Start a support session

Session keys

One method to start a support session is for your customer to submit a one-time, randomly generated session key on your public site. Depending upon your account permissions, you can generate session keys for this purpose.

On your iPhone, tap the key icon at the top of the screen and then the Generate Session Key button. This opens a Generate Session Key menu from which you can edit the session key details.

Set how long you want this session key to remain valid. The expiration time applies only to the length of time the key can be used to start a session and does not affect the length of the session itself.

You can also select the public portal through which you want your customer to enter the session.

Direct your customer to go to either to the unique URL or to enter the session key on your public site. You can copy the URL to your clipboard to send it to your customer in a text message.

You can also send your customer an email invitation that contains the unique URL.

After running the customer client, the customer appears in your personal queue.

Session queues

Session queues provide information about and access to customers who are waiting for support. The Personal queue contains customers with whom you are currently in session or who are waiting for a session with you specifically. A waiting session appears in your personal queue if it was transferred to you, or if the customer initiated it by entering a session key you generated, by selecting your name from the public site, or by clicking a Support Button tied to you. This queue also contains invitations for you to join a shared session.

You also have queues for any teams of which you are a member. If a customer initiates a session by selecting an issue type from an issue submission form, that customer enters a specific team queue based on which team owns that issue. A customer also enters a team queue if they click a Support Button tied to a team. A session may also enter a queue if it is transferred intentionally or due to waiting session rules, or if the representative's connection is lost in the middle of a session. These queues also contain invitations for any representative in the team to join a shared session.

Click the star to the left of a team name to mark that queue as a favorite. If a team chat message is sent, an orange chat bubble appears in place of the star.

Customers can also request assistance directly from a web page which contains a help link. This initiates a browser sharing session, which allows a representative to chat and view the customer's web page. Administrators can generate custom links in order to direct browser sessions to the correct representative or team queue. In the queue, browser sharing sessions are identified by the [Browser] prefix next to the customer's name.

If allowed to use the feature, start supporting the oldest queued session from among your team queues by selecting the next session from the Get Next button.

View sessions

Tap a queue name to view its sessions. Tap a session entry to view details about the support request. To begin supporting the selected session, tap the Accept button. Accepting a session opens a new page for that session.

Session assignment rules

You can also accept sessions that are assigned using Equilibrium. When a session enters a queue that has Equilibrium enabled, that session is automatically assigned to the best qualified and least busy representative, based on matching skills, the number of sessions that representative is supporting, and how long they have been available.

When a session is assigned to you, you are given a prompt to accept or reject the session, along with an audible alert if enabled. If you reject the invitation or the invitation times out, the session is reassigned to the next best qualified and least busy representative in that queue.

A rejected session is never assigned to the same representative twice unless it is manually transferred into another queue for which that representative is available. If a session cycles through all available representatives for the queue and is not accepted, it remains in queue until someone manually accepts or transfers it.

Alternatively, if your administrator has set up a waiting session rule for this queue, the session gives out an audible alert when it is overdue, or it is transferred to an overflow queue. If that overflow queue has a waiting session rule set up that transfers the session back to the first queue, the session could potentially bounce back and forth between the queues until it is accepted.

A session is not assigned to a representative if that representative is unavailable. If you lock your device, you are marked as unavailable. Also, rules within the user permissions mark you as unavailable if you are participating in more than a set number of sessions or have been idle longer than a specified length of time. Finally, if you have permission to opt out of session assignments, you may choose not to receive automatic session assignments. Set auto session assignment from File > Settings > Global Settings.

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Note

For more information about changing the rep console settings and preferences, see Site Preferences.

Session transfer

Alternatively, you can transfer a session to another queue. When viewing a session's details, tap the Transfer button. Browse the list of available teams or search for a specific team name. Select the queue to which you wish to move the session. Then tap the Transfer button.

You may also transfer a session to another representative's personal queue. Tap the Representative button at the top of the menu. Locate the representative by browsing or searching, and select their name. Then tap the Transfer button.

Return to an active session

To return to a session you are already supporting, open your personal queue and select the session you wish to support. On an iPhone, tap Accept.

Dashboard

The dashboard feature enables privileged users to view and monitor ongoing sessions, enabling administrative oversight to help manage staff. Based on roles assigned from the Support Teams page of the administrative interface, team leads can monitor team members of a given team, and team managers can monitor both team leads and team members of that team.

If a user is a team manager or team lead of one or more teams, the dashboard pane appears beneath the queue selection pane on the Home tab of the console. This pane displays any logged-in team members of a lower role for the selected team.

Select a user from the dashboard pane to view any sessions they may be running. A Team Manager or Team Lead can take over a support session from another representative of that team by selecting the appropriate session from the queue and tapping the Take Over button. This transfers ownership of that session to the team manager or team lead, with the original user remaining in the session as a participant. A team manager or team lead can also transfer ownership of a support session from one user to another user or team.

It is also possible for a team manager to join a session in progress by clicking the Join button. The behavior is similar to joining a session via session invitation, except that no invitation is required.

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The team lead can join or take over a team member's session only if the team lead has start session access to the Jump Item that was used to create the session, or the dashboard setting to allow join or take over without start session access is checked.

Additionally, if configured in the /login interface, a team manager or team lead can monitor team members of a lower role even if there are no ongoing sessions, as long as those users are logged into the console.

A monitoring icon can be displayed in the corner of the user's desktop to indicate that monitoring is taking place. When the user moves the cursor near this icon, it moves to another corner to prevent obscuring the screen. Select the user whose screen you wish to view and then tap the Monitor button. This opens a new page in your console, displaying either the user's entire computer screen or only the console, depending on the administrative settings.

Within a team, a user can administrate only others with roles lower than their own.

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Roles apply strictly on a team-by-team basis so that a user may be able to administrate another user in one team but not be able to administrate that same user in another team.