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Agent Desk guide

The Agent Desk is the principle interface for your organization’s agents to engage with visitors using Unblu. It also provides features for Supervisors to monitor and organize agents and teams.

This guide aims to give you a good working knowledge of the Agent Desk’s features. Once you’ve read through this guide, you will be able to focus on engaging with visitors, instead of trying to work out how to do so.

Depending on the configuration your organization chose to implement, the look and feel of the interface may differ from the pictures in this guide. Additionally, some functions may not be available if your organization hasn’t licensed them. However, you should have no difficulties applying the explanations in this guide to your particular circumstances.

Login

To access the Agent Desk, agents must be authenticated. Unblu offers a variety of ways to authenticate users. One way is a traditional login form that asks for your username and password:

Agent Desk login form
Figure 1. Agent Desk login form

(In most cases, you won’t have the Demo account email field you can see in the screenshot above.)

Your organization may have opted for a different authentication method. For more information on the various authentication methods available, refer to the authentication page.

Agent Desk layout

The Agent Desk is made up of three areas:

  • The sidebar provides access to the queue, the inbox, your scheduled conversations, the conversation history, and (for supervisors and administrators) the agent monitor.

  • The top bar contains a number of control elements. It also holds tabs of all the conversations you are currently participating in.

  • The main content area takes up the majority of the screen. It’s where conversations, collaboration layers, and other content are displayed.

Top bar

The top bar provides a number of useful features.

The top bar
  • The hamburger icon Hamburger menu icon can be used to hide the navigation menu on the left.

  • The plus icon Plus icon can be used to initiate various types of conversation.

  • Next to the plus icon is a tabbed list of your open conversations. The active conversation panel is highlighted by an orange bar along the bottom edge of the tab. Any conversations with unread chat messages display a badge.

    In the example above, the agent is participating in two conversations. The conversation with Luc is currently displayed in the main content area, and there are two unread messages in the conversation with Viktor.

  • With automatic request dispatching enabled, the top bar contains a toggle that allows agents to signal when they’re available to accept incoming conversations.

  • Finally, your avatar displays your current online status and provides access to your Agent Desk settings.

    In the picture above, the green badge on the avatar indicates that the agent is online. To disable these badges, refer to Disabling availability badges.

Plus icon menu

As mentioned above, the plus icon in the top bar allows you to start various types of conversation:

Contents of the plus icon menu
  • Join, Join screen, and Join mobile all open a modal dialog showing a PIN that you can share with a visitor to launch a conversation in Unblu:

    PIN dialog with valid PIN

    A PIN must be redeemed within a certain time. The dialog includes a countdown showing how much time remains to redeem the PIN.

    If the PIN isn’t redeemed it expires. The dialog below appears when this has occurred:

    PIN dialog after PIN has expired

    It’s always possible to generate a new PIN by pressing the Generate new PIN button. Doing so automatically invalidates the previous PIN.

  • Show and Show Screen both open a conversation panel with a new conversation. In both cases, you have to invite users to join you with the Invite button.

The type of conversation that’s created when a user enters the PIN depends on which option you selected in the plus icon menu:

  • Join launches a conversation with embedded co-browsing.

  • Join screen launches a conversation with screen-sharing on the user’s side. The user must choose whether they want to share a particular application window or their entire screen with you.

    If they choose not to share anything with you, the conversation continues as a live chat.

  • Join mobile launches a conversation with mobile co-browsing.

  • Show launches a conversation with universal co-browsing on the agent’s side. Just like other users, you can choose what to share in the co-browsing session.

  • Show screen launches a conversation with screen-sharing on the agent’s side.

The choice you make in the plus icon menu isn’t final. You can switch between types of conversation after the initial selection. For example, you might select Join to see a visitor’s view of your organization’s website, but later need to launch document co-browsing to review a file together.

Queue

The queue displays all conversations that you could join as the assigned agent. Like in the inbox, the items in the queue contain useful information about each conversation:

  • The visitor’s name

  • The last message the visitor entered

  • Where the visitor started the conversation

  • How long the visitor has been waiting

  • The visitor’s approximate location

  • The operating system and browser the visitor is using

Above the queue, you can see how many conversations are waiting in the queue, and the average time visitors' conversations have been waiting in the queue.

The picture below shows a queue with just one waiting conversation. The toast in the lower left-hand corner of the Agent Desk appears when a request is added to your queue.

Agent Desk queue

The icon to the left of the visitor’s name indicates the type of conversation request.

Icon Request type

Chat request icon in the queue

Chat request

Audio call request icon in the queue

Audio call request

Video call request icon in the queue

Video call request

Co-browsing request icon in the queue

Co-browsing request

Co-browsing request icon in the queue

Screen sharing request

Whiteboard request icon in the queue

Whiteboard request

Conversation requests addressed to you personally are listed under the heading Assigned to me:

Agent Desk queue with a conversation request assigned to the agent

If you’re another agent’s deputy and they didn’t respond to a personal conversation request, the delegated conversation is listed under the heading Delegated to me:

Agent Desk queue with a delegated conversation request

Queue filters

The queue only provides filters for named areas and languages. However, you can select multiple named areas and languages by which to filter your queue.

The following picture shows the filter selection dialog. To confirm your selection click on Apply, then click on OK to apply the filter to the queue.

Queue filter in the Agent Desk

Preview and answer

In addition to the information mentioned above, the queue provides two features that aren’t needed in the inbox: a Preview button and an Answer button.

The Preview button lets you see what has happened so far in a conversation without actually joining it. The picture below shows what a conversation preview might look like. Note the blue banner beneath the top bar that states You are previewing this conversation.

Conversation preview in Agent Desk queue
  • The Answer button lets you join the previewed conversation without having to return to the queue view. Alternatively, you can click on the Answer button on the conversation item in the queue.

  • The Forward menu gives you the possibility to forward the conversation to an agent, team or named area without joining the conversation.

  • The Close button at the bottom of the screen simply closes the preview.

In the preview, the buttons for forwarding the conversation, inviting other participants to join the conversation, and ending the conversation are disabled.

If another agent answers a conversation while you are previewing it, Unblu informs you in a modal dialog and disconnects you from the conversation:

Preview in Agent Desk disconnected

For more information on the options available once you answer a conversation, see the section Conversation panel below.

Automatic request dispatching

Automatic request dispatching is a way for your organization to automate the conversation assignment process. Rather than choosing which conversation requests to answer, Unblu reserves conversation requests for you.

If your organization uses automatic request dispatching, the queue will look slightly different from the description above. Your workflow in the queue will also be slightly different.

This is what the queue looks like in the Agent Desk when automatic request dispatching is active:

Agent Desk queue with automatic queue dispatching enabled
  • To the left of your avatar in the conversation bar, you can see a toggle labeled Ready for next conversation. By activating the toggle, you inform the dispatch mechanism that it may reserve conversation requests for you.

  • In the queue, the conversation will sport a Reserved label. (This label is applied to all reserved conversation requests, not just requests reserved for you.)

  • There are no buttons to accept or decline the conversation from the queue. There is also no way of previewing the conversation.

If you are available for conversations, the dispatcher will assign you (and your coworkers) conversations in turn, up to your maximum number of active conversations. When it reserves a conversation for you, a toast appears in the lower left-hand corner of the Agent Desk. The toast includes buttons for you to accept or decline the conversation. It also displays a countdown showing how much time remains for you to do so.

If you click on the toast itself, Unblu opens a preview of the conversation.

If you decline a conversation request, or don’t react to the reservation before the countdown displayed on the toast reaches zero, your status is set to unavailable. If the reservation timed out, a modal dialog is displayed that lets you set your status to available again or to remain unavailable.

Inbox

Once you’ve been authenticated, the Agent Desk opens in the inbox view.

Agent Desk inbox

The inbox provides access to all the conversations you are currently participating in. Depending on how Unblu is configured at your organization, the conversations may be grouped in three tabs, My Conversations, Secondary Conversations, and Forwarded.

  • My Conversations lists conversations where you are the assigned agent.

  • Secondary Conversations lists conversations where you are a secondary agent.

  • Forwarded lists conversations that you have forwarded but that haven’t been accepted by another agent yet. Once the forwarding is redeemed by another agent, the forwarded conversations no longer appear here since you are no longer a participant.

Each conversation listing provides several useful pieces of information about the conversation:

  • The names of the other participants in the conversation

  • The status of the conversation’s other participants, that is, whether they’re online or not

  • The last message of the conversation

  • The time the last message was transmitted

  • The number of messages you haven’t read yet, if there are any

In the picture above, the agent is the assigned agent in two conversations, one with Sven, one with Maria. The green badge on each visitor’s avatar shows that they’re online. The badge on the My Conversations tab indicates that the Agent has three unread messages in total. There are two unread messages in the conversation with Maria and one in the conversation with Sven.

In the picture of the Secondary Conversations tab below, the Agent Karl Dangerfield has invited the Agent to join a conversation with the client Viktor Woods. Karl is online (as indicated by the green badge), but Viktor isn’t. In the top bar of the Agent Desk, you can also see two open conversation views, one with Luc and one with Viktor and Karl.

Agent Desk inbox, Secondary Conversations tab

To rejoin a conversation, simply click on its listing in the inbox.

For more information on the options available once you answer a conversation, see the section Conversation panel below.

In the picture of the Forwarded tab below, the assigned agent has forwarded a conversation with the visitor Victoria Woods to the agent Alex Palmer. As soon as Alex Palmer redeems the invitation, the original assigned agent’s participation in the conversation ends and the conversation is removed from the list of conversations in the Forwarded tab.

Agent Desk inbox, Forwarded tab

The Inbox menu item sports a badge which displays the sum of unread messages in the My Conversations, Secondary Conversations, and Forwarded tabs.

Inbox filters

On each of the inbox tabs, above the list of conversations, you see a number of filters. These allow you to limit the conversations you see to those that satisfy certain conditions. If, for example, you were looking for an ongoing conversation with a client who contacted you via WhatsApp, you could use the Channels filter to display only WhatsApp conversations. Alternatively, you could use the Visitors filter to display only the conversations with that particular client.

On the My Conversations tab, the Agents filter can be used to look for secondary agents. On the Secondary Conversations tab, the same filter allows you to search for the assigned agent of conversations that you are participating in as a secondary agent.

Finally, there are three predefined filters:

  • The Starred filter shows only conversations you have starred with the star icon Star icon to the left of the participants' avatars.

  • The Online filter will only show conversations where the context person is online.

  • The Unread filter only displays conversations with messages that you haven’t read yet.

The filters can be combined to limit the number of conversations displayed even further.

Scheduled conversations

Scheduled conversations are conversations that you can set up to start at a certain time in the future.

Overview

Clicking on the Scheduled conversations entry in the navigation menu on the left opens the overview, which contains two tabs:

  • The Upcoming tab lists all the scheduled conversations you organized with a scheduled start time in the future. This includes conversations that you started before their scheduled start time, if the start time hasn’t yet been reached. In the picture below, this applies to the second conversation in the list.

    The "Upcoming" tab in the scheduled conversations overview

    Scheduled conversations with a start time in the past that haven’t started yet are also listed on the Upcoming tab. They’re marked with an Overdue badge, like the first conversation in the picture above.

  • The Ongoing tab lists all your scheduled conversations with a start time in the past that you have already started.

On each tab, conversations are displayed in chronological order.

  • On the Upcoming tab, the further in the future a conversation is scheduled to start, the further down the list of scheduled conversations it will appear.

  • On the Ongoing tab, the more more recently a conversation was scheduled to start, the closer to the top of the list of conversation it will appear.

Scheduled conversations that have ended are accessible from the conversation history, like any other conversation.

Creating scheduled conversations

To create a scheduled conversation, proceed as follows:

  1. Open the scheduled conversation overview and click on Schedule a conversation. If there is more than one template for scheduled conversations, a dropdown will open where you can choose a template. If there is only one template for scheduled conversations, clicking on the button takes you to the next step.

  2. Selecting a template opens the New conversation fly-in page.

    Here, you must enter the following information:

    • A topic for the conversation

    • The date and time the conversation is scheduled for

    You can also change the language or locale of the conversation.

    The locale is available in the fly-in page from version 7.23.2.
    New conversation

    You can change of all these elements after creating the conversation.

  3. Click on Save to complete the creation process. This closes the fly-in page and displays a modal dialog where you can open the conversation without starting it.

    Conversation scheduled

    The modal dialog includes a public link that you can send to multiple visitors.

  4. To create personal invitations for individual participants or edit the details of the conversations, click on Open. This opens the conversation in the main area of the Agent Desk.

    Alternatively, close the dialog window. Doing so will return you to the Upcoming tab of the scheduled conversation overview.

Editing a scheduled conversation

To edit the topic, date, and start time for scheduled conversations:

  1. Click the Pencil icon edit icon for the conversation you want to edit in the list of scheduled conversations.

    The Edit conversation fly-in page opens.

  2. Make your changes and click Save.

Only authorized participant types may edit scheduled conversations. By default, this is only the case for the conversation’s assigned agent.

You can also edit the topic, date, start time, and locale from an open scheduled conversation. To do so, click the Show conversation details icon Information icon. This opens the Conversation fly-in page. Next, click on the Edit button at the bottom of the fly-in page and make your changes.

Inviting and admitting visitors to a scheduled conversation

You create invitations for scheduled conversations the same way way as for other types of conversation:

  • Email invitations generate an email with a link that opens the scheduled conversation in the Visitor Desk.

  • Private link invitations generate a link that you can send to the invitee by email, add to a shared calendar appointment, or provide them some other way. Again, the link will open the scheduled conversation in the Visitor Desk.

Since visitors can only redeem PIN invitations in the integrated visitor UIs, but scheduled conversations open in the Visitor Desk, you can’t use PIN invitations for scheduled conversations.

Public links open the Visitor Desk on the Join conversation page:

*Join conversation* page in the Visitor Desk

Once the visitor has filled in their details and clicked on the Join button, they must wait for an agent to review their admission request. If no agent has the conversation open in the Agent Desk, the page will ask them to wait for an agent to join:

*Join conversation* page after entering details if no agent is present

If an agent is viewing the conversation, the visitor will be asked to wait for the agent to admit them to the conversation:

Request admission page after entering details if an agent is present

In the Agent Desk, a modal dialog lists the visitors who have requested to be admitted to a conversation:

Dialog of visitor requesting admission to a scheduled conversation via a public link

If more than one visitor wants to join the conversation, you can grant or deny each request individually.

Visitors who redeem personal invitations are automatically admitted to the conversation.

Inviting agents to a scheduled conversation

If you invite another agent to join a scheduled conversation as a secondary agent, the invitation will appear in their queue. Once they click on Answer, the conversation will open, just like any other conversation they answer.

If a secondary agent closes the conversation tab and wants to return to it later, they’ll find it in the Ongoing tab in the scheduled conversations overview, not in their inbox.

Starting a scheduled conversation

Scheduled conversations don’t start automatically. An agent who is participating in the conversation has to start it explicitly.

To start a conversation, open the conversation by clicking on it in the overview, then click on the Start button in the upper right-hand corner of the screen:

start scheduled conversation

Alternatively, open the Conversation details fly-in page and click on the Start button at the bottom.

Invitees who try to join a conversation before you start it are shown the Waiting room page in the Visitor Desk. The page includes a message asking them to wait until the conversation has started:

*Waiting room* page in the Visitor Desk

Once an agent starts the conversation, visitors see the usual UI elements, such as the chat view and collaboration layers.

Conversation history

The conversation history provides access to all your conversations. It includes both ongoing conversations and those that have already ended.

The list items in the conversation history show a lot of information about the conversations:

  • The date the conversation was created

  • The type of conversation, for example Chat invite or Audio call

  • The name of the assigned agent

  • The name of the context person

  • The state of the conversation, for example Active, Ended, Offboarding etc.

  • How long the conversation lasted

  • How long the visitor had to wait for an agent to answer their request

  • How the visitor rated the conversation

Here is an example of what an agent’s conversation history might look like:

Agent Desk conversation history

In the picture above, most conversations have ended. The agent, Anna Palmer, was the assigned agent of all the conversations. Four of the conversations are still active, one has ended, and two have the state Offboarding.

The Export data button at the bottom of the list lets you export the data as a CSV or XLSX file.

Clicking on a conversation displays its contents. See Viewing a conversation below for more details.

Conversation history filters

Like the inbox and the queue, the conversation history provides various filters to specify which conversations to list. You can filter by:

  • Display range. This refers to when the conversation was in progress. The default range is the current day.

  • Engagement type.

  • The Conversation state.

  • Agent.

  • Team.

  • Language.

  • Visitor source ID. This is the visitor’s username if they’re authenticated by another system that propagates their identity to Unblu.

  • Primary visitor. Use this filter to search by the person ID of the conversation’s context person.

  • Conversation scheduled date. This refers to when the conversation is or was scheduled to take place.

  • Conversation ID. Selecting this filter disables all other filters.

The conversation history displays conversations even if their start and end times were outside the display range. For example, if a conversation started at 09:00 and ended at 12:30, setting the display range to 10:00—​11:00 displays the conversation, even if there was no activity in the conversation between 10:00 and 11:00.

The display range filter is always displayed. You can specify which other filters to show by clicking the more icon More menu icon.

The filter field also lets you search for text in the conversations' information. This lets you search for conversations by the names of participants, for example. You can’t use the filter to search through conversations' message contents, though.

If you apply multiple filters, the conversation history only displays conversations that match all your filter criteria. For example, if you specify a display range and a language, the conversation will only list conversations in that language that were ongoing during that period.

If you select multiple values for a single filter, on the other hand, the conversation history displays all conversations that match any of the values you selected for that particular filter. For example, if you select the languages Czech and Swedish in the language filter, the conversation history lists all conversations whose language was either Czech or Swedish.

The maximum number of conversations displayed in the history is defined in the configuration property com.unblu.conversationhistory.limit. The default value is 100.

Conversation information fly-in page

Clicking on a conversation’s information icon Information icon opens a fly-in page with additional details:

Conversation information fly-in page in the conversation history
Figure 2. Conversation information fly-in page in the conversation history

The fly-in page contains the following information:

  • An overview of the conversation’s details. Some of the details are always visible, others are in a collapsible section you open by clicking the Show more control.

    For more information on which details are available, refer to Show conversation details control below.

  • Information on the conversation’s participants:

    • Who the participants are or were

    • When they joined and left the conversation

    • What their participation type in the conversation was: primary visitor, assigned agent, secondary visitor, secondary agent, or bot.

    • Whether they’re still participating or not

    • How they rated the conversation

  • Links to the conversation recordings that were made in the course of the conversation.

There are also three buttons on the page:

  • The Configure button opens the configuration of the conversation.

  • The Export data button exports the information on the fly-in page as a CSV file.

  • The Open button displays the conversation’s contents.

The conversation information fly-in page for ongoing conversations is slightly different. For more information, refer to Show conversation details control below.

Viewing a conversation

When you open a conversation in the conversation history, it opens with the agent participating as a ghost. This is the case even if the conversation is still active and the agent is the conversation’s assigned agent. In this view, you can see everything that has taken place in the conversation so far, including the entire onboarding process. However, the view isn’t shown next to the plus icon Plus icon at the top of the Agent Desk.

Ghost view of a conversation in the Agent Desk

(Supervisors and admins can also look in on agents' conversations as ghosts.)

Contrast this view with the same conversation after clicking on the Open in normal view button at the bottom of the screen:

Normal view of conversation in the Agent Desk

Since the conversation depicted above hasn’t ended, the text input field is available at the bottom of the screen. The Agent can thus continue interacting with the visitor from this view.

Agent monitor

The Agent Monitor allows supervisors and administrators to monitor the capacity of agents and named areas. They can also get an overview of the conversations that agents are currently engaged in.

  • Supervisors can monitor agents on teams they’re responsible for.

  • Administrators can monitor any agent of the Unblu account they administer.

Agent Desk agent monitor for supervisors and admins

As you can see above, the content area of the agent monitor is divided into four panels:

Service status panel

Shows the capacity by named area and language.

Agent availability panel

Shows each agent’s capacity and their availability.

Active sessions panel

Provides information about the active conversations, including the type and duration of the conversation, and the agent handling the conversation.

Filtered chat queues panel

Shows the filters that agents are applying to their queues. This can be helpful when trying to determine why a certain conversation isn’t being accepted by any agents: maybe none of them can see it because of the filters they have set in their inbox.

You can sort the contents of any panel according to any of the columns. To make the column headers wider, hover over the column header and drag.

Availability

The agent monitor distinguishes between three different levels of availability: Available, Busy, and Unavailable.

Availability by named area

In the service status panel, availability is displayed in the Capacity column and refers to all the agents assigned to the various named areas. The numbers after the availability status show the total current capacity utilization for all the agents.

  • When there are agents with capacity available to accept conversations in a named area, its availability status is Available.

  • When no agent has capacity to accept conversations in a named area, its availability status is Busy.

  • If there are no agents logged in to Unblu who accept conversations in a named areas, its availability status is Unavailable.

In the picture above, all the named areas have an available capacity of four conversations and a total capacity of six conversations.

Agent availability

The availability information in the agent availability panel refers to each agent’s personal availability. The numbers in brackets show their personal current capacity utilization.

In the picture above, the agent Anna Palmer has an available capacity of one conversation and a total capacity of three conversations.

An agent’s personal availability status can be affected in a number of ways:

  • If an agent sets their online status to Away in the Agent Desk settings, their availability status switches to Unavailable.

  • If an agent has reached the maximum number of concurrent active sessions allowed, their availability status switches to Busy.

    If you’re using automatic queue dispatching with priority band busy limits, the agent availability only reflects an agent’s availability status for priority 1 requests.
  • If automatic queue dispatching is active, agents can change their availability status independently of their online status. for more information, see automatic request dispatching.

If you don’t want visitors to see the availability of your agents, you can disable availability badges.

Filtering

Selecting an entry in any of the four panels filters the entries in the other panels that are relevant to the entry selected.

Agent monitoring with one agent selected

In the picture above, the named area "Banking - Anonymous" has been selected in the service status panel. This is indicated by the vertical orange bar to the left of the entry. As a result of this selection, you can see at a glance which entries in the other panels apply to this named area. Entries that don’t apply to it are grayed out.

Conversation panel

The effect of clicking on Answer for a conversation in the queue depends on the type of conversation request you are answering. As a rule, the Agent Desk opens the most appropriate view for the request at hand. For example, if you respond to a live chat request, the conversation panel will display the messaging view.

Sending messages and uploading files

Both agents and visitors can send messages and upload files in public mode from the bottom of the conversation panel. In public mode, messages and files are visible to all the conversation participants.

If a message you send is blocked by a Message interceptor, the message is displayed with the notice Message blocked above it. The reason the message was blocked appears beneath the message text.

Blocked messages are always visible to the sender. Which other participants can see a rejected message depends on the rejection severity and the type of participant. For more information, refer to Rejection severity levels.

Sending internal messages

When enabled, internal messaging mode lets agents exchange messages privately with each other within a conversation, without the visitor seeing their messages. They can also upload files as internal or public.

Once internal messaging mode is enabled, to send an internal message:

  1. The agent clicks the open padlock icon Open padlock icon displayed next to the text input field.

    Public message mode input field

    The color and placeholder text of the text input field change to indicate the message is internal. The open padlock icon changes to a closed padlock icon Closed padlock icon closed padlock icon.

    Internal message mode input field
  2. The agent types the internal message and clicks the Send internally button.

    The message appears in the conversation in a different color to indicate that it’s internal. A padlock icon is displayed beside the sender’s name.

  3. To toggle back to public message mode and send a message visible to the visitor, the agent clicks the closed padlock icon.

    Alternatively, agents can use a configurable keyboard shortcut to toggle between messaging modes. By default, the shortcut is Ctrl+M.

Replying to individual messages

If it’s enabled for your user type, hovering over a message displays the reply icon Reply icon. When you click the icon, the message you clicked appears above the text field where you type your response.

Writing a reply to a public message
Figure 3. Writing a reply to a public message

If you’re replying to an internal message, Unblu automatically activates internal messaging mode for the reply. The message you’re replying to and the area of the text input field appear in a different color.

Writing a reply to a public message
Figure 4. Writing a reply to an internal message

Switching to public mode by clicking the closed padlock icon Closed padlock icon automatically removes the internal message you’re replying to.

If you click the cross icon Cross icon on the internal message you’re replying to, your message is sent to the conversation as an internal message. If you want to send it as a public message, click the closed padlock icon to switch to public mode.

Once you send your reply, it appears in the conversation:

An internal reply to an internal message
Figure 5. An internal reply to an internal message

Above your reply, you can see the first sentence of the message you replied to. Clicking the sentence takes you to the original message, so you can read it in its entirety.

If you reply to an internal message but don’t have permission to send internal messages yourself, your reply is sent to the conversation as a public message, and visitors can see it. The internal message you replied to isn’t sent to the conversation.

Requesting chat suggestions

If your organization has implemented a system that can suggest answers to visitor messages, and you have permission to use the suggestion source, you’ll see the chat suggestion icon Chat suggestion icon when you move the mouse pointer over a chat message from another participant. (The icon may be in the kebab menu Kebab menu icon.)

Clicking the icon asks the suggestion source of the current conversation for a suggestion of how to respond to the message.

When the suggestion source responds, the suggestion is only displayed to you:

Chat suggestion before being sent to the chat
Figure 6. Chat suggestion before being sent to the chat

You now have several options:

  • If the suggestion isn’t helpful, click Discard. The suggestion is discarded immediately. There’ll be no trace of the suggestion in the chat history.

  • If you’re satisfied with the suggestion as it is, click Send. The suggestion is then sent to the chat as it is.

  • If you think the suggestion needs some changes, click Edit above the suggestion. This displays the suggestion in a text field where you can edit the suggestion.

    If Markdown is enabled, you can use Markdown when you edit the suggestion.

  • If you check the Send as reply box before clicking Send, the suggestion is sent to the chat as a reply to the message you requested a suggestion for.

Once you click Send, the suggestion is sent to the chat:

Edited chat suggestion after sending to the chat
Figure 7. Edited chat suggestion after sending to the chat

If you asked for a suggestion on an internal message,the suggestion is sent as an internal message. If the suggestion was requested on a public message,the suggestion is sent as a public message.

All chat suggestions you send to the chat, whether edited or not, are sent in your name. There’s no way of distinguishing messages you composed yourself from ones that originated with a suggestion source.

If the suggestion source can’t make a suggestion—​because it doesn’t understand the request, for example—​the message No suggestion found appears beneath the message you requested a suggestion for. This message is only visible to you.

Chat suggestions are only available on text messages. You can’t ask for suggestions in response to image uploads, for example.

Uploading internal files

The file upload system is aware of the messaging mode in use. When an agent clicks the Add attachment icon upload file button, the current messaging mode is applied to the file upload. If the agent drags and drops a file, a dialog appears to select the mode required:

Dialog to choose messaging mode for file upload

In the All shared files view, a dropdown opens from the Upload file button to select the mode.

Participant information popup

In the upper left-hand corner of the conversation panel, you will see one or more avatars representing the other participants in the conversation. Clicking on a participant’s avatar displays a dropdown containing information on that participant:

Avatar dropdown displaying information on an authenticated participant

In the image above, you can see the following information in the About section of the popup:

  • The user’s approximate location. This information is determined based on the user’s IP address.

    In the image above, the user is located in Zurich, Switzerland, or thereabouts.

  • The user’s language, which in this example is English.

  • The operating system and browser the user’s running. In this case, the user’s computer is running version 95 of Mozilla Firefox on Ubuntu Linux. The version of Ubuntu is unknown, so it’s referred to as "Other."

  • The user’s email address.

  • The user’s phone number.

  • The user’s propagated username or their user ID next to a closed lock icon Closed lock icon.

  • Predefined and custom actions that can be invoked on the user in question are listed in the Actions section of the popup.

  • The Remove participant button allows authorized users to remove individual participants of a conversation from that conversation.

    If secondary agents can set a new assigned agent for a conversation, they can use this button to remove the current assigned agent and reassign the conversation to themselves or another secondary agent. For more information, refer to the section Reassigning a conversation upon removing the assigned agent below.

  • The Assign to agent button is only available on the avatar of secondary agents. It lets the assigned agent assign the conversation to that agent. The previous assigned agent may then be removed from or leave the conversation without ending it.

    You can’t reassign conversations to hidden agents.

If a user hasn’t been authenticated, the popup displays an open lock icon Open lock icon with the label Unauthenticated:

Avatar dropdown displaying information on an unauthenticated participant

The picture above doesn’t include the user’s email address and phone number. However, this information may be available for unauthenticated users, too, for example if they provided this information during the conversation onboarding process.

The popup shows device-related information for each device the user is currently accessing the conversation with. This means that there can be multiple entries for both the operating system and browser as well as the language. Because of the method for determining a user’s location, there may even be multiple entries for their location.

The collaboration layers a participant can provide are listed in a section entitled Collaboration options beneath the About section. Ongoing collaboration layers are highlighted in the list. In both pictures above, there’s a single embedded co-browsing session running, and the user in question isn’t providing any other collaboration layers such as screen sharing.

Reassigning a conversation upon removing the assigned agent

Secondary agents may be allowed to remove the assigned agent from a conversation. With the necessary permissions, they can directly reassign the conversation to themselves or another agent when they remove the assigned agent.

If a secondary agent may remove the assigned agent but not reassign the conversation, a confirmation message appears when they click Remove participant and the conversation ends when the assigned agent is removed.

To remove the assigned agent, the secondary agent opens the assigned agent’s participant information popup and clicks the Remove participant button. The effect this has depends on how many agents are participants in the conversation:

  • If there is only one secondary agent in the conversation (the person removing the assigned agent), the conversation is automatically assigned to them when they remove the assigned agent.

  • If there are two secondary agents in the conversation, a dialog appears asking who the next assigned agent should be:

    change assigned agent popup
  • If there are more than two secondary agents in the conversation, a dialog appears as above, asking who the next assigned agent should be.

    If they choose Assign to another agent, a fly-in page appears where they can choose the specific agent:

    change assigned agent flyin

Common controls

Some controls are available in the conversation panel regardless of the conversation type. These controls are located in the agent conversation bar between the top bar and the action bar of the view opened to interact with the visitor.

Controls common to all conversation types

The controls here affect the participants or the type of collaboration taking place in a conversation.

Show conversation details control

The Show conversation details control Show conversation details icon displays the conversation information fly-in page:

Conversation information fly-in page of an ongoing conversation
Figure 8. Conversation information fly-in page of an ongoing conversation

The fly-in page contains the following information:

  • An overview of the conversation’s details:

    • The conversation topic

    • The recipient of the conversation

    • The conversation language

    • The average rating of the conversation

    • The external messenger the conversation was conducted with

    • The source URL

    • For scheduled conversations, the conversation’s scheduled date and time

      Apart from the conversation topic, the entries are only displayed if they have a value. For example, if a conversation doesn’t have a rating, the average rating isn’t listed.

  • A public link you can share to allow others to join the conversation. This section is present if public links are configured for the type of conversation you’re viewing.

  • A collapsible section that you can open by clicking the Show more control. This section contains additional details about the conversation:

    • The conversation state

    • The conversation ID

    • The engagement type

    • The template used to create the conversation

    • The response time, that is, how quickly an agent answered the conversation request

    • The duration of the conversation

    • The conversation’s start and end date

    • The person who ended the conversation

    • The reason the conversation ended

    • The time the last message was sent to the conversation

    • The time the last conversation recording ended

    • The call session ID

    • The initial engagement URL, that is, the URL of the page the conversation was started on

For scheduled conversations, there are also buttons on the fly-in page:

  • The Edit button lets you change the conversation’s topic, its scheduled date, and its scheduled time.

  • If the conversation hasn’t started yet, the page has a Start button to start the conversation and a Cancel conversation button to cancel it.

  • If the conversation’s already started, there’s an End conversation button to end the conversation.

The Show conversation details button is only available if Unblu is configured to display it.

The conversation information fly-in page in the conversation history is slightly different. For more information, refer to Conversation information fly-in page above.

Forward conversation control

The Forward button opens the following menu:

Forward conversation menu

Selecting one of the menu items opens a modal page where you can select whom exactly the conversation should be forwarded to. The following picture shows the modal page after selecting Forward to team in the menu.

Forward conversation modal page

When you click on the person, team, or named area that you want to forward the conversation to, a text field appears where you can add a message for them. This message is optional, and it’s not visible to visitors in the conversation.

Message when forwarding conversation

Once you have finished your message, click Forward.

Forwarded conversations are listed in the Forwarded tab if your inbox is configured to display this tab.

When you open a forwarded conversation, a banner indicating that it’s forwarded is displayed at the top of the conversation. You can revoke a forwarding from the banner. You can also directly forward the conversation again. This has the effect of revoking the original forwarding and forwarding the conversation again.

When another agent answers the forwarded request, you automatically leave the conversation and the conversation is no longer listed in the Forwarded tab. For more information about what this entails for you, refer to the documentation on the conversation life cycle.

Invite participant control

The Invite button opens the following menu:

Invite menu

As with the forward conversation menu, selecting either Invite an agent or Invite team opens a modal page where you can choose whom to invite and add a message to include with your invitation. Depending on your configuration, you can also choose to invite the agent or team as a hidden participant in the conversation.

Invite an agent as a hidden participant modal page
Figure 9. Invite an agent as a hidden participant

For customers, you can choose between three different types of invitation that each open a different modal page.

Clicking Invite with PIN opens the PIN invitation modal page:

PIN invitation modal page
Figure 10. PIN invitation modal page

Clicking Invite with private link opens a modal page where you can generate a private link to the conversation. You can copy the link and send it the person you want to invite:

Private link invitation modal page
Figure 11. Private link invitation modal page

Clicking Invite with email opens a modal page where you can enter the email address of the person you want to invite to the conversation. Unblu generates an email containing a private link to the conversation and sends it to the email address you entered:

Email invitation modal page
Figure 12. Email invitation modal page

All three types of visitor invitation expire after a period. By default, PIN invitations expire sooner than email and private link invitations.

Email and private link invitations that have already been generated are listed on the modal page of the respective link type, along with a countdown to each invitation’s expiry time and a link to revoke the invitation. When an invitation expires, its Revoke link is replaced by a Renew link which lets you generate a new invitation.

If enabled by your organization, the Invite menu also contains a button to copy a public link to access the conversation.

Collaboration control

The Collaborate menu provides access to the various ways for you to collaborate with other participants in a conversation.

Agent Desk collaborate menu
  • Browser tab of <visitor> is used to initiate an embedded co-browsing session. The browser tab shared is that of the visitor in question.

  • Websites initiates a universal co-browsing session

  • Documents initiates a document co-browsing session

  • My screen initiates a screen sharing session. The screen shared is the agent’s.

  • Screen of <participant> initiates a screen sharing session. The screen shared is that of the participant in question.

Note that you can collaborate on any participant’s screen, but only on a visitor’s browser tab.

The participants' names and avatars in the menu are particularly important if there are more than two participants in a conversation. The extra information helps to ensure that you don’t start a collaboration with the wrong contents.

The picture below shows the Collaborate menu from a conversation involving two visitors and two agents:

Agent Desk collaborate menu with more than two participants

If you are already collaborating with someone, a blue dot to the left of the appropriate icon indicates which type of collaboration is currently in progress.

Initiating collaboration

Selecting one of the menu items doesn’t immediately launch a co-browsing or screen sharing session. It sends a collaboration request to the context person and to the participant whose content would be shared.

Suppose that in the conversation pictured above, Sven is the context person and Ren is a secondary visitor. If you want to share Ren’s browser tab, then both Ren and Sven will receive a collaboration request. This is what the request looks like in the Floating Visitor UI:

Collaboration request in the Floating Visitor UI

Both Ren and Sven must give their consent for the embedded co-browsing session to go ahead. If they fail to do so within a certain time, the collaboration request times out.

In the Agent Desk chat panel, you can cancel their collaboration request:

Collaboration request in the Agent Desk
Collaboration action controls

Once collaboration starts, the main content area of the Agent Desk displays the appropriate collaboration layer in the collaboration space. The following picture shows the collaboration layer of an embedded co-browsing session:

Agent Desk during collaboration

The type of collaboration you are currently engaged in is visible in three different places:

  • If you open the Collaborate menu, a blue dot next to the appropriate icon indicates which type of collaboration is currently taking place.

  • The icon of the current type of collaboration is displayed to the left of the collaborate menu.

  • The icon and a brief description of the current type of collaboration is shown immediately above the collaboration pane’s main area.

Besides the hint about the type of collaboration in progress, the bar at the top of the collaboration space contains two controls.

  • The maximize content icon Maximize content icon on the left hides the top bar, the agent conversation bar, and the sidebar. This increases the space available for the collaboration space.

    When the content of the collaboration space is maximized, the icon is replaced by the minimize content icon Minimize content icon. Clicking the icon displays the top bar and the agent conversation bar. It doesn’t reopen the sidebar.

  • The Stop button Stop collaborating button on the right allows you to stop collaborating. Doing so doesn’t end the conversation.

Collaboration tools

To the left of the collaboration pane is the layer action bar. It gives you access to different collaboration tools.

Icon Description

Toggle marking mode icon

Toggle mark mode. This allows you to highlight areas of the screen for the other participants.

To mark an area in mark mode, press and hold your primary mouse button in one corner of the area you want to highlight, then drag the cursor to the opposite corner of the area. While you’re doing this, Unblu shows a dashed rectangle around the area selected.

Once you release the mouse button, Unblu highlights the area you selected.

If you just want to point to a particular feature of the page or document in mark mode, click on it. Unblu displays a pulsating circle to draw the other participants' attention to it.

Toggle remote control icon

Toggle remote control of the cursor in the co-browsing layer.

The remote control tool gives you control over the mouse pointer in the collaboration layer. You can click page elements and fill in text fields, provided they aren’t protected.

While somebody other than the person sharing the collaboration layer has control of the mouse pointer, their display name appears next to the pointer.

Toggle scroll lock icon

Turn scroll lock on or off for the co-browsing layer.

Scroll lock ensures that your view of the co-browsing layer remains fixed, even if the other participant scrolls up or down on the page you’re viewing together.

Mark mode and remote control mode may be configured to require the approval of one or more participants in a conversation. If that’s the case, they’re automatically asked for their approval when you try to activate the tool in question. You can see the approval message in the list of messages. You can cancel the request there, too, but you can’t approve the request on someone else’s behalf.

Which collaboration tools are available depends on the type of collaboration and the configuration of your Unblu installation.

To the right of the collaboration space, you can see the conversation’s messaging view. You can collapse it to give the collaboration pane more room by clicking on the hide chat panel icon Hide chat panel icon. If you want to expand the chat panel, click on the show chat panel icon Show chat panel iconicon hide call.

Recording

If your conversation is recorded automatically, there’s an indicator to the right of the collaboration control. Initially, it indicates that Unblu’s starting the recording:

Indicator that conversation recording is starting

Once the recording has started, Unblu displays the Recording icon Recording and a timer that shows how long it’s been recording the conversation.

Automatic recording in progress

If you can manually start recording a conversation, Unblu displays the Record button to the right of the collaboration control:

Button to start manual recording

When you click the button, Unblu displays the indicator to tell you it’s starting the recording. Once the recording is in progress, there’s an indicator similar to the one for automatic conversation recording. In the case of a recording started manually, the indicator also has a Stop recording button Stop recording:

Manual recording controls when recording in progress

End conversation control

The End conversation button does exactly that: it ends the conversation. Depending on how Unblu is configured, it may display a dialog asking you whether you really want to end the conversation. The control is only available to users entitled to end the conversation. Who may end a conversation can be configured in the conversation templates and in the conversation itself.

Once a conversation has ended, you can no longer add content to it. You can review conversations that have ended in the conversation history.

For more information about conversation states, refer to Conversation life cycle.

Leave conversation control

The Leave conversation button lets users leave a conversation without ending it. Once you leave a conversation, you no longer have access to it. Depending on your participant type, leaving the conversation may also affect the conversation state.

The button is only available if your participant type is allowed to leave a conversation.

If you’re the assigned agent of a conversation and there are other agents in the conversation as well, a modal dialog appears when you click *Leave conversation:

Modal dialog displayed when leaving a conversation with other agents
Figure 13. Modal dialog displayed when leaving a conversation with other agents

If you select Assign to another agent, a fly-in page appears listing all the secondary agents in the conversation. When you click the agent you want to reassign the conversation to, a text field appears where you can add a message for the agent. To complete the reassign process, click Assign.

If the conversation state changes to UNASSIGNED when you leave—​for example, because you chose to remove all agents from the conversation—​you might have to set the awaited person type. In that case, Unblu displays a modal dialog when you click Leave conversation:

Modal dialog to set the awaited person type when leaving a conversation
Figure 14. Modal dialog to set the awaited person type when leaving a conversation

For more information on the differences between leaving and ending a conversation, refer to Leaving vs ending a conversation.

Multiple collaboration layers

It’s possible to collaborate in different ways at the same time. For example, a visitor could share their browser tab with you while you share your screen with them. You can only ever see one of the collaboration layers at any one time. However, running more than one collaboration layer simultaneously makes it easier to switch between them.

When multiple collaboration layers are active in a conversation, you will see icons for each collaboration layer to the left of the collaborate menu in the conversation top bar. The collaboration layer currently in view is highlighted:

Multiple active collaboration layers in a conversation

In the example above, there are two collaboration layers, an embedded co-browsing layer and a screen-sharing layer. The screen-sharing layer is the one currently visible in the collaboration space: its icon is highlighted with a shade of blue.

Live chat, audio call, and video call requests

If the visitor requested a live chat, an audio call, or a video call, the appropriate view will open when you answer the request. The views in the Agent Desk are almost the same as the ones in the Floating Visitor UI. The main differences are that there is no option to pop the conversation into a separate window, and that the Agent Desk provides canned responses.

For more information on the other view controls, please consult the Floating Visitor UI guide.

Using canned responses

Canned responses are predefined text snippets that agents can use in live chats. They can include predefined placeholders for the agent’s and visitor’s names, as well as custom placeholders that must be replaced by the agent. Canned responses can be defined at the account, team, and user level.

To use a canned response in a conversation, type the appropriate keyboard shortcut in the text input field. Alternatively, press the Canned response icon Canned response icon next to the field. Both actions open the canned response dialog above the text input field:

The canned response dialog

The dialog lists all the canned responses available to the agent in the same language as the current conversation. The list is arranged in alphabetical order by title. Titles need not be unique, so each item also displays the beginning of the text of the canned response. This makes it easier to distinguish between canned responses.

The filter box above the list allows the agent to search through the titles of the canned responses. It doesn’t search through the texts of the canned responses. The picture above shows a canned response dialog after clicking on the icon and typing re in the text input field.

Canned responses with one or more custom placeholders have an arrow Arrow icon to their right. When you select such a canned response, the entire text of the canned response is displayed in the dialog, and you can replace the custom placeholders with content suited to the conversation.

There are two types of custom placeholders: text placeholders and multiple-choice placeholders.

Placeholders in the canned response dialog

Multiple-choice placeholders are shown as buttons with the label Select and the placeholder title. When you click on the button, the available options are listed for you to select from.

Selecting the value for a multiple-choice placeholder in a canned response

Text placeholders appear as boxes in the text. The box contains the hint defined for the canned response. When you select a text placeholder, the hint disappears and is replaced by the text you enter.

Text placeholder

As you can see in the picture above, you can use the same placeholder more than once in a canned response. Selecting or entering a value for the first occurrence of a placeholder applies the same value to all the other occurrences of that placeholder. You can only assign a value to the first occurrence of the placeholder. By default, the first occurrence of a placeholder is pale blue. Subsequent occurrences are gray.

Once you’re happy with the text, click Add to insert the text in the text input field. The button will only be available if you have assigned a value to every placeholder.

The canned response

You can continue to edit the text, either manually or by adding another canned response.

If you want to add a new line, use Alt+Enter or Shift+Enter.

When you have finished editing the message, press the Enter key or click the Send message icon Send message icon.

Collaborating during a call

If you decide to start collaborating during a call, the visitor will have to confirm they consent to it. They will receive a message that they must confirm in the chat panel. Although the chat panel icon in the Floating Visitor UI will show a badge, visitors might not realize they have to go there before they can start collaborating with you.

Refer to the relevant section of the Floating Visitor UI guide for further details.

Agent Desk settings menu

Clicking on the avatar in the upper right-hand corner of the Agent Desk opens the Agent Desk settings menu:

Agent Desk settings menu

Agent information

At the top of the menu, there is a brief summary of the agent’s details: their avatar, name, online status, and the team they’re in. The status shown here is mirrored by the badge in the lower right-hand corner of the avatar.

In the picture above, you can see that the agent logged in to the Agent Desk is called Charlotte Williams. She’s a member of the Call center team and is currently online.

Availability switch

The next element in the menu is a switch to toggle between the statuses Online and Away. The availability status you set here affects your status: if you toggle the switch to Away, your status will be changed to Unavailable, and the badge on your avatar will turn yellow to reflect this change. To disable these badges, refer to Disabling availability badges.

Status message

Beneath the availability switch is a link labeled Set status message. If you click on the link and enter a message in the text field that appears, the message will be displayed with your status in the secondary conversations tab in the inbox and in the user details popup when somebody clicks on your avatar in a conversation.

Once you enter a status message, the link is replaced by one labeled Edit status.

The status message appears in visitor interfaces like the Floating Visitor UI, too.

Notification status

The last entry in the first section of the settings menu shows your notification status. The agent in the screenshot above currently receives notifications. She’s also authorized to change her notification status herself.

Pausing notifications

If you’re allowed to pause notifications yourself, the menu entry opens the pause notifications menu:

Pause notifications menu

If you select the option Automatically, Unblu automatically pauses notifications when you’re on an audio or video call in Unblu, or when you open a collaboration layer. Depending on how your organization’s configured Unblu, it may also pause notifications for other reasons, such as meetings scheduled in your calendar, or calls in other applications like Skype.

Once the reason for pausing notifications ends, Unblu automatically resumes sending you notifications.

You can also choose to pause notifications for a specific duration. The pause notifications menu includes options for various predefined durations. Selecting the option Custom time opens a dialog where you can enter the date and time Unblu should resume sending you notifications:

Modal dialog to pause notifications for a custom time

The entry in the Agent Desk settings menu looks different depending on the option you choose:

  • If you pause notifications automatically, but notifications aren’t paused at present, the menu entry displays the notifications on icon Notifications on icon and looks like this:

    Notifications paused automatically
  • If you pause notifications automatically and notifications are currently paused, the menu entry displays the notifications paused icon Notifications paused icon and the reason for pausing notifications:

    Notifications paused automatically
  • If you haven’t paused notifications, the menu entry displays the notifications on icon, but it looks like this:

    Notifications not paused
  • If you pause notifications for a specific duration, the menu entry shows the notifications paused icon and the time Unblu will resume sending you notifications:

    Notifications paused for a specific time
Pausing notifications only affects web push notifications and mobile notifications. You still receive notifications in the Agent Desk.

Automatically paused notifications

If your organization’s configured Unblu to pause notifications automatically, you only see an entry when notifications are paused. The entry displays the notifications paused icon and the reason for pausing notifications:

Autopause notifications message in the Agent Desk settings menu

My settings

The next section of the menu is dedicated to various settings that will only affect the agent logged in.

Manage profile

The Manage profile link takes you to the General tab of your Agent Desk user profile.

General user profile tab

You can change a number of personal settings, including your first and last name and your username. To change your avatar, upload a new picture with the Select Image button.

If you want (or need) to change your password, select the Define password radio button. This will display two additional text fields for you to define and confirm your new password.

Define password

Remember to save any changes you make by clicking on the Save button. If you don’t, Unblu will display a dialog asking whether you want to discard the changes.

Discard changes modal dialog

If you want to save your changes, click on Keep editing to return to the main window, then click on Save.

You can’t edit your profile if it’s managed in an external system. You can still edit your canned responses and deputies, though.

Canned responses

Canned responses are predefined text snippets that you can use in chat messages. They help reduce the amount of typing you have to do for frequently used messages.

Canned responses can be defined for entire Unblu accounts, teams, or individual agents.

The Canned responses menu item opens the Canned responses tab of your Agent Desk user profile.

The canned responses tab

In the picture above, the agent has access to five canned responses:

  • The canned response under the heading My canned responses is only available to the agent.

  • The three canned responses under the heading Team canned responses I have access to are available to anyone in the agent’s team.

    The agent has access to canned responses from two different teams. This is because subteams inherit the canned responses of their parent teams.

  • The canned response under the heading Account canned responses is available to all the registered users of this Unblu account.

The overview pictured above belongs to a supervisor of the team "Client advisors". As a result, they can duplicate and delete not only their personal canned response, but also the one owned by the team that they supervise. That’s what the Copy Copy icon and Trash can Trash can icon icons are for.

The agent can see how many times they have used this canned response over a given period of time in the My uses column. Hovering over the information icon beside My uses shows the period of time configured.

For more information on how to use canned responses, see the section on using canned responses above.

Filtering canned responses

There are three different ways to influence the overview of canned responses.

Filtering

If you enter a term in the filter text field, only canned responses with that term in the key, title, text, or owner field will be shown.

Sorting

By default, canned responses are sorted by the name of their respective owners. You can choose to sort them by title, language, number of uses, text, owner type, or owner name instead.

If the canned responses are grouped, the sorting is applied in each group.

Grouping

By default, the canned responses are grouped by owner type, that is, agent, team, or account.

It’s also possible to group them by owner name. In that case, if you are a member of a team that’s a subteam of another team, the canned responses of your team and its parent team will be grouped separately.

Alternatively, you can choose not to group the canned responses at all and display them as a flat list.

Creating canned responses

The New canned response button opens a fly-in page where you can create a new canned response.

Fly-in page for new canned responses
  • The Choose language dropdown allows you to specify which language the canned response is in. When you open the canned response dialog in a conversation, it will only display canned responses in the same language as the conversation you are in.

  • If you are a supervisor or administrator, you can specify the scope of the canned response with the Choose scope dropdown. This allows you to create new canned responses for a team or the Unblu account, not just for yourself.

    You can only specify the scope of a canned response if you opened the overview of your canned responses. If you open the canned responses of a user, a team, or an account, the new canned response is automatically created within the scope of that user, team, or account, respectively.

    It isn’t possible to select another user as the scope of the canned response.

  • The Title is displayed in the canned response dialog above the text input field when you are in a text conversation. It should be a brief description of the canned response no more than 250 characters long.

    You can use the same title multiple times, or create a personal canned response with the same title as a canned response provided to your entire team. This is especially useful when you create canned responses in multiple languages but always want the title to be in your own language.

  • The Canned text is the text that should be inserted in the text field. If Markdown is enabled, you can use it in canned texts.

    If you type the dollar sign $ in the canned text input field, Unblu displays a list of the placeholders available for the canned text. The two predefined placeholders $(visitor_name) and $(agent_name) allow you to include a visitor’s name or your own name in a canned response without having to enter them. However, you can also define your own custom placeholders.

    You can also add a placeholder by clicking on the button sporting its title shown beneath the canned text input field .

Once you are happy with your new canned response, click on Save to save it. It appears in the canned response overview immediately.

Custom placeholders

Placeholders make it easier to adapt the text of a canned response to the particular circumstances of a conversation. This can make the same canned responses useful in multiple contexts, thereby reducing the number of canned responses you need to maintain.

To create a custom placeholder, click on Add placeholder beneath the Canned text field of the New canned response fly-in page. This opens a menu where you can choose the kind of placeholder you want to create:

  • Text field placeholders create a field in the canned text that you can fill with any text you like.

    Creating a new text field placeholder
    • The Placeholder title is used to select the placeholder and add it to a canned text. For example, to select the placeholder defined in the picture above, you would enter $(account number) in the canned text.

      Within each canned response, every placeholder title must be unique.

    • The hint appears in the canned response dialog in a chat conversation. Its purpose is to remind you of the content you should enter in the field.

  • Multiple-choice placeholders let you choose from a predefined set of choices.

    Creating a new multiple-choice placeholder
    • As with text field placeholders, the Placeholder title is used to select the placeholder and add it to a canned text. It can be up to 200 characters long and must be unique within a canned response.

    • In the section entitled Choices, add the different options agents should be able to choose from. Enter the text that should appear and click on the plus icon Plus icon.

      You must add at least two choices, and can add up to 16 choices. The choices must be unique within each multiple-choice placeholder.

Once you have finished setting up your custom placeholder, click on Update to make it available for use in the canned response.

Custom placeholders aren’t shared between canned responses. If you want to use the same placeholder in more than one canned response, you’ll have to add it to each canned response individually. Alternatively, you can duplicate the canned response from the canned response overview and then adapt the text.

Deputies

If your organization uses Unblu’s deputy delegation system, you may have a Deputies item in the Agent Desk settings menu. The menu item opens the Deputies tab of your profile.

*Deputies* tab in the Agent Desk

The tab displays all your deputies and shows which delegation level they’re assigned to. If you don’t respond to a conversation request sent to you personally, your level 1 deputies are notified. They can then accept the request in your place. If your level 1 deputies don’t respond to the request, your level 2 deputies are notified, and so on.

If you’re authorized to manage your deputies (like the agent in the picture), you can add and remove deputies, and move them to a different delegation level:

  • To add a new deputy, click on Add deputies. Next, select whether you want to add an agent or an entire team as your deputy. This opens a fly-in page where you can choose the deputy you want to add.

    The fly-in page only lists agents or teams that aren’t already your deputies.

    Use the My team filter to limit the list of possible deputies to agents in your team, or to your team and its subteams.

  • To move a deputy to a different delegation level, click on the options menu Kebab menu icon next to the deputy in question. Next, select which level you want to move the deputy to.

    Unblu moves the deputy to their new level immediately.

  • To remove a deputy, click on the delete button Bin icon next to the deputy. Doing so removes the deputy immediately.

If you can’t manage your deputies, the Add deputies, delete button, and options menu won’t be present. You’ll still be able to see who your deputies are.

Keyboard shortcuts

Keyboard shortcuts are an alternative way of completing an action that you would normally use your mouse for. The Agent Desk has an extensive set of keyboard shortcuts to make it easier to navigate the UI and to access various controls. UI elements that have a shortcut associated with them display that shortcut as a tooltip when you hover over the element with your cursor.

The Keyboard shortcuts item in the Agent Desk settings menu open a modal dialog that lists the current keyboard shortcuts.

Modal dialog that lists the keyboard shortcuts

The modifiers displayed are based on those available in your operating system. The default keyboard shortcuts have been chosen so as not to clash with the keyboard shortcuts used by common browsers.

If you prefer to specify your own keyboard shortcuts, click on Customize shortcuts to open the editing modal dialog:

Modal dialog to customize the keyboard shortcuts

To change a keyboard shortcut, first click on the modifier or modifiers that you want to use and enter a letter or number in the text field at the end of the line. It isn’t possible to change a shortcut by placing the cursor in the text field and pressing the combination of keys you wish to assign to the action in question.

Bear the following points in mind when customizing shortcuts:

  • Make sure that the shortcut you want to assign to an action isn’t already used by your browser.

  • You can create keyboard shortcuts with up to three modifiers. In the picture above:

    • Open the queue uses one modifier, Alt.

    • Open the inbox uses two modifiers, Ctrl+Alt.

    • Open the secondary inbox tab uses three modifiers, Ctrl+Alt+Shift.

      It’s strongly recommend that you include at least one modifier in each shortcut. If you create a shortcut without modifiers, or only with the Shift key as a modifier, you won’t be able to enter that character in a text field.

  • If you assign the same shortcut to more than one action, the Agent Desk will carry out all the actions.

    Suppose you wanted to ensure that you always turn your camera and microphone on or off together. In that case, you could define the same keyboard shortcut for both Toggle the camera in a call and Toggle the microphone in a call. When you use that shortcut, it will carry out both actions, turning both the camera and the microphone on or off.

Once you are happy with your custom shortcuts, click on Save.

If you wish to revert to the default keyboard shortcuts, click on Restore defaults.

Change language

The last option in the settings section opens a modal dialog that lets you change the language of the Agent Desk:

Change language modal dialog

Select the language you want the Agent Desk to be displayed in and click on OK.

Administration

Supervisors, Administrators, and Superadmins have an additional Administration section in the Agent Desk settings menu. All three user roles have a link labeled Manage account, which opens the Account Configuration interface.

If your organization uses the Unblu Conversational Bot and you’re an authorized content manager, the Administration section includes a link labeled Conversational Bot settings to launch the Bot Dialog Builder.

Superadmins also have a link labeled Manage global server settings, which opens the Global Server Configuration Interface.