Request agent assistance ​

Overview ​

While the primary purpose of the Enable HitL Step is to pass information about the Flow execution to the HitL back-end service, and the Process command (HitL) Step waits for commands issued by the agent from the Agent UI, the Request Agent Assistance (HitL) Step's main task is to help find and/or assign an agent to assist in the conversation. In contrast to Manage Session Properties (HitL), where you can directly add or remove a specific agent (or agents) to a "claimed by" list of the conversation, the Request Agent Assistance (HitL) Step, when used, gives specified agents the opportunity to claim the conversation from the Agent UI. When the Step is executed, it switches a conversation to NEEDS_ACTION state, which indicates that a conversation needs human assistance and can be claimed. This, in turn, makes Agent UI display a bell icon in the conversation list and a Claim button in the header of the conversation to all agents eligible to see the conversation (unless the exact agent is specified in the Step settings). Additionally, a Notification popup with the information on the conversation, timers, and buttons to claim or reject the conversation could be displayed to all the specified agents, in case it is set up in the Step. The Step then, depending on the configuration and the state of conversation and available agents, exits via one of the four available exits:

• Claimed: if an agent claimed the conversation providing the Agent ID in the Step Merge Field (in a addClaimedBy field).
• Not claimed: if no agent eligible to see the conversation in the specified status(es) is currently available, the Step Merge Field will have a reason stated (in the reason field). Available reasons are NOT_AVAILABLE (no agents in the required status are available), NO_AGENTS (no agents eligible to see the conversation are available), and REJECTED (agent clicked the Reject button on the Notify agent popup).
• Timer action: if the Timer was enabled and the time specified has passed.
• Timeout: if no agent claimed the conversation in a timeframe specified in the Error handling section of the Step form.

Step settings ​

When setting up the Request Agent Assistance (HitL) Step, you have the ability to choose:

• Which statuses the agents you are trying to "route" the conversation are allowed to be (Available, Busy, Offline).
• Whether you want to "fan out" the request to all agents in specified statuses or only the exact one.
• Whether you want a standard browser notification to pop up when the request is delivered to the Agent UI.
• Whether you want a built-in "Screen pop" notification to pop up when the request is delivered to the Agent UI, which information to display there, which actions to allow agents seeing it to perform (Claim, Reject, Ignore) and how long that notification should be displayed.
• How long should the system wait for an agent to claim the conversation.

Enable notifications for "offline" and "busy" agents ​

By default, the system tries to present the conversation to the agents in the "Available" status. In case you want agents in "Busy" and/or "Offline" statuses to be able to claim the conversation, do the following:

1. Navigate to the Notification settings section.
2. Toggle options Allow Offline agents to claim and Allow Busy agents to claim.

Enabling Allow Offline agents to claim and Allow Busy agents to claim ensures the Step will wait until a timeout, specified in Error handling section, passes before exiting the Not claimed leg, even when no agents are online. This might be useful for scenarios in which a prompt agent response is not necessary, like email support, for example.

Notify specific agent ​

When notifying all available agents is not required or desired, you have an option to only present the conversation to be claimed to one agent at a time.

If that is your case:

1. Navigate to the Notification settings section.
2. Toggle Assistance of specific agent.
3. In the Agent ID field, provide the Merge field that stores the agent ID.

And remember, if the Assistance of specific agent toggle is off, all agents will receive the notification.

Notify agents with a browser popup ​

If you want to alert agents of conversations that need to be claimed more actively, you can instruct the Agent UI to display a standard browser notification popup. This popup is only shown to agents eligible to see the conversation and who are in a proper status and only when the Agent UI is not in focus or is not being actively interacted with. Clicking on the browser popup opens the conversation it was generated for.

To add a browser notification:

1. Navigate to the Notification settings section.
2. Toggle Display native browser notification.

Notify agents with the Notify agent popup in the Agent UI ​

If, in addition to more active notifications you want to provide your agents with more information regarding the conversation that might need their attention, or if you want them to react to these notifications immediately, you can instruct the Agent UI to display a so-called Screen Pop. The Screen Pop or Notify agent is a modal popup notification window inside the Agent UI that contains:

• an information on the contact record the conversation is created under
• additional conversation info like a short summary of the conversation so far, a user intent, or any arbitrary message to the agents that you deem necessary to display in that notification
• a set of configurable buttons to instantly Accept, Reject, or Ignore the conversation claim request
• a countdown timer that triggers the Request Agent Assistance (HitL) Step when reaching zero
• and a set of up to 2 timers to display such info as a "time in queue" or "time since conversation started"

To enable the Notify agent popup:

1. Navigate to the Notification settings section.
2. Toggle Display "Notify Agent" popup.

Notify agent message and buttons ​

As mentioned previously, when setting up a Notify agent popup, you can provide additional conversation info (or any other message you'd like your agents to see there), select a set of buttons to display, and modify their labels. The default buttons include Claim, Close, and Reject. The Claim button allows the agent to assign the conversation to them, the Close button allows agents to close the notification popup, effectively ignoring the request, and the Reject button allows the agent to actively deny the claim request thus sending the Request Agent Assistance (HitL) Step down the Not claimed exit with "REJECTED" for the reason.

To set up the popup message and buttons:

1. Navigate to the Pop-up settings section.
2. In the Text field, provide the popup message/additional conversation information. The Notify agent popup supports MarkDown to help make the message more readable.
3. From the Buttons section, select the ones you want to be present on the popup by enabling respective toggles. You can choose from the Claim, Close, and Reject buttons.
4. Feel free to change the button names in the Label fields.

Countdown timer ​

In the time constraint scenario, you have the ability to add a countdown timer to the Notify agent popup that, when it reaches 0, triggers and sends the Request Agent Assistance (HitL) down the Timer action exit.

To enable such a timer:

1. Navigate to the Pop-up settings section.
2. Under the Timer section, toggle Show Timer.
3. In the Auto-action timeout, provide a value in the time-string format. By default, the value is set to 10 seconds. The Show Timer toggle adds the timer action branch to the Step.
4. Under the timer action branch, define the logic the Flow should follow if the timeout is reached.

Additional timers ​

You can add up to two count-up timers to the Notify agent popup to provide additional context to the conversation, for example:

• The time when the conversation has started.
• The moment the user was transferred into the queue to wait for an agent.

To add additional timers:

1. Navigate to the Pop-up settings section.
2. Under Additional timers, click the + button.
3. Add the Label name for the timer.
4. Provide the Unix Timestamp.