Live chat lets an end user talk to your desk from the Outpost tray app on their computer, instead of filing a ticket and waiting. A technician who is taking chats is offered the conversation in the console, answers it, and ends it when the problem is solved. This page shows how to take chats, work the chat queue, review transcripts, and set chat policy for your endpoints.
Live chat is part of the service desk, so it is available on Enterprise and MSP. On Home Lab and Essentials, the tray app does not offer live chat or past chats. See Plan feature reference.
How live chat works
Section titled “How live chat works”- An end user selects Start a live chat in the Support view of the tray app. See Use the Outpost tray app.
- Outpost offers the chat to the technicians who are taking chats. The first to accept it holds it.
- The technician and the end user talk until one of them ends the chat. The end user can then rate it: It helped or It did not help.
- If no technician accepts the chat in time, it is marked missed and turned into a ticket, so somebody follows up.
Every chat is kept as a transcript.
Before you begin
Section titled “Before you begin”- To take chats, you need
chat:agent. To read transcripts of chats other technicians handled, you needchat:read. You can always read chats you handled yourself. See Roles and permissions. - Chat must be allowed for the endpoint by the
chat.enabledpolicy setting, which is on by default. See Set chat policy.
Take chats
Section titled “Take chats”- In the console header, select Not taking chats. It changes to Taking chats, and Outpost starts offering you chats.
- When a chat is offered, the Incoming chat window opens. Select Accept to take it, or Decline to leave it for someone else.
- Write in the chat panel. Enter sends.
- When the conversation is finished, select End chat.
While you hold chats, the header shows how many, such as 2 of 3 when you can hold three. To stop being offered chats, select Taking chats. Chats you already hold stay open. While you hold a chat and the chat panel is closed, selecting the button opens the panel instead.
If you are idle for too long while taking chats, Outpost marks you Away and stops offering you chats. Select Away to start taking chats again.
Work the chat queue
Section titled “Work the chat queue”The chat queue shows everyone waiting for a technician, longest wait first.
- Select Chat > Queue. On the MSP plan, select Chat queue to see waiting chats across every client.
- Check Waiting and Technicians taking chats at the top.
- Select Take it on a chat to take it straight away.
Review transcripts
Section titled “Review transcripts”- Select Chat > Transcripts. The list opens on the Last 30 days.
- Choose a view to narrow it: Nobody answered, Rated poorly, Nobody rated these, or Became a ticket.
- Select a chat to read it. The Details card shows the requester, when the chat ended and who ended it, its rating, and any ticket it is attached to.
Reading a chat that someone else handled is recorded in the audit log.
Turn a chat into a ticket
Section titled “Turn a chat into a ticket”When a chat needs follow-up work, keep it with a ticket.
- Open the chat from Chat > Transcripts.
- Do one of these:
- To create a ticket from the conversation, select Raise a ticket.
- To add the chat to a ticket the person already has, choose it in Attach an existing ticket.
A chat can be attached to one ticket. To remove the link, select Unlink.
A missed chat is turned into a ticket automatically, with the transcript.
Set chat policy
Section titled “Set chat policy”Chat behavior is set by policy settings on profiles, so it can differ between sites, device groups, and endpoints. See Profiles and Policy settings.
| Setting | Default | What it does |
|---|---|---|
chat.enabled | On | Whether people on the endpoint can start a chat from the tray app. If any profile that applies turns it off, it is off. |
chat.queue_seconds | 45 | How long a chat rings before it is marked missed and turned into a ticket, in seconds. 0 rings until the person gives up, and never creates a ticket. |
chat.away_minutes | 30 | How long a technician who is taking chats can be idle before they are marked away, in minutes. 0 never marks anyone away. |
chat.max_concurrent | 3 | How many chats one technician can hold at once. 0 means no limit. |
chat.retention_days | 365 | How many days a finished transcript is kept, counted from when the chat ended. 0 keeps transcripts until someone deletes them. |
Where several profiles set a number, the smallest positive value wins.
If something goes wrong
Section titled “If something goes wrong”The tray app says why chat is not offered:
| Message in the tray app | Cause | Fix |
|---|---|---|
| Live chat is turned off for this PC by your IT team. | chat.enabled is off for the endpoint. | Turn it on in a profile assigned to the endpoint. |
| Live chat is not available for your account. | The person is blocked from chat. | The block is the chatBlocked field on the person, changed with PATCH /api/v1/named-users/<person-id> and the identity:manage permission. The console has no control for it. |
| Live chat is not available on this PC. | Your plan does not include the service desk. A chat already running when the plan changed can finish. | Upgrade to Enterprise or MSP. Transcripts are kept and the tray shows past chats again once the plan includes the service desk. |
| Nobody is on the support desk right now. | No technician is taking chats. | Select Not taking chats in the console header to start taking chats. |
| You are not connected right now. | The endpoint is offline. | The end user can open a ticket, which is sent when the endpoint reconnects. |
Next steps
Section titled “Next steps”Content is licensed CC BY 4.0. Code samples are MIT. Outpost and the Outpost mark are trademarks of Outpost Business Solutions, PBC and are not covered by either license.