Live Chat

Odoo Live Chat allows users to communicate with website visitors in real time. With Live Chat, leads can be qualified for their sales potential, support questions can be answered quickly, and issues can be directed to the appropriate team for further investigation or follow up. Live Chat also provides the opportunity for instant feedback from customers.

Enable Live Chat

The Live Chat application is installed in multiple ways:

  • Go to Apps application, search Live Chat, and click Install.

  • Go to the Helpdesk app ‣ Configuration ‣ Teams list view, select a team, and on the team’s settings page, tick the Live Chat checkbox, under the Channels section.

  • In the Website app, go to Configuration ‣ Settings, scroll to the How to configure the Twitter API access section, tick the Livechat checkbox, and click Save.

View of the settings page and the live chat feature for Odoo Live Chat.

Notitie

After the Live Chat application is installed, a live chat Channel is created by default.

Create a new live chat channel

To create a new live chat Channel, go to Live Chat app ‣ New. This opens a blank channel detail form. Enter the name of the new channel in the Channel Name field.

View of a live chat channel form for Odoo Live Chat.

To configure the remaining tabs on the channel detail form (Operators, Options, Channel Rules, and Widget), follow the steps below.

Tip

The channel detail form for any channel can be accessed by navigating back to the Website Live Chat Channels dashboard, via the breadcrumbs. Click the Kanban card for the appropriate live chat channel to open the channel detail form.

Operators tab

Operators are the users who act as agents and respond to live chat requests from customers. When a user is added as an operator in a live chat channel, they can receive chats from website visitors wherever they are in the database. Chat windows open in the bottom-right corner of the screen.

View of a live chat pop up window in an Odoo database.

On the channel detail form, click the Operators tab. The user who originally created the live chat channel has been added as an operator by default.

Notitie

Current operators can be edited, or removed, by clicking on their respective boxes in the Operators tab, which reveals a separate Open: Operators pop-up window. In that pop-up window, adjust any information, as needed. Then, click Save, or click Remove to remove that operator from the channel.

Click Add to reveal an Add: Operators pop-up window.

In the pop-up window, scroll to find the desired users, or enter their name in the search bar. Then, tick the checkbox next to the users to be added, and click Select.

New operators can be created and added to the list directly from this pop-up window, as well, by clicking New, and filling out the Create Operators form. When the form is complete, click Save & Close, or Save & New for multiple record creations.

Gevaar

Creating a new user can impact the status of an Odoo subscription, as the total number of users in a database counts towards the billing rate. Proceed with caution before creating a new user. If a user already exists, adding them as an operator does not alter the subscription or billing rate for a database.

Tabblad Opties

The Options tab on the live chat channel detail form contains the visual and text settings for the live chat window.

Livechat Button section

The Livechat Button is the icon that appears in the bottom-right corner of the website.

View of an Odoo website emphasizing the livechat button.

The Live Chat button in the bottom-right corner of an Odoo website.

Wijzig de tekst in het veld Tekst van de knop om de welkomsttekst te bewerken die in de tekstballon wordt weergegeven wanneer de livechat knop op de website verschijnt.

The Livechat Button Color alters the color of the live chat button as it appears on the website. To change the color, click on a color bubble to open the color selection window, then click and drag the circle along the color gradient. Click out of the selection window once complete. Click the (refresh) icon to the right of the color bubbles to reset the colors to the default selection.

Tip

Color selection, for the button or header, can be made manually using a slider or through RGB, HSL, or HEX color code entries from the pop-up color selection window that appears when either of the color bubbles are clicked. Different options are available, depending on the operating system.

Livechat Window section

The Livechat Window is the space where the live chat conversation with website visitors takes place.

Edit the Welcome Message to change the message a visitor sees when they open a new chat session. This message appears as though it is sent by a live chat operator, and acts as both a greeting and an invitation to continue the conversation.

Edit the Chat Input Placeholder to alter the text that appears in the box where visitors type their replies. This message prompts the visitor to initiate the chat.

The Channel Header is the colored bar at the top of the chat window. The Channel Header Color can be changed following the same steps as the Livechat button.

../../_images/chat-window.png

The Livechat Window with a purple header. The chat input placeholder reads “Ask Something…”

Channel Rules tab

To configure which website user actions open the live chat window, go to the Channel Rules tab on the live chat channel detail form.

To create a new channel rule, click Add a line. This opens the Create Rules pop-up window.

View of a channel's rules form for Odoo Live Chat.

Create new rules

Fill out the fields on the Create Rules pop-up window as instructed below, then click Save & Close.

The Livechat Button is the icon that appears in the bottom-right corner of the website. Select from one of the following display options:

  • Show: displays the chat button on the page.

  • Show with notification: displays the chat button, as well as a floating text bubble next to the button.

  • Open automatically: displays the button, and automatically opens the chat window after a specified amount of time (designated in the Open automatically timer field that appears when this option is selected).

  • Hide: hides the chat button on the page.

Notitie

To track the geographical location of visitors, GeoIP must be installed on the database. While this feature is installed by default on Odoo Online databases, On-Premise databases require additional setup steps.

Widget tab

The Widget tab on the live chat channel detail form provides the code for a website widget. This code can be added to a website to provide access to a live chat window.

Tip

The live chat widget can be added to websites created through Odoo by navigating to Website app ‣ Configuration ‣ Settings. Then, scroll to the How to configure the Twitter API access section. In the Channel field, select the channel to add to the site. Click Save to apply.

To add the widget to a website created on a third-party platform, click the first COPY button on the Widget tab, and paste the code into the <head> tag on the site.

Likewise, to send a live chat session to a customer, click the second COPY button on the Widget tab. This link can be sent directly to a customer. When they click the link, they are redirected to a new chat window.

View of the widget tab for Odoo Live Chat.

Participate in a conversation

As explained above, operators are the users who will respond to live chat requests from customers. The information below outlines the necessary steps for operators participating in live chat conversations on an Odoo database.

Set an online chat name

Before participating in a live chat, operators should update their Online Chat Name. This is the name that will be displayed to site visitors in the live chat conversation.

To update the Online Chat Name, click on the user name in the upper-right corner of any page in the database. Select My Profile to open the Profile page. On the right side of the Preferences tab, locate the Online Chat Name field and enter the preferred name.

View of the My Profile option in Odoo.

If a users Online Chat Name is not set, the name displayed will default to the User Name.

Example

A user has their full name as their User Name, but they do not want to include their last name in a live chat conversation. They would then set their Online Chat Name to include only their first name.

View of user profile in Odoo, emphasizing the Online Chat name field.

Join or leave a channel

To join a live chat channel, go to the Live Chat app, and click the JOIN button on the Kanban card for the appropriate channel.

Any channel where the user is currently active shows a LEAVE button. Click this button to disconnect from the channel.

View of a channel form and the option to join a channel for Odoo Live Chat.

Belangrijk

Operators that do not show any activity in Odoo for more than thirty minutes will be considered disconnected, and subsequently removed from the channel.

Manage live chat requests

When an operator is active in a channel, chat windows will open in the bottom right corner of the screen, no matter where they are in the database. They can participate in conversations without leaving their current location.

Tip

Conversations can also be accessed by clicking the (messages) icon in the menu bar.

View of the menu bar in Odoo emphasizing the conversations icon.

Live chat conversations can also be viewed by navigating to Dashboard ‣ Discuss. New conversations will appear in bold under the LIVECHAT heading along the left panel.

View of the discuss application with a message sent through live chat in Odoo.

Click on a conversation in the left panel to select it. This will open the conversation. From this view, an operator can participate in the chat the same as they would in the normal chat window.