Messaging Status and Shifts

Messaging Status and Shifts

Messaging status Offline/Online

The messaging shift readiness status will indicate that your service is available by displaying “Currently within a staffed Messaging shift time”.  If your service is not available, “Currently not within a staffed Messaging shift time” will be displayed.

To ensure that your organization is online and available to receive messages (chat/SMS) you must have a shift on your shift calendar for Instant messaging and/or SMS covering the time you would like your organization to be available and it must be staffed with one of your staff or volunteers assigned to that shift.

Admins have the overriding ability to temporarily stop more Messaging conversations from coming in by taking the organization offline (Click on the link "Your organization is currently Online - Click here to set Offline"). This prevents new visitors from being able to start a new conversation and it is reflected in the shift readiness status. By default, only Admins can change this status. If you wish to extend this capability to other workers, eg. all Enhanced workers, this can be done via the Instant Messaging and SMS settings page.

If you have more than one messaging service, for example chat and sms services or 2 chat services and one sms service, then you are able to take each messaging service, or portal, offline, and put it back online separately, depending on your needs. For those that have more than one messaging service, a log will show the last three times this action has taken place. This log is not shown if you have only one messaging service. This is intended to help Admins better manage when the "Take Offline" option was exercised for each of the services they offer.

To prevent chats/SMS from coming in during a period of time (example: holidays) where there will be no staff or volunteers available to answer chats, the shifts must be removed or not staffed on the shift calendar.

How To Temporarily Set Messaging Portals Offline

There may be times when it would be beneficial to temporarily take your Messaging services offline during a time when you are usually online. 

When using the tool to take messaging services temporarily offline, be aware of the following:
  1. You can only take messaging portals temporarily offline after the portal is set online, using a Messaging Shift
  2. Live Chat and SMS/Text conversations that are already in progress will continue
  3. Any help seekers waiting in the queue will also remain there
  4. No new help seekers will be able to join the queue. If they attempt to begin a Live Chat conversation, they will receive a message that says "We apologize...The Chat is currently unavailable.  Please try back later"; if they attempt to begin an SMS conversation, they will receive your SMS offline message.
  5. You must set the portal(s) back 'Online'; the status will remain 'Offline' until manually set back 'Online'
  6. By default, only Admins can take Messaging services offline; read this help article to learn how to adjust this setting
If you only have one Live Chat or SMS/Text Portal, complete the following steps to set your portal offline temporarily, and to set it back online:
  1. Click 'Messaging' in your left side menu
  2. At the top of the page, next to Current Status, click the link that says "Your organization is currently online - Click here to set Offline"
  3. When you are ready to set your organization back online, click the link next to Current status that says "Your organization is currently Offline - Click here to set Online"
When you complete these steps to set a portal offline, your Portal Legend still display as if your portals are online, and you can still complete testing using your Portal Legend. But if you, or a help seeker tries to send a text message to your SMS/Text Portal, or tries to access your Live Chat Portal through your website, the offline messages explained above will appear.

If you have more than one Live Chat or SMS/Text Portal, complete the following steps to set your portals offline temporarily, and to set them back online:
  1. You can follow the instructions above to take all portals offline
  2. If you wish to take a certain portal offline, choose the portal name from the drop down menu labeled "Online Portal(s)" found just below the Current Status link
  3. Once the portal is selected, click "[Set Selected Portal Offline]", found just below the drop-down menu
  4. To set the portal back online, select the Portal name from the drop-down menu and click "[Set Selected Portal Online]"
When you complete these steps to set an individual portal offline, the selected portal disappears from your Portal Legend until the portal is set back online.

Messaging Shifts

Add a Messaging Shift

Messaging Shifts (either for Live Chat or SMS/Text) are required to set your portals online. The first task is to create messaging shifts associated with the portal, and the second task is to register users for the messaging shifts.

Task 1: Create Messaging Shifts
Adding Messaging Shifts are similar to adding regular Shifts in iCarol, but there are a few important differences you must be aware of that make Messaging Shifts unique. When creating or editing messaging shifts, it is important to note the following criteria must be met in order for the portal features (ex. SMS/Text or Live Chat service appearing as online or offline, Mobile Alerts for new conversations, your Portal Legend, etc.) to function properly:
  1. from the 'Program' drop-down list at the top of the page, the associated Portal Program must be selected; it is important 'all programs' or a program not associated with a portal aren't selected, and
  2. for the field 'Shift is for iCarol Messaging' at the bottom of the page, only one messaging type field (Instant Messaging/Live Chat or 2-way SMS/Texting) can be selected; it is important you don't select both of them in one shift
Task 2: Choose Option to Register Users for Messaging Shifts & Register Users As Appropriate
When setting up your Messaging Shifts, you have a few options for how you would like to manage the users you register to the shift(s), which are as follows:
  1. Fake User: This option is ideal if you don’t use iCarol to schedule any other shifts (and are only using them for messaging), and if you don’t care about using the SMS Mobile Alerts feature. If you choose this option, then first create a fake vols-staff profile with permissions set to access the appropriate portal(s) and messaging type(s), then register this fake user for messaging shifts to set your portals online at the scheduled shift time.This option allows you to create all of your messaging shifts for the future, and register this fake user to them to ensure the portal will be online regardless of whether real users have registered for the shift.
  2. Real User(s): This option is ideal if you want to use the SMS Mobile Alerts feature, and you want to depend on real users being registered for messaging shifts to set the portal(s) online at the scheduled shift time. If you choose this option, then you can develop internal processes to determine who will register users for messaging shifts (i.e a designated user will be responsible for registering all users for shifts, or each individual user can register for their own shifts, or a combination of both) 
  3. Fake User and Real User(s): This option is ideal if you want to combine both options outlined above, meaning you can register a fake user to messaging shifts so you don't have to depend on real users to register for the shifts to set the portal online, but you can still give users the option to register for the shifts so you can use the SMS Mobile Alerts feature.

How to enable users to access messaging portals (Live Chat and SMS/Text)

To have full access to handle messaging conversations, and sign-up for messaging shifts, a user must:
  1. be assigned to the appropriate Portal Program, and
  2. have permission to receive the appropriate messaging type in their Advanced Security Settings
In order to ensure the criteria above has been met, a user with permission to edit vols-staff profiles can complete the series of steps below.

To assign a user to the appropriate Portal Program, complete the following steps:
  1. As an Admin or Supervisor level user, click 'Vols-Staff' in the left side menu
  2. In the yellow box with 'Administrator's Tools', choose the link to 'Assign people to programs and roles'
  3. On this page you see the Programs that have been set up for you listed horizontally and your Vols-Staff listed vertically. By clicking on the check boxes you can define which Vols-Staff should become a member of what Program or Programs
    1. An unchecked box indicates a Vols-Staff member is not assigned to a Program
    2. A checked box indicates a Vols-Staff member is assigned to a Program
    3. Your Vols-Staff members are sorted on this page by the first letter of their first name. Click a letter of the alphabet at the top of the page to view the list of all Vols-Staff members whose first name begins with that letter
  4. Assign or remove Vols-Staff from a Program by selecting or deselecting the box
    1. You also have the option to assign every Vols-Staff in the list for the letter you have selected to a Program by clicking the "assign everyone" check box (and then you can still deselect any that should not be assigned)
  5. Click the 'Save changes' button to apply your changes
  6. Click another letter of the alphabet and repeat the steps above to continue assigning or removing Vols-Staff to Programs
Note, these steps must be taken each time a new portal is added to your system. 

To give permission to a user to receive the appropriate messaging type, complete the following steps:
  1. As an Admin or Supervisor level user, from the main Vols-Staff page, find the user from the list, or use the search bar and filters at the top of the page to locate their profile
  2. Once you have located the user whose profile you wish to edit, click their first name to open their profile
  3. Click the 'Admin' panel
  4. In the Admin panel, click the 'Advanced Security Settings' link
  5. Depending on the messaging type this user should have access to, select the checkbox(es) to enable the setting 'Can receive Instant Messages in iCarol', 'Can receive Texting / SMS Messages in iCarol', or both
  6. Click the 'Save Settings' button
Note, these steps only need to be completed one time; they don't need to be completed each time a new portal is added into your system.
Important Notes
  1. Both of these steps must be completed for every vols-staff profile who should have access to a messaging portal
  2. If a user isn't receiving pop-up notifications for new conversations, or SMS Mobile alerts for new conversations, make sure they are assigned to the correct Portal Programs
  3. If your organization has multiple messaging portals, then users must be assigned to each Portal Program, depending on the portals they should have access to

Holiday Considerations for Messaging Shifts

During a Holiday or any time there is no available staff to answer incoming Chats/SMS please ensure there is either no scheduled messaging shift or an existing shift is not staffed. When you have a scheduled and staffed shift for messaging your organization will show as online and Chat/SMS will be available even if no staff is logged into iCarol.  Please remove any messaging shift from the Shift Calendar, or keep the shift unassigned. This will ensure that the messaging portal is not available and will not allow chats to enter the Messaging Queue.

Chat portal closing xx minutes prior to end of scheduled shift

Some agencies would like to close their chat portals a little before the end of their shift to allow time to document the last Chat. Until this becomes available as a setting, here is a workaround which will provide that functionality.

15 minutes before the end of the shift (or whenever they want), one person in the org can click the text shown below (in their main messaging screen). This will close the portal, so no new chats can come in. Only one person has to click it to take the whole org's portal offline. People in the queue and current chat sessions are unaffected; it just shuts down the portal so no new ones can come in. NOTE: when the shift ends, it should be reset to prevent an Offline portal the next day/shift.

Clients also use this mid-shift when the queue gets too long. They shut down their portal just until the queue becomes acceptably short. Then they open the portal again. When you click that text again (the text changes to "your org is currently offline…") it puts your org back online. Important: clicking that text to put the org back online only puts the org back online if there is a staffed messaging shift. 

Not all users can see that text — access to it is determined by security level. The default is 'Admin' but you may send a written request to support@iCarol.com to change that to the security level of your choice. If you change it to 'Enhanced' anyone who has access to Messaging with Enhanced OR higher security level can access this setting.

If an agency has multiple portals, they will have a pull-down menu where he can select which portal they want to close.

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