Deploy a Webchat Endpoint¶

Creating a Webchat Endpoint¶

First, create an Endpoint that uses the Webchat Channel. When you created the Endpoint and assigned the Flow that the Endpoint should use, then you can already click on Open Webchat in the upper right corner. This will open the configured Webchat in an Integrated Demo Page, and you can already start talking to your flow. Read on to figure out how you can configure the appearance of the Webchat to style it in your company colors, add a background image, and much more.

Generic Endpoint Settings¶

Find out about the generic endpoint settings available with this endpoint on the following pages:

Supports Inject & Notify

You can use the Inject & Notify functionality with this type of Endpoint.

Channel Specific Settings¶

You can configure almost everything about Webchat to personalize it just for your needs. This includes modifying the colors, adding functionality like file uploads and much more, so that you can present the Conversational AI that you have created in a very nice way. As soon as you have changed a setting, loading or reloading a Website with a Webchat pointing to this Endpoint will show the changes will already have taken effect.

Webchat Layout¶

Parameter	Description
Webchat Title	The text to display within the webchat header.
Color Scheme	The main colors for the Webchat, for example, #008080.
Bot Avatar Logo URL	A URL linking to the logo that should be the virtual agent's avatar.
Header Logo URL	A URL linking to the logo that should be displayed in the Webchat header.
Enable Typing Indicators	Enables a typing indicator while the Bot is replying.
Input Placeholder Text	The text to display as a placeholder in the input field.

Advanced Layout Settings¶

Parameter	Description
Enable Input Autogrow	If this is enabled, the text input for Webchat users will grow automatically when the user types long texts. It also enables line breaks for user text inputs.
Maximum Number of Input Rows	Defines the number of text lines the text input can grow to. After the maximum line size is exceeded, a vertical scroll bar will appear in the text input.
Dynamic Image Aspect Ratio	Images from the 'gallery', 'attachment' or 'top list item' template will not have a forced aspect ratio and will be fully displayed full-width without cropping.
Disable Input Autocomplete	Use this setting to disable the autocomplete functionality for everyone.
Enable generic HTML Styling	If this is active, additional generic styling will be applied to HTML content inside regular text messages.
Allow JavaScript in HTML Message Content	By default, potentially malicious HTML content like 'onclick' or 'onload' attributes are removed before rendering. If this setting is enabled, they will not be removed.
Allow JavaScript in Button/Action URLs	By default, 'JavaScript URLs' starting with javascript: will get removed. If this setting is enabled, they will not be removed and the JavaScript code will get executed when the user clicks the button/element.

Text Input Sanitization

Text Input Sanitization is enabled by default for security reasons, before sending text from the Webchat to the NLU. This changes characters which are reserved by HTML, as for example **",',&,<,>**, to an entity name. For example & will have amp; appended to the input. This can cause issues in your Agent if a condition or Intent is only triggered by the reserved character in its original form. If you need to circumvent this issue, toggle Allow JavaScript in HTML Message Content to be enabled.

The Persistent Menu is a great way to show your users all the capabilities that your bot has. You can use it to switch to different conversation stages, to guide the user and much more. The user can open the menu at any time during the conversation through a small icon in the left corner:

To create a Persistent Menu like this, open the Persistent Menu Panel. The first thing you have to do is enabling the Persistent Menu. As soon as you do this, the menu icon will appear in the lower left corner of the Webchat. You can give the menu any title you want in the Title field in the Persistent Menu Panel. In order to actually add the Persistent Menu Items themselves, click on ADD on the right. Clicking this will add a new Persistent Menu item, which consists of a Title and a Payload. The text in the title field controls what the user can see in the Persistent Menu, while the text in the payload field is what is actually sent to your flow. This way, you can show a simple word to your user, but actually send a more complex query to your flow in order to process the request. The image below shows the configuration behind the webchat pictured above.

Webchat Plugins¶

To trigger the plugin, for example, to display an upload button for the file-upload plugin, a plugin-specific data payload is required.

To configure Webchat plugins, navigate to the Webchat Layout configuration settings within the Webchat Endpoint Editor. The Webchat Plugin URL should follow the format https://url.to/plugin.js, where url.to represents the storage location for your plugin, such as Amazon S3, and plugin is the name of the specific plugin you use.

For a collection of example plugins compatible with Cognigy Webchat, you can refer to the GitHub repository. You can copy the URL of one or more of them from the Assets section of the plugin on the Releases page. Paste the URL directly into the Webchat Plugin URL field.

For example, the URL for the Google Firebase Authentication Webchat Plugin is https://github.com/Cognigy/WebchatPlugins/releases/download/google-firebase-authentication100/google-firebase-authentication.webchat-plugin.js.

To use custom plugins in your production environment or modify existing ones, you need to install them manually as follows:

Open the Coginigy GitHub repository.
Clone the source code.
Modify plugin code as needed.
Build your plugin by running the npm ci && npm run build command.
Upload your plugin to cloud storage, for example, to Amazon S3.
In the Webchat Endpoint, navigate to the Webchat Layout section and paste the URL into the Webchat Plugin URL field.

Possible Plugin URL errors

The uploaded plugin should be available to the target audience. Check the availability settings on your cloud storage side.

Webchat Behavior¶

Parameter (main)	Parameter (sub)	Description
Start Behavior	Start Behavior - Start with a Text Field - Start with a Button - Auto Send a Message to the Bot	Start behavior when opening the Webchat.
	Payload	The text that is sent into your Flow.
	Display Text	Text to display as a simulated user input bubble when the bot starts.
	Button Title	The text to display on the Start Button.
Additional Behavior	Message Delay	The amount of time to wait between sending bot replies. Measured in milliseconds.
	Focus Input after Postback	The message input field will receive focus after a Postback button or quick reply button is clicked.
	Enable Connection Status Indicator	Whether to show a warning if the connection is lost during a conversation. The warning will disappear when the connection is re-established.

Teaser Message Settings¶

Parameter	Description
Teaser Message Text	The text of the message to display next to the webchat icon to get the user to engage.
Show Engagement Messages in Chat	Show Engagement Messages in Chat.

Unread Message Settings¶

Parameter	Description
Enable Unread Message Title Indicator	Indicate the number of unread messages in the page title every 1000ms.
Enable Unread Message Badge	The webchat shows a badge with the number of unread messages at the toggle button.
Enable Unread Message Preview	The webchat shows a message bubble with the latest-retrieved bot message.
Enable Unread Message Sound Confirmation	Play a notification sound for each incoming unread message.

Conversation Rating Settings¶

Parameter	Description
Enable Rating Functionality	Select when a webchat user can give a rating.
Rating Title Text	The title displayed in the rating dialog prompt.
Rating Comment Text	The text is displayed above the comment field in the rating dialog prompt.
Message History Rating Text	The text is displayed in the message history after giving a rating. A text is followed by the icon representing the rating.
Message History Comment Text	The text is displayed in the message history after giving a rating, if there was a comment sent. A text is followed by the actual comment.

Demo Webchat Settings¶

Parameter	Description
Enable Demo Webchat	Enables or disables the integrated Demo Webchat for this Endpoint.
Enable Speech-to-Text	Toggle whether the Webchat should feature a microphone button.
Enable Text-to-Speech	Toggle whether the Webchat should read all bot messages aloud.
Background Image	The image that will be displayed behind the Webchat.
Center Webchat	Toggle to `Yes` when the Webchat should be centered and toggle to `No` for locating at the bottom right corner.

Webchat Custom Settings¶

This field can be used to configure additional settings not available in the GUI. These settings override GUI settings. Entering malformed JSON might result in crashing the webchat, so use it with caution and at own risk.

File Storage¶

By default, users cannot attach files to a chat message. If you want to allow users to upload files via drag and drop or by clicking the attachment symbol, connect to one of the following file storage providers:

Azure - specify a unique connection name and Azure Blob Storage Container credentials: containerName, account, and accountKey.
AWS - specify a unique connection name and Amazon S3 Bucket credentials: secretAccessKey, region, bucketName.
Google Cloud - specify a unique connection name and Google Cloud Storage Bucket credentials: buketName, clientName, privateKey.