Client User Guide

The login screen will appear when opening the client. Every user will have their own username and password, as given out by an administrator. All details other than the password are remembered.

On your first login, you will also be asked to enter the WhosOn server and the authentication string. These will be provided by an administrator.

Each user will have their own User name and Password, as set up by an Administrator user. The WhosOn Server and Authentication string will be the same for all users inside an organisation, and should match the details on the original setup email from WhosOn.

The WhosOn Client connects through it’s own port. If you have a firewall or proxy in place, you may need to allow outbound connections over port 8011 to the WhosOn server.

Users can have different rights and permissions inside the Client – logging in as an Administrator user will show you different options inside the Client than other users.

Setting status

Your status determines whether or not you are available to chat. You will only see notifications for new chats when your status is set to Online; not if your status is Busy, Be Right Back or Away. Your status is visible to other agents.

Settings a status message will not affect your availability, but it will be visible to other agents.

Setting personal options

The ‘Settings’ icon allows you to toggle certain options on and off. These are personal options and do not affect other agents.

Keep running in system tray when window closed – When enabled, and you close the Client window, it will continue running in the background and you will still receive any notifications
Show popup notifications – When enabled, you will see pop-up notifications for important events in WhosOn, even if the Client is minimised or running in the system tray
- Show popup notifications for new visitors – When enabled, you will see pop-up notifications when a new visitor arrives on your website
Enable spell checking – When enabled, incorrectly spelled words will be highlighted. Right-clicking will give suggestions to correct the words
Logout when computer locked – When enabled, the Client will log you out whenever the Windows lock screen is used
Auto monitor all chats – When enabled, you will automatically monitor all chats in progress for all agents
Show all visitors on start – When the program starts, it will load a list of all the current visitors. When turned off, you will only see visitors from the point that you log in
Show only icons on the toolbar – Removes text labels to show only icons on the side toolbar
Show other users active chats in the active chats view – When checked, the active chats view will let you see chats that are currently in progress with other agents, as well as your own chats
Cache operator to operator chats – Allows you to select how long messages within an operator to operator chat are cached on your machine
Show operators in team view grouped by current status – When checked, the operators list in the team view will group users by status rather than in a single alphabetical list

Picking up a chat

If you are not configured to automatically pick up chats, and your status is set to Online, then you will be notified when a visitor requests a chat from the site. This notification will appear even if the Client is minimised, and clicking it will open the chat window and begin the chat with that visitor.

You will also be able to manually accept a chat by clicking it from the Chats panel of the Client.

If Chat Routing is configured, only Users with the relevant skill will be notified of an incoming chat. Users without that skill may be able to pick up the chat from the Client, depending on their User account permissions.

If chats are not set to be auto-accepted, all available users will see a chat notification. The first user to click the notification will pick up the chat; any others users clicking the notification will see a message to say the chat has already been taken.

A chat that is not immediately picked up will send reminder notifications every 30 seconds until it is picked up, times out or the visitor leaves.

Chat window

The chat window is what you will see when chatting with a website visitor. You will see messages sent by both you and the visitor, as well as a preview of what the visitor is currently typing.

Messages sent by yourself or the visitor will appear immediately in the chat window. You will also see Server messages here, for example when the chat is transferred or closed by the visitor, but these messages are not visible to the visitor.

As long as it is enabled in your site settings, you will see a preview of what the visitor is currently typing. This shows anything entered in the chat box by the visitor, even if they never send the message. The visitor will see a notification when you are typing back, but they will never see a preview of what you are typing.

Chat options

The visitor's status and current mood (based on the conversation so far) are shown above a summary of their information. You can see more information about the options by hovering over them.

The mood indicator only appears once enough has been said in the conversation to identify it as positive or negative, indicated by a happy or sad face near the visitor’s name.

As you start typing, the text box will pop up with suggestions based on your recently sent responses. There are options at the side for inserting emoji or canned responses, as well as sending and receiving files.

Close Chat Ends the current chat for you and the visitor
Transfer Chat Transfers the chat to another user, or a group of users
Request Monitoring Sends a notification to a moderator user to monitor the current chat
Email Transcript Allows you to email a transcript of the chat so far
Save As Only available if ticketing is enabled, this will take the transcipt of the chat and create a ticket
Block Visitor Places a temporary block on the visitor’s IP address, preventing them from requesting a chat for the rest of the day

The chat options are only available to you during an active chat session, while the chat is in wrap-up (after the visitor has left but before you close the chat) you will still have access to Email Transcript and Save As.