General Messaging Settings Live Chat and SMS/Text

General Messaging Settings Live Chat and SMS/Text

General Messaging Settings

Each Live Chat and SMS/Text Portal in your system has associated 'General Settings', as follows:
  1. From the main Messaging page, click the ‘IM and SMS Settings’ link in the top right corner of the page
  2. Select the named portal you wish to edit from the portal drop-down list at the top of the page
  3. Click the 'General Settings' tab to edit the overall settings for the selected portal
The following settings are available for configuration:
  1. Term to use when referring to the person at your agency in the chat
  2. Minimum security level for monitoring chat
  3. Minimum security level to see “All other conversations” queue
  4. Minimum security level to disable messaging or portal
  5. Maximum number of concurrent conversations per person

Minimum security level to disable messaging or portal

The 'Minimum security level to disable messaging or portal' setting allows you to set the advanced security level that a Vols-Staff member must have to be able to take your portal temporarily offline.
During a currently staffed messaging shift, Vols-Staff members that have this enabled, will see a link and a drop-down list tool at the top of the main Messaging page, allowing them to temporarily set the portal(s) offline. 

To edit this setting, complete the following steps:
  1. From the main Messaging page, click the ‘IM and SMS Settings’ link in the top right corner of the page
  2. Select the named portal you wish to edit from the portal drop-down list at the top of the page
  3. By default the 'General Settings' tab is selected
  4. Adjust the 'Minimum security level to disable messaging or portal' setting as you wish
  5. Click the ‘Save’ button and users set to the selected security level, who have permission to access Messaging, will now be able to take your portal temporarily offline

Maximum number of concurrent conversations per person

The 'Maximum number of concurrent conversations per person' setting allows you to set the maximum number of conversations that can be automatically routed to 'Your conversations' (a users personal queue), as opposed to the default setting to route all conversations to 'Waiting in Queue' (the general queue).

Once the above setting is enabled, in order for it to be effective, at least one user with permission to access Messaging must:

  1. be logged into iCarol at the time a help seeker starts a new Messaging conversation, and
  2. be assigned to a Messaging shift, and
  3. select 'New incoming conversations: I am available to have them routed to me', from the drop-down list setting at the top of the main Messaging page
Once the settings are configured, the following will occur when a new conversation is started by a help seeker:
  1. the conversation will automatically be assigned to whoever has selected 'I am available to have them routed to me' up to the maximum number in this setting, in a round robin type fashion
  2. once the maximum number is reached by all users available, any additional conversations requests are sent to 'Waiting in queue' to be manually selected by any user
  3. regardless how this setting is set, users can manually accept and join as many messaging conversations as they want; if you want to limit this, you will have to set internal policies. 
Note, if the 'Maximum number of concurrent conversations per person' setting was never enabled for your organization, the 'New incoming conversations:' setting is ignored and all conversations are always routed to 'Waiting in Queue'.
The 'Maximum number of concurrent conversations per person' setting can only be accessed by the iCarol Support Team. If you would like to adjust this setting, have a designated support contact from your organization go to 'Help'.

Chat Information fields explained

If your organization is subscribed to Messaging (either Live Chat and/or SMS/Text), then a 'Chat Information' category is automatically added to the associated call report form. Under this category, the following four Groups are added, and auto-populated in contact records, based on the scenarios outlined below:
  1. Source Portal: This Group will be auto-populated with the name of the Portal the Messaging (Live Chat or SMS/Text) conversation came in on
  2. Chat Answered: This Group will be auto-populated with 'No' to indicate the Live Chat help seeker clicked 'End Chat' before the iCarol vols-staff joined the conversation, and it will be auto-populated with ‘Yes’ when the iCarol vols-staff joins the conversation before the conversation is ended (by either the help seeker or the iCarol vols-staff).
    1. Note, since this field is only auto-populated with 'No' when the 'End Chat' button is clicked by the Live Chat help seeker, this means 'Yes' will always be auto-populated in SMS/Text conversations.  
  3. Counselor Response Time: This Group will be auto-populated with the time, in seconds, between when the Messaging (Live Chat or SMS/Text) conversation entered the queue, and when the conversation was joined by an iCarol vols-staff.
    1. Note, this Group will not contain a time if the visitor clicked 'End Chat' before the iCarol vols-staff joined the conversation
  4. Visitor Exit Time: This Group will be auto-populated with the time, in seconds, between when the Messaging conversation entered the queue, and when the visitor clicked the 'End Chat' button. This Group will not contain a time if the visitor did not click the 'End Chat' button.
    1. Note, since this field is only populated if the help seeker clicks the 'End Chat' button, this field will never populate for SMS/Text conversations, and will only populate for Live Chat conversations.

Managing Messaging Settings

Once the Live Chat or SMS feature has been turned on, there are a number of settings that you have access to in order to customize it to meet your business needs. To access these settings:
  1. Click Messaging in the left hand menu
  2. Click 'IM and SMS Settings' located at the top right side of the page
  3. Each Messaging service is set-up into a Portal. Select the drop-down list and select the Portal, or Messaging service you wish to edit. 
  4. Settings are broken into tabs: General Settings, IM Settings, SMS Settings, and Standard Messages.

General Settings tab

These are the general settings available for your Messaging service(s). If you have more than one Messaging Portal (or service) then these settings will apply to all of those Portals.
  1. Term to use when referring to the person at your agency in the chat: This will appear in messages sent to the help seeker referring to the Vols-Staff member. For example, if you enter counselor for this setting, then the message that will be sent to the help seeker when a Vols-Staff has joined the session is ‘The counseloer has joined the conversation’. 
  2. Minimum security level for monitoring chat: This setting allows you to set the advanced security level that a Vols-Staff member must have to be able to monitor sessions between other Vols-Staff members and a help seeker. Monitoring a session means the Vols-Staff member can see the chat as it is happening, and they can join/take over the session if the counselor needs assistance.
  3. Minimum security level to see “All other conversations” queue: This setting allows you to set the advanced security level that a Vols-Staff member must have to be able to see the “All other conversations queue”. You will need to have this setting to be the same or lower than the setting for ‘Minimum security level for monitoring chats’. Seeing the “All other conversations queue” allows the Vols-Staff member to see a list of all of the current conversations and to open any of those sessions to monitor them. This setting does not allow the Vols-Staff member to join/take over any sessions. 
  4. Minimum security level to disable messaging or portal: This setting allows you to set the advanced security level that a Vols-Staff member must have to be able to take your portal temporarily offline. During a currently staffed messaging shift, Vols-Staff members that have this enabled, will see a link at the top of their main Messaging page that says ‘Current status: Your organization is currently Online – Click here to set Offline’. If the link is clicked, then your organization will be set as ‘Offline.’ Help seekers will receive your offline message if this link is clicked until you manually click ‘Current status: Your organization is currently Offline – Click here to set Online’ to re-enable your messaging service.
  5. Maximum number of concurrent conversations per person: By default, iCarol will not assign a new session to a Vols-Staff member, instead it will put the session request into "Waiting in queue". If you want to have iCarol automatically assign an incoming session to a Vols-Staff member then this setting must be set to any number above zero (0). This number tells iCarol how many active sessions a Vols-Staff member can have at the one time. Once you set a number for this setting, in order for it to be effective, at least one Vols-Staff member who has permission to access chat must be logged into iCarol and have selected 'New incoming conversations: I am available to have them routed to me' from the Messaging main page. When both of these things happen, then when a session is started by a help seeker, it will automatically be assigned to whoever has selected "I am available to have them routed to me" up to the maximum number in this settings in a round robin type fashion. Once the maximum number is reached by all Vols-Staff members available, any additional session requests will be sent to "Waiting in queue" to be manually selected by any available user. If this setting is left at zero (0), then any session request will go to 'Waiting in queue', regardless of what the Vols-Staff has selected for the setting "New incoming conversations" from the Messaging main page. Many clients leave this setting at zero (0) when their Vols-Staff are also answering phones, or performing other tasks while taking messaging sessions. Regardless how this setting is set, Vols-Staff can manually take and engaged in as many active messaging sessions as they want. If you want to limit this, you will have to set internal policies. This setting can only be accessed by a member of the iCarol Support team. If you would like the setting adjusted to something other than 0, then contact the iCarol Support team. 

IM Settings tab

These settings are only available if you have the Live Chat (or Instant Messaging (IM)) feature turned on in the selected portal.
  1. Message to appear as first message in conversation: The text entered in the ‘Message to appear as first message in conversation’ textbox is automatically sent to the help seeker when they initiate the conversation. It appears as the first message sent in the conversation, and is sent before the iCarol vols-staff joins the conversation.
  2. Message to appear when visitor is waiting in queue: The text entered in the ‘Message to appear when visitor is waiting in queue’ textbox automatically appears as in a pop-up window for the help seeker when they’re waiting for an iCarol vols-staff to join the conversation.
  3. Terms and Conditions for public users: The message entered in the ‘Terms and Conditions for public users’ textbox is placed on a separate page in iCarol for your help seekers, accessed by clicking a link that’s part of a message they must check before being able to proceed with accessing your live chat service. If this textbox is left blank, the help seekers directed to a page that just says ‘Terms and Conditions’.
  4. IM Counselor Joined: The text entered in the ‘IM Counselor Joined’ textbox is automatically sent to the help seeker when the iCarol vols-staff accepts the conversation, by completing the steps outlined in the related Help Article.
  5. IM Counselor Ended: The text entered in the ‘IM Counselor Ended’ textbox appears in the conversation transcript for the iCarol vols-staff after they click the ‘End Chat’ button in their conversation window.
    2. Note, since help seekers are automatically redirected to either your post chat survey page, or a generic ‘chat has ended’ page, they never see this message. Instead, this message is used to indicate in the transcript whether the iCarol vols-staff, or help seeker ended the chat first.
    3. A generic message also appears in the iCarol vols-staff transcript that indicates if the help seeker leaves the conversation first, which is ‘[help seeker’s name] has left the meeting’. This means if this message doesn’t appear in the transcript, and instead just the ‘IM Counselor Ended’ message appears, then you know the iCarol vols-staff ended the conversation, not the help seeker.
  6. IM handling instructions: The message entered in the ‘IM handling instructions’ textbox is placed in a pop-up window for your iCarol vols-staff, accessed by clicking the ‘Instructions’ button located at the bottom the conversation window.
  7. Custom Privacy Policy: The message entered in the ‘Custom Privacy Policy’ textbox is placed on a separate page in iCarol for your help seekers, accessed by clicking a ‘Privacy Policy’ link located at the bottom of every page the help seeker sees throughout the conversation, which are the: chat registration page, conversation page, and post-chat survey or page
  8. Allow anonymous registrations: When the ‘Allow Anonymous Registrations’ setting is enabled, it allows help seekers to leave certain required questions unanswered, and still proceed to access your live chat service. Help seekers can choose to register anonymously by selecting a checkbox in your pre-chat survey that becomes visible at the top of the registration page when this setting is enabled. Selecting this setting within a named portal causes the following to happen, depending on the types of fields visible in your pre-chat survey:
    2. If Standard Registration fields are visible in your pre-chat survey, and if those fields are marked as required, the ‘Name’ and ‘Email’ fields are the only fields that will disappear, and therefore aren’t required to answer before the help seeker can proceed to access your live chat service
    3. If Standard Registration fields are visible in your pre-chat survey, and if those fields aren’t marked as required, all the fields will disappear
    4. If Custom Registration fields are visible in your pre-chat survey, they’ll never disappear. If any of the fields are marked as required, they’ll always be required for the help seeker to answer before they can proceed to access your live chat service
  9. Enable IM restriction: see below
  10. Disable visitors until counselor joins: When the 'Disable visitors until counselor joins' setting is enabled, it disables help seekers from sending messages in the conversation until one of your users has accepted the conversation. When the help seeker tries to click in the conversation window where they’d normally type a message, they’re unable to.
    2. This setting is helpful if you want to make sure help seekers in crisis aren’t sending a series of messages in the conversation, thinking they are being ignored, when really your user just hasn’t joined the conversation yet.  
    3. You can configure your Live Chat Automatic Messages accordingly to ensure your help seekers are seeing appropriate text when they’re waiting to talk with one of your users.
  11. Hide visitor’s IP: When the 'Hide visitor’s IP' setting is enabled, it hides the help seekers IP address from appearing to your users within the conversation window. When this setting is disabled, the IP address and the location associated with the IP address appear to your users within the conversation window. If location fields are enabled in the call report form, then the location associated with the IP address is automatically populated into the location fields of the call report.
  12. Disable geographic fields: This setting is no longer in use, and has been replaced by the Standard Registration fields; read the related Help Article to learn more about these fields. It will be removed from the IM Settings tab soon.
  13. Disable create user: When the ‘Disable create user’ setting is selected, it removes fields on the pre-chat survey page that give help seekers the option to create a username. When this setting isn’t selected, help seekers are given the option to create a username, the following fields become visible at the bottom of the pre-chat survey page: User name, Password, Confirm Password.
    2.  After a help seeker creates a user name, there are fields that are visible at the top of the pre-chat survey page where they can login using their account information. This makes it so the help seeker doesn’t have to answer your pre-chat survey questions, and instead any answers they previously selected in your will be automatically populated into the new conversation.
  14. Standard Registration fields: see below
  15. Set Coverage Area: see below

Configuring and Installing Live Chat on your website

iCarol offers two ways to configure your Help-seeker experience when they access your Live Chat Messaging Services.  You may choose to use the modern mobile responsive Live Chat Popup Messaging Widget, or the Traditional Status Button, or a combination of both. Once configured, iCarol provides code which can be installed on your website.

See the Live Chat - Help-seeker Experience Configuration article for details and set up instructions.

Set Coverage Area (IM or SMS Restriction)

When the 'Enable IM restriction' or 'Enable SMS area restriction' settings are enabled, it allows your organization to use the IM Coverage Area feature, which makes it so help seekers can only access your live chat service if they live within a set area. If the help seeker is determined as being outside of your area, they'll be redirected to a web page that provides a list of resources that may serve their area.

For this setting to function optimally, use the chart below to determine what your 'IM Settings' location visibility and requirements should be set to, depending on what your most specific coverage area is set to, or see the end of this help article for information about using a help seeker's IP address to determine their location:
Coverage Area Set To… Country State/Province City Zip/Postal Code
Country Visible & Required Optional Optional Optional
State/Province Hidden Hidden Optional Visible & Required
City Hidden Hidden Optional Visible & Required
Zip/Postal Code Hidden Hidden Optional Visible & Required

To enable or disable this setting, complete the following steps:
  1. From the main Messaging page, click the ‘IM and SMS Settings’ link in the top right corner of the page
  2. Select the named portal you wish to edit from the portal drop-down list at the top of the page
  3. Click the 'IM Settings' or 'SMS Settings' tab, depending on the type of Portal you're updating
  4. Select or deselect the checkbox next to the setting ‘Enable IM restriction’ or 'Enable SMS area restriction'
  5. Scroll down to the bottom of the IM Settings tab and under the IM Coverage Area Settings section begin typing the location(s) you wish to include in the portals coverage area, using the 'Type coverage area address' search bar
    1. Note, if you aren't seeing a location you wish to add, try typing the abbreviation for the location (ex. CA for Canada or NY for New York) and you should get the results you're looking for
  6. Select the desired location(s) from the auto-suggest drop-down list and click 'Add coverage area'
  7. Click the ‘Save’ button when you are done adding each location you wish to include
  8. Note, to access the location fields (referenced in the table above), click the 'IM Settings' tab and use the settings found under 'Standard fields on the visitor registration screen.' section to control which fields are visible and required; this section is also used for SMS/Text Portals, even though it's located on the 'IM Settings' tab
Important Notes
  1. This tool is currently only supported for clients in the United States and Canada, and only locations within the same Country as your organization can be defined as a coverage area
  2. This tool is not currently supported with the Updated Pre-Text Survey; you must use the Original URL Pre-Text Survey feature to use this tool
  3. If you'd like to set your coverage area to an entire country (ex. United States or Canada), for Live Chat conversations you may choose to use the help seeker's IP Address to determine their location, instead of asking them to self identify where they are located. To do this, simply hide all Standard Registration location fields, add an entire country country as your coverage area, and click 'Save'. When a help seeker with an IP address located outside of the set coverage area visits your registration page, they'll be redirected to a page that tells them they're outside of your coverage area, and provides a list of resources that may be able to help them.
    1. Keep in mind there is a risk when using a help seeker's IP Address to determine their location, in that the location determined may not be accurate. Help seekers have the ability to change the location associated with their IP Address by using different a VPN or other software available to the public.

SMS Settings tab

These settings will only be available if you have the SMS/Text feature enabled in the selected portal.
  1. SMS initial message: is the first (optional) auto message that is sent when an SMS visitor comes to chat. This area is useful for STOP instructions. Nothing is sent if this area is left blank. An example of a message you might want to set is ‘Welcome to Elmdale text line. Reply yes to continue or STOP to cancel. Msg rates may apply.’
  2. SMS welcome message: this is the second (optional) auto message that is sent when an SMS visitor comes to chat, and it will be sent after the SMS initial message.
  3. SMS response when visitor is waiting in queue: this is the message that will be sent to the SMS visitor when they are waiting in queue.
  4. Settings to Test Mobile Numbers: enter mobile numbers here that are used by your organization for testing purposes. SMS Registration will be required each time this number initiates a new Chat.
  5. SMS response when your agency is offline: this is the message that will be sent to SMS visitors who text your number while your agency is ‘Offline’.
  6. SMS Handling Instructions: the message typed here will be available to your workers from within the chat screen. They can click on the icon associated with "Handling Instructions", and this message will appear which can be used to offer guidance on how to handle SMS conversations. 
  7. Guidelines and policies for SMS: this is the message that will be sent to SMS visitors after they complete the registra

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