Skip to main content

​
Overview

The chat widget lets visitors on your website start a conversation from any page. Widget conversations can be configured to arrive in your Conduit inbox alongside every other channel, so your team and your agents can handle them the same way they handle SMS, email, or WhatsApp. The widget is customizable end to end: the header, greeting, assistant name, colors, launcher icon, and the options a visitor sees when they open it.

​
Where widget conversations land

Website visitors usually arrive as unrecognized contacts, since they reach you without a phone number or email that already belongs to a contact in your workspace. Routing for the widget is handled entirely through user options (explained below). Each option is mapped to an inbox, so the conversation goes wherever the option the visitor selected points. A “Book a stay” option can go to your Guest inbox while “Report an issue” goes to Maintenance.
User options are the only way to route widget conversations. Inbox routing rules do not cover the widget, so if an option has no inbox assigned, the conversation lands in the Unmapped inbox.
If widget conversations keep collecting in Unmapped, check that every user option on the widget has an inbox assigned.
Once a conversation reaches an inbox, your V3 agent can pick it up like any other channel. See Road to Autopilot for moving from copilot to autopilot.

​
Setup

Navigate to Settings > Widget under Channels and select the widget you want to configure. The settings page is split into six numbered sections, with a live preview on the right. Changes are not applied until you click Update.

​
1. Design

Control how the widget looks and what it says.
Turning on Allow anonymous conversations means you will not collect a name or email before the chat starts. Visitors reach you faster, but the conversation arrives without contact details attached.

​
2. User Options

User options are the choices a visitor sees when the widget opens, and they are how widget conversations get routed. Click Add Option and choose one of:
  • Route to Inbox: send the visitor’s conversation to a specific inbox when they click this option
  • Redirect to URL: send the visitor to an external URL
  • Embed a form: open a form directly within the website
Each option has an icon, the button text the visitor sees, and its destination. Tick Custom post-form message to override the default post-form message for that option alone. Drag and drop to reorder options. They appear in the widget in the order shown, top to bottom.
Give each inbox its own option so conversations sort themselves at the point the visitor chooses. A “Book a stay” option pointing at Guest and a “Report an issue” option pointing at Maintenance saves your team reassigning conversations later.

​
3. Add to your website

Choose HTML or Google Tag Manager, then copy the snippet. For the HTML snippet, paste it right before the closing </head> tag on every page where the widget should appear. Adding it to a shared template or layout covers your whole site at once. The snippet carries a data-widget-id that is unique to this widget, so copy it from the widget you configured rather than reusing one from elsewhere. Expand Pre-fill contact info on authenticated pages if visitors are already signed in on your site and you want their details carried into the widget.

​
4. Programmatic API

Control the widget from your own code. These methods are available on window.ConduitSettings after the widget loads. Use these to open the chat from your own call-to-action button, close it when a modal opens, or hide the widget on pages where it does not belong, such as checkout.

​
5. Trusted Domains

List the domains and subdomains where this widget is allowed to load, separated by commas. Use *.example.com to cover all subdomains. Leaving the field blank allows any domain.
Setting trusted domains is optional but worth doing. It stops your widget loading anywhere you did not intend.

​
6. Email Notifications

Turn on Enable email notifications to email visitors new replies after they leave the widget, so they can continue the conversation. Add a Support page URL to include a link in that email that brings them back.

​
Previewing before you publish

The preview panel on the right shows the widget as visitors will see it. Switch between the Start, Form, and Chat states to check each step, and toggle Open and Closed to see the launcher as well as the expanded widget.

​
Frequently asked questions

You configure the destination inbox under User Options in section 2: map each option to an inbox, and the conversation goes to whichever inbox matches the option the website visitor selected. If an option has no inbox assigned, the conversation lands in Unmapped. The conversation stays in the inbox after the chat ends, so you can follow up later.
The widget only appears on pages that include the snippet. Adding it to a shared template or layout is the simplest way to have it available across your whole site. Use hide() from the Programmatic API to suppress it on specific pages.
Yes, under Settings > Widget in Channels. Section 1 covers the header, greeting, assistant name, logo, colors, launcher icon, and the message shown after a visitor submits their details.
Yes. Turn on Allow anonymous conversations in section 1 to skip the contact form. The tradeoff is that the conversation arrives without a name or email attached.
They limit where your widget will load, so it only appears on domains you have listed. Leaving the field blank allows any domain.
Yes. Call window.ConduitSettings.expand() from your button’s click handler. See the Programmatic API section for the full set of methods.