question Re: How to open virtual agent chat bot automatically when after page loading? in Virtual Agent, NLU forum

How to open virtual agent chat bot automatically when after page loading?

Community Alums — Fri, 13 Mar 2020 06:00:10 GMT

We have virtual agent chat in out home page of portal and we want it open/pop up automatically when page loading finishes. It there any way through programming or configuration setting to make it happen?

What exactly should be the code changes? I f somebody has done it earlier please paste it over here too.

Re: How to open virtual agent chat bot automatically when after page loading?

Mark Roethof — Fri, 13 Mar 2020 06:04:15 GMT

Hi there,

You mean something like this? Where the Service Portal Virtual Agent widget is already open? Instead of first clicking the icon? Should it also be always open, or should you also still be possible to close the widget?

This would certainly be possible. Unfortunatley though, you would need to clone and edit the Service Portal widget. As this is not an instance option.

If my answer helped you in any way, please then mark it as helpful.

Kind regards,
Mark
2020 ServiceNow Community MVP
2020 ServiceNow Developer MVP

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Re: How to open virtual agent chat bot automatically when after page loading?

Community Alums — Fri, 13 Mar 2020 06:45:18 GMT

Yes I want it to be opened instead of clicking but user can close if they want.

I want to know what should be the code changes exactly?

Re: How to open virtual agent chat bot automatically when after page loading?

Mark Roethof — Sat, 01 Aug 2020 15:05:02 GMT

- Clone the out-of-the-box widget
- Apply the cloned widget to your Service Portal page or header/footer
- Update the Client controller and CSS script like below

If my answer helped you in any way, please then mark it as helpful.

Kind regards,
Mark
2020 ServiceNow Community MVP
2020 ServiceNow Developer MVP

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Re: How to open virtual agent chat bot automatically when after page loading?

previsti — Wed, 12 Aug 2020 15:03:33 GMT

Do you happen to know if this would create the interaction or chat record when the page loads? I'm asking because I have a use-case where I need to allow the service agents to initiate conversations with users logged in to the Service Portal, and I was given the suggestion that perhaps if the Virtual Agent could automatically initiate a chat on-load that we could then hijack the conversation from the Virtual Agent whenever a service agent needed to message one of the users through the chat box.

Re: How to open virtual agent chat bot automatically when after page loading?

dants — Thu, 13 Aug 2020 07:02:54 GMT

Nice solution from Mark, as ever.

If you're cloning the widget, there is another way, which is to trigger the toggleWindow() function in the widget Client controller. You could do this every time the widget loads, or introduce some controls over it by using a $scope.on listener in the VA widget, and then doing a broadcast/emit from any other widgets on your page.

As an example of the latter, we show calculate and show counts of open requests and approvals in the our SC portal header. When the header loads, we check for the page id (only on the home page) and whether there are open requests or approvals. If these conditions are met,we make that broadcast, which is picked up by the VA widget listener and calls the toggleWindow() function.

Re: How to open virtual agent chat bot automatically when after page loading?

shaikha — Wed, 18 Nov 2020 09:29:35 GMT

@Mark Roethof thank you for detail explanation.

I have cloned virtual agent widget and kept it in footer.

In above it is opening on initial home page load as well so How to restrict to open virtual agent window to first click that means if user logged in i don't want virtual agent window to open.

only when user click on it should open but when user has opened virtual agent it should be opened in next page of the portal how to achieve this ?

once i click on the incident link it is opening other page on the other page virtual agent window is not active if i have to open again i have to click. i saw client script and CSS but it didn't helped.

I have cloned it and configured it in footer if i use agent chat configuration it is behaving as i have explained (when VA is open it is still open in next page of portal)

please help if i am going wrong somewhere.

please help @Mark Roethof

Re: How to open virtual agent chat bot automatically when after page loading?

Amarendra3 — Tue, 29 Dec 2020 15:46:13 GMT

Hi dants,

I tried to call the toggleWindow() function inside div tag, but was not able to open the chat bot on load.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

</div>

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Can you help to identify the issue or appropriate way of calling function.

Thanks you in advance.

Re: How to open virtual agent chat bot automatically when after page loading?

Amarendra3 — Tue, 29 Dec 2020 15:49:10 GMT

Hi Marks,

It really helped to achieve the desired result. But eve after closing the VA, the area reserved for the VA is unresponsive( any thing that is under the virtual agent iframe area is unclickable).

Any help to overcome this issue.

Thank you in advance.

Re: How to open virtual agent chat bot automatically when after page loading?

Lener Pacania1 — Fri, 22 Jan 2021 14:46:56 GMT

Hi Mark,

Will your solution only work for the legacy Virtual Agent widget? Will this also work for the new Virtual Agent chat widget that we access via Service Portal > Agent Chat?

Best Regards, Lener

Re: How to open virtual agent chat bot automatically when after page loading?

sabreensm — Mon, 04 Oct 2021 19:52:09 GMT

Hi Lener,

Were you able to find a way to do this via the new Agent Chat ?

Thanks,

Sabreen

Re: How to open virtual agent chat bot automatically when after page loading?

Lener Pacania1 — Mon, 04 Oct 2021 20:41:05 GMT

Hi Sabreen,

The customer I was working with was ok using the legacy VA widget since it wasn't being deprecated in Quebec. -Lener

Re: How to open virtual agent chat bot automatically when after page loading?

Les4 — Wed, 03 Nov 2021 09:00:50 GMT

Hi I have made the changes to the code as directed but for some reason after closing the widget the part where it was open is no longer responsive. and again noticed there is a red dot on the widget and i don't want that. TA

Re: How to open virtual agent chat bot automatically when after page loading?

vijay131 — Thu, 16 Dec 2021 14:21:27 GMT

Hi Mark.

I checked it , there is no such code in the client controller.Below is the code we have in client controller

function detfn($window){
//console.log("username", $window.NOW.user_display_name);
var details=$window.NOW.user_name;
var uuisuserid=$window.NOW.session_id;
var displaynm = $window.NOW.user_display_name;
var uemail = $window.NOW.user_email;
var uavatar = $window.NOW.user_avatar;
var uid = $window.NOW.user_id;
uID(uid);
userAvatar(uavatar);
userEmail(uemail);
userDisplayName(displaynm);
userlang(g_lang);
//console.log("windoes.now is this", $window.NOW.session_id)
userDetailsfn(details);
sessionidfn(uuisuserid);
c.uuemail = $window.NOW.user_email;
//console.log("this is user details", details);
}

Re: How to open virtual agent chat bot automatically when after page loading?

Mark Roethof — Thu, 16 Dec 2021 15:59:47 GMT

Maybe this helps:
Toggling Virtual Agent chat client (using Agent Chat configuration!), manually, automatically, using Typeahead Search

Kind regards,
Mark
2020, 2021 ServiceNow Community MVP
2020, 2021 ServiceNow Developer MVP

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Re: How to open virtual agent chat bot automatically when after page loading?

Ryax — Thu, 17 Mar 2022 10:17:51 GMT

Hi Mark,

Thanks for this solution, I just have one question; why did you set the hasUnreadMessages variable to true (line 10)? I found that setting this to true forced the system into thinking there were unread messages and therefore displayed the small red notification icon, I therefore instead set this to false which removed this icon.

Thanks

Rich

Re: How to open virtual agent chat bot automatically when after page loading?

Mark Roethof — Thu, 17 Mar 2022 12:24:16 GMT

No clue, this is already from more than 2 years ago. Also I'm not looking at this solution anymore, since this is about the legacy Service Portal widget.

Kind regards,
Mark

Re: How to open virtual agent chat bot automatically when after page loading?

Cindy26 — Wed, 23 Mar 2022 19:33:19 GMT

Mark, I followed these steps and was able to get the Virtual Agent to auto-load when the portal page loads.

The problem now is that users are complaining that they cannot close or minimize the chat window at all.

It seems to be appearing over the top of the original Virtual Agent (which has an "x" at the bottom where you can hide/minimize it) but this widget we've created here doesn't have that function.

How can we allow the user to minimize the chat window? See attached.

(the 'x' in the upper right only allows you to end a conversation, not close the window).

Re: How to open virtual agent chat bot automatically when after page loading?

Mark Roethof — Wed, 23 Mar 2022 19:44:21 GMT

Hi there,

Consider opening a new community post for this.

Anyway, my first question would be:
- Are you using Agent Chat configuration
OR
- Are you using the legacy Service Portal widget (or a cloned version). If so, why? Why not the preferred ServiceNow method, which is Agent Chat configuration.

Yes the answer above is on the legacy Service Portal widget, though this is also already a post from 2 years ago.

For Agent Chat configuration, I did wrote an article how to open the web client automatically. See my Virtual Agent articles.

If my answer helped you in any way, please then mark it as helpful.

Kind regards,
Mark
2020-2022 ServiceNow Community MVP
2020-2022 ServiceNow Developer MVP

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Re: How to open virtual agent chat bot automatically when after page loading?

Cindy26 — Wed, 23 Mar 2022 20:04:57 GMT

Mark, thank you for the quick reply!

We are using the legacy Service Portal Widget. We implemented ServiceNow late 2020 and that it is how it was setup for us so that's just what we've been using.

Honestly, I wasn't aware that a different option existed and I'm not even sure I know what Agent Chat is or the difference between the two.

That being said, would you mind sharing a link to your article regarding how to open the web client automatically? I've been searching here and have found quite a few but want to make sure I am referencing the correct one.

Thank you!