and forces users to choose a department before starting a conversation.

  • Display images Displays the department image instead of the department color.

  • Display in conversation list Displays the department color in the conversation list of the admin area.

  • One conversation per department Restrict users from opening multiple conversations within the same department, allowing only one conversation to be active per department.

  • Label Replace the label Departments (plural) with another text. The name is displayed in the admin and tickets area.

  • Label single Replace the label Department (singular) with another text. The name is displayed in the admin and tickets area.

  • Dashboard title Set the title of the chat dashboard list. Default: Departments.

How it works

  • Agents and admins can only access conversations, users, and agents that have been assigned to their specific department.

  • When an agent is assigned to a new department, an email notification is sent to all of the agents assigned to the new department.

  • The General department is global and gives agents access to all of the conversations within all departments. Also, all agents without a department are automatically assigned to the General department.

  • To automatically assign a department to the user conversations you can Enter the JavaScript variable var SB_DEFAULT_DEPARTMENT = ID; into the pages where the chat is displayed, and replace ID with the department ID.

  • Admins with no assigned department always see the conversations of all departments.

  • The chatbot can assign a department to the active conversation via Dialogflow actions.

How to assign a department

You can assign a department to a conversation in several ways:

  • Via Settings > Miscellaneous > Departments settings > Display in dashboard. This setting will force the user to choose a department when starting a new conversation.

  • Via Settings > Automations > More.

  • Via JavaScript the variable var SB_DEFAULT_DEPARTMENT = ID;. Enter the code into the pages where the chat is displayed and replace ID with the department ID.

Queue

When the queue is activated via Settings > Miscellaneous > Queue, users enter into a queue automatically when an agent's chat limit is reached. When a user enters the queue, a message with the current position in the queue and the estimated waiting time is displayed. The Chat Board automatically assigns the conversations to all available agents proportionately. When an agent marks a conversation as completed (by archiving it), the queue is updated and a new conversation is received.

More information

  • Only online agents are counted as "available" agents.

  • Only online agents will receive new conversations.

  • Admins are not included; admins always see all the conversations.

  • Agents must archive a conversation to mark it as completed; this will automatically give them access to the next conversation in the queue.

  • Agents can switch their status between online and offline by hovering over their profile image and then clicking the label of the profile pop-up at the bottom-left of the admin area.

  • Agents can only view their conversations; however, they can see all of the conversations of a single user.

  • Agents can only search and filter their conversations.

  • The waiting time is displayed in minutes and is calculated as follows: queue position X response time = waiting time. For example, if a user is 5th in the queue, and the response time has been set to 4 minutes (via Settings > Miscellaneous > Queue), then the total wait time displayed to the user will be 20 minutes.

  • If a user is in the queue and leaves (e.g. by closing the browser) for more than 1 minute, the conversation is saved; however, once the user comes back, the queue is reset and the user will lose their previous position. If the user leaves, the conversation remains unassigned and therefore invisible to agents, but only visible to admins.

  • To enable agents to view all unassigned conversations, activate Settings > Miscellaneous > Hide conversations of other agents and View unassigned conversations

  • The queue is compatible with the departments.

  • If Dialogflow human takeover is active, the queue is activated only on human takeover.

  • For conversations started from messaging apps like WhatsApp, it is not possible to respect the limit of conversations per agent, all conversations will be immediately and proportionally assigned to an agent.

  • Use the offline message to prevent the chat from showing the queue update message to the user.

  • When the sound option is active, a sound is played when it's the user's turn.

How to test the queue

  • To simulate multiple users and agents, open the chat in multiple different browsers (e.g. Opera, Firefox, Brave, Chrome, etc.). Each browser can simulate two users/agents: one in normal mode and one in "private" or "incognito" mode.

  • To reset the chat and start a new user session, open the browser console, enter SBF.reset(), and press ENTER.

Routing

When the routing is activated via Settings > Miscellaneous > Routing, the Chat Board automatically assigns the users conversations to all available agents proportionately.

Information

  • Conversations are assigned to online agents first. If all agents are offline, conversations are assigned proportionally between all agents.

  • Conversations are assigned to agents with less active conversations. A conversation is active if it's not deleted, or archived. If routing is active, you should archive the conversations once completed.

  • Admins are not included; admins always see all the conversations.

  • Agents can switch their status between online and offline by hovering over their profile image and then clicking the label of the profile pop-up at the bottom-left of the admin area.

  • Agents can view only their conversations; however, they can see all of the conversations of a single user.

  • Agents can search and filter only their conversations.

  • The routing is compatible with the departments.

  • When routing is active agents can manually route conversations to other agents from the right panel of the conversations area.

  • If the conversation is archived and the user reopens it in the future by sending a new message, if the assigned agent in the conversation is offline, the conversation is assigned to another agent.

Manual routing

When the routing is activated via Settings > Miscellaneous > Hide conversation of other agents agents see only their conversations and can select the unassigned ones.

  • Agents menu: displays the agents' menu to assign the active conversation to another agent.

  • Routing if offline: if the conversation is archived and the user reopens it in the future by sending a new message if the assigned agent in the conversation is offline, the conversation is assigned to another online if there is at least one, otherwise to no agent.

  • View unassigned conversations: allow agents to view the unassigned conversations, when an agent replies the conversation is automatically assigned to him and the conversation is removed in real-time from the admin area of the other agents. Check this option to enable manual routing.

Email piping

Email piping lets you, your agents, and your users reply to chat messages via email.

Activation

To activate the email piping go to Settings > Notifications > Email piping and enter your POP3/IMAP email server information, then set the email address to use for the email piping in Settings > Notifications > SMTP and you're done! The email address must be the one to which the email piping server connects to. Chat Board will send all emails from this email address and you, your agents, and your users will reply to this email address.

Information

  • The email address of Settings > Notifications > SMTP > Sender email must match the one used by the email piping server.

  • The setting Notifications > User email notifications must be enabled to send replies to the user email.

  • If you're using the Artificial Intelligence app, and the settings Settings > Artificial Intelligence > Human takeover is active, no emails are sent if the chatbot knows the answer.

  • If the setting Convert all emails is active, all emails sent to your inbox will be converted to chat messages, mind that all emails, including spam, promotional emails and more would be wrongly converted too.

  • If the setting convert all emails is active, email sent by email addresses of agents and admins will be ignored, use another email address for testing.

  • If the setting convert all emails is active, each email sent directly to the email piping address will generate a new user conversation.

  • You can not use the same email address used for the email piping to reply. All your Chat Board agents and admins must use a different email address.

  • Agents must reply via email from the same email address registered in the Chat Board.

  • When agents reply in Chat Board, emails are always sent to the user, even if user email notifications are disabled.

  • The email is sent to the Agents only if they are offline. If they are online no emails are sent.

  • For Google Gmail and Google Workspace emails, you need to replace your Google password with a Google app password, details on https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/185833 (Create & use App Passwords section). Enter imap.gmail.com as the host and 993 as the port.

  • The Delimiter option adds a text at the top of all emails: ### Please type your reply above this line ###. This text tells the Chat Board to delete all the content below it and it's useful to cut out all of the reply quotes. Activate it if you see duplicated messages in the chat. If this option is active, you and your users can not use the string ### in the emails.

  • Email attachments are supported.

  • For email piping to work, email replies must contain the Chat Board recipient's name. Ex. Chat Board | SB2457-4734 <[email protected]>. All major email clients like Outlook Web, Outlook, Gmail, Yahoo Mail, support the recipient's name by default via chatbot reply or reply all buttons.

  • Because of the nature of how emails work, each email client uses their personal codes, delimiters, automatic strings, and more. For this reason, some chat messages converted from emails can contain invalid texts. We are working to optimize as many email clients as possible, for now, the following email clients are optimized and should not return any invalid text: Outlook Web, Outlook, Gmail, Yahoo Mail.

  • Email piping supports departments, if the user's conversation is assigned to a department, the email notifications are sent only to the agents assigned to that department.

  • If the email includes the reply-to attribute, it will serve as the primary user email address and notifications will be sent to that email.

Cron job

  • Chat Board tries to process emails via cron jobs every 60 seconds.

  • You can create a cron job that runs the URL: https://dashboard.chatboardapp.com/script/include/api.php?piping=true&cloud=API-TOKEN and replace API-TOKEN with your API Token which can be found at https://dashboard.chatboardapp.com/account/?tab=installation.

Direct messages

Direct messages allow you to send а single chat message, email, or text message, to a single user or several users. Read the information below to understand how it works.

General

  • To send a message go to the Users area and click the direct message icon. Direct message buttons are also available in the profile box of the user.

  • To send a message to all users, enter All in the User IDs field.

  • To send a message to a group of users, enter their IDs in the User IDs field. You can check the users and then click the direct message icon to enter the IDs automatically.

  • All message types support merge fields.

Direct chat message

  • The chat message is sent to the active conversation, if any, otherwise to a new conversation.

  • If the option Settings > User email notifications is active, all users with an email are notified via email.

  • If the option Settings > Text message notifications > Active for users is active, all users with a phone number are notified via text message.

  • If the option Settings > Push notifications is active, a push notification is sent to all users.

  • The message is also sent to messaging apps such as WhatsApp and Messenger if the user is connected to them.

  • To send a message to all users of a single messaging app enter one of the following strings: whatsapp, messenger, instagram, telegram, twitter, google, wechat, viber, line. Enter tickets to send a message only to the users who created a Chat Board ticket via the Tickets app.

Direct email

  • Email header and email signature are automatically included in all emails, set them from Settings > Notifications.

  • The HTML language is supported.

  • The subject supports merge fields.

Direct text messages

  • To enable direct text messages you must enable the SMS in Settings > Notifications > Text message notifications.

Direct WhatsApp template messages

  • For more details check whatsapp templates section.

Automation

Automations allow running multilingual automatic tasks when conditions set by you are met.

  • To delete a condition, set it to empty. To disable automation, delete all conditions.

  • Automations are sent only 1 time to users.

  • If you used an automation in the past, and users already received it, you need to delete the automation and create a new one to show it to the users.

  • Repeat only works if used in conjunction with date time.

  • When date time is used in conjunction with the criteria is exactly, the value must not contain hours and minutes (hh:mm). Ex. 25/10/3034 (25/10/3034 10:30 will not work).

  • The setting Settings > Users > Register all visitors must be active if there are message automation that is executed on page load.

  • City, countries, and languages work automatically only if both the settings Settings > Users > Register all visitors and Settings > Users > Full visitor details are enabled.

  • Cities work only if the user detail location is set and equal to city, country, or if the user detail city is set.

  • Countries work only if the user details country_code, or country is set, or if the user detail location is set and equal to city, country. The country name must be in english.

  • languages work only if the user details browser_language, or language is set.

  • A visitor is a Returning visitor only if it visits the website again after 24 hours or more.

  • The pop-ups appear only if the chat is closed, and they overwrite the default pop-up. You can check the message fallback option to send a message instead of showing the pop-up if the chat is open.

  • You may need to enable Settings > Users > Register all visitors if you want to send an automated message to new users.

  • Chat messages and popup fallback messages are sent only if the last user or agent message of the conversation is older than 10 minutes. This feature prevents unwanted automated messages to be sent during an agent-user conversation.

  • The Custom variable condition check for the JavaScript variables with the given names and values. For example, the condition example=ABC is met if into the chat's page there is this JavaScript code: var example = "ABC";. Add multiple variables separated by commas.

  • Automations are not compatible with the messagin apps like WhatsApp, Messenger, Instagram, Telegram, Twitter, Google, WeChat, Viber, Line.

Newsletter

Follow the steps below to complete the synchronization with your newsletter service. The user is subscribed in the following cases: registration form, user update, follow-up message, subscribe message, email shortcode.

Mailchimp

Brevo

SendGrid

  • To get the Key, follow the docs at https://app.sendgrid.com/settings/api_keys.

  • To get the List ID, enter in SendGrid and click Marketing > Contacts(https://mc.sendgrid.com/contacts), then click on a list, or create a new one. The last part of the URL is the list ID. Ex. https://mc.sendgrid.com/contacts/lists/8558c1e7-3c99-4428-a68f-78df2e437f8e (the list ID is 8558c1e7-3c99-4428-a68f-78df2e437f8e).

Elastic Email

  • To get the Key, enter in Elastic Email, then click Settings from the top right profile menu. Click Create Additional API key (https://elasticemail.com/account#/settings/new/create-api), set a name, and choose Plugin or Full access, or Custom and make sure the permission Contacts is set to View & Modify.

  • The List ID is the list name. Important! Existing lists or segment names must not have any spaces in them.

Campaign Monitor

  • To get the Key, enter in Campaign Monitor, then click Account settings from the top right profile menu. Click API keys > Generate API key.

  • To get the List ID, enter in Campaign Monitor, then click List and subscribers from the top menu. Select a list and then click Settings from the left menu and copy the List API ID.

HubSpot

  • To get the Key, enter in HubSpot, then get go to Settings > Integrations > Private apps and create a new app.

  • Enter app name, then open the Scope tab and add the following scopes: crm.lists.write, crm.lists.read, crm.objects.contacts.read, crm.objects.contacts.write.

  • Click Create app and copy the token. Paste the token into the Key field of the Chat Board.

  • To get the List ID, enter in HubSpot, then get it from Contacts > List > List details.

Moosend

  • To get the Key, enter in Moosend, then click Settings > API key.

  • To get the List ID, enter in Moosend, then get it from Audience > Email lists.

GetResponse

  • To get the List ID, enter in GetResponse, then get it from Lists > Your list > Settings(https://app.getresponse.com/lists). Copy the List token value.

  • To get the Key visit https://app.getresponse.com/api.

ConvertKit

  • To get the Key, enter in ConvertKit, then get it from Settings > Advanced > API secret.

  • To get the List ID, enter in ConvertKit, then get it from Grow > Landing Pages & Forms. Open your form and copy the numeric part of the URL. For example, the ID of the form with the URL https://app.convertkit.com/forms/designers/3003412/edit is 3003412.

ActiveCampaign

  • To get the Key, enter in ActiveCampaign, then get it from Account settings > Developer.

  • To get the List ID, enter in ActiveCampaign, then get it from the Left menu > Lists or Left menu > Contacts > Lists. Open your list and copy the list ID in the URL. For example, the ID of the list with the URL https://eduhub.activehosted.com/app/contacts/?listid=1&status=1 is 1. The list ID must be in this format: domain:list-ID. The domain is the first part of your dashboard URL. For example, the domain of https://eduhub.activehosted.com/ is eduhub and the final value to insert in Chat Board is eduhub:1.

MailerLite

  • To get the Key, enter in MailerLite, then get it from the Left menu > Integrations > MailerLite API.

  • To get the List ID, enter in MailerLite, then get it from the Left menu > Subscribers > Groups. View a group and copy the Group ID from the URL (e.g. ....group=18783408688903967...).

Mailjet

  • To get the Key, visit https://app.mailjet.com/account/apikeys, or enter in Mailjet, then get it from Account settings > Account settings.

  • To get the List ID, enter in MailerLite, then get it from Contacts > Contacts lists > Your list. Get the List ID by clicking the ? icon next to the list's email, e.g. 1202546.

Sendy

  • To get the Key, enter the Sendy settings area and copy the API KEY.

  • To get the List ID, enter your brand, then click View all lists and copy the list ID. The list ID setting must also include your Sendy full URL. Enter the URL plus the list ID separated by the char |, e.g. https://example.com|TDf6o892Mx11VXGC51ui567u.

More settings

Saved replies

Saved replies, also known as canned messages, refer to a collection of pre-written messages that agents can quickly access and employ in the chat editor.

  • Saved replies can be printed by typing # followed by the saved reply name, plus a space.

  • Use \n o a line break.

  • If you are using the Dialogflow chatbot, the saved replies panel search will include results from Dialogflow Intents.

  • You have the option to add all Dialogflow Intents to the saved replies list by using the setting at Settings > Artificial Intelligence > Google > Add Intents to saved replies.

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