Connect channels and set up open channels

Two things decide how chats reach your team. Apps are the connections: your WhatsApp numbers, your website chat, a messaging tool. Open channels are the queues: each one says who answers its conversations and what the CRM does with a new one.

Connect an app

1. Open Contact center and click Apps at the top of the queue.
2. Click a tile. The tiles are grouped into Website, Messengers, Telephony, Payments and Lead sources.
3. Follow the steps in the window that opens, then press Connect.

The apps you will use most:

• TicAte WhatsApp brings in your WhatsApp numbers, Instagram accounts and Facebook Pages from TicAte WhatsApp. It uses the key already connected under Settings → WhatsApp, so usually you only press Connect. Numbers, accounts and Pages themselves are added in TicAte WhatsApp under Channels.
• Website chat (ChatIQ) brings in the chats from the TicAte ChatIQ widget on your website. You need an API key and a webhook secret from ChatIQ; the window lists where to find them.
• Custom API app connects any other messaging tool that has a webhook and a way to send messages.

A connected tile turns coloured with a tick. Click it to open a connection again, or to add a second one with Connect another.

Set up an open channel

Every workspace starts with one open channel. Add more when different teams answer different numbers, for example Sales and Support.

1. In Contact center → Apps, press Open channels.
2. Press New open channel, or click the name of one to change it.
3. Give it a Name.
4. Under Who answers, choose how New conversations go to people:
   • Round robin: the people you tick take turns.
   • One person: the first one ticked gets everything.
   • A department: everyone in the department takes turns.
5. Under CRM, choose what happens to a new conversation (see below).
6. Press Create or Save.

Each connection is attached to an open channel. Open a connection and go to its Open channel tab to choose the queue. A TicAte WhatsApp connection lists each of its numbers, Instagram accounts and Pages there, so each one can go to its own queue.

What the CRM does with a new chat

With Look for the customer in the CRM first, by phone or email ticked:

• An open lead takes the chat.
• A converted lead hands it to its deal while that deal is open. A contact with an open deal does the same.
• Otherwise a new record is made, on the existing contact where there is one.

Under What to make when nothing open is found, choose A lead or A deal (with the contact), and when: at once, when the chat is closed or never. Then pick the source written on the record and its starting stage.

Tick Hand the chat to the person responsible for the matched lead or deal to send a chat straight to the record's owner, even if they are not in this queue.

Calls

Phone lines are connected from the Telephony group of the same gallery. Every call made or taken on them is listed under Calls at the top of the Apps page, and logged on the record it belongs to. Each person sees their own calls; owners, admins and managers can switch to Everyone.