Text Services Configuration

Chat Customer Client

From V10.7 - Softdial Contact Center™ (SCC) includes the chat customer client application, to be hosted on the customer web site that communicates with the SCC chat server, providing a chat facility to web site users. The customer client is...

and provides functionality out-of-the-box.

Web Chat Overview

Fig. 1 - Customer client overview

When the host web page is displayed:

  1. The customer client connects with the required service which directs the customer to a chat agent on a particular tenant/ campaign/ queue (as specified in its configuration variables).
  2. The application configures itself according to any other configuration variables set.
  3. Once the connection is opened, the application waits for the customer to
    1. enter their name
    2. choose a department (if configured)
    3. write a message
    4. click OK
  4. Once this is done, the conversation begins and all available information is sent to the receiving agent.
  5. During the conversation, the customer's and agent's statements are shown in different colored “bubbles” in the Chat window.
  6. To leave the chat immediately, the customer may click on the Exit button. Once pressed, the chat connection to the server is closed, but the chat window remains open as the customer may want to read or copy it's content some time later.
  7. To use chat again, the web page must be reloaded.

Server

A properly configured SCC server must be in place, with the SCC chat module (including Microsoft SignalR) installed and configured. See Setup and Configuration.

Client

The host web page...

  1. must be an HTML5 page
  2. must properly use CSS and other technologies
  3. must not contain errors (must work properly and look as expected on all major browsers in newest versions).
  4. must support MS SignalR

The customer client is implemented as a Javascript program which will automatically load the following external libraries:

Description Library URL
Javascript all-purpose library jQuery //code.jquery.com/jquery-3.1.1.min.js
Font for icons Font awesome //maxcdn.bootstrapcdn.com/fontawesome/latest/css/font-awesome.min.css
Javascript library for PDF generation Jspdf //cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/jspdf/1.3.3/jspdf .min.js
Library for manipulating SignalR connections Jquery signalr //ajax.aspnetcdn.com/ajax/signalr/jquery.signalr-2.2.1.min.js

the customer client also uses internal files (located in Softdial/WebServer/www/softdial/chat2). All files must be located in the sub-directories as indicated below:

File Description
css/softdialchat.css Main stylesheet file, contains all used styles. Included automatically
js/chat.js JavaScript file providing interface for signalr connection. Inluded automatically
js/app.js JavaScript file containing main application. Included automatically
js/softdialchat.js JavaScript file containing main implementation of the customer client.  This is the file that should be manually included in parent's webpage header. See Customer Client Setup
js/framemain.js Main Javascript file used by frame.html
frame.html HTML file containing the customer client UI. Inluded automatically
index.html HTML file which shows how to implement the customer client on the host webpage in the simplest possible form. Should be replaced by the host webpage