Client Channels are how your customers reach CloudRadial Chat. This article explains how client channels work: the types available, how they differ by plan, how to create one, and how to configure it.
- What a Client Channel Is
- Channel Types
- Client Channels by Plan
- Creating a Client Channel
- Configuring a Channel: The Three Tabs
- What Chat Starter Can and Cannot Do
What a Client Channel Is
A client channel is the place where your customers access CloudRadial Chat. It is the external-facing side of channels, and each one can carry its own ticket routing, branding, and live chat hours. That is the reason to create additional or custom client channels: to give different clients a tailored, branded experience that routes their tickets the way you want.
You manage them from the Channels tab, under the Client Channels section, where each channel shows its type, responder, linked service channel, and whether it is active.
Channel Types
A client channel can be one of four types:
- CloudRadial UCP - embedded in your CloudRadial Unified Client Portal (UCP)
- Web Widget - added to your company website or other embeddable area
- Microsoft Teams - added to your client's Teams environment as a dedicated channel to reach you
- Slack - added to your client's Slack environment as a dedicated channel to reach you
Because UCP, Teams, and Slack users are already signed in, their identity is passed through automatically. The Web Widget is the exception: since there is no sign-in to pass along, web channels require an extra authentication step. Aside from that, the net experience is the same across types.
Where are Teams and Slack Client Channels in the Setup?
When you first set up Chat, regardless of version, the setup wizard will guide you toward the two easiest channels to stand up, Web and UCP. Teams and Slack need some extra manifest configuration, so those are handled outside the wizard to keep onboarding smooth.
Once you create your chat account, you can add those via the Channels tab in the sidebar.
Client Channels by Plan
Plan |
Client Channels |
| Chat Starter | 2 |
| ChatAI Professional | 5 |
| ChatAI Enterprise | 10 |
Additional channels are $65/mo each on the paid plans.
On ChatAI Professional and Enterprise you can also enable AI responses per channel, so you can put some clients on an AI-powered channel and keep others on a standard one.
Chat Starter cannot enable AI on client channels.
Creating a Client Channel
From the Channels tab, click Add New Client Channel, choose a channel type, and fill in the core details: the channel name (visible to your end users), an internal description, branding (a logo image and primary brand color), and, for web channels, the website URL the widget is allowed to deploy to.
Once the channel is created, you are given the deployment instructions for that type, which vary by channel:
- An embed script for a Web Widget,
- A Channel ID to paste into CloudRadial for a UCP channel,
- A manifest / app setup for Microsoft Teams or Slack.
Configuring a Channel: The Three Tabs
Every client channel has three configuration tabs.
The General Tab
This tab holds the channel's name, description, image, and brand color, the Responder (Dialog or CloudRadial ChatAI), the Service Channel that chats route to, whether authentication is required, and the deployment details.
The PSA Settings Tab
This is present on every channel, on every plan. Here, you can lock the channel to a specific PSA company so incoming chats are associated with it.
On the paid plans, you can also turn on Override Ticket Settings for this channel to control how tickets are created from this channel, including the board, ticket source, type, status, and priority.
The Channel Overrides Tab
This tab lets you override the global defaults a Partner has set, just for this one channel. That covers the support contact details (email, phone, and website) and, optionally, live chat settings such as availability days and hours, time zone, and the live chat timeouts.
What Chat Starter Can and Cannot Do
Chat Starter sees a limited version of these options:
- It cannot enable AI on client channels; the CloudRadial ChatAI responder is a paid feature.
- On PSA Settings, Starter can set the PSA company, but overriding the PSA connector and the ticket creation settings are locked behind "Upgrade to Pro."
- On Channel Overrides, Starter can see the tab but cannot edit it; the support contact and live chat overrides are locked with "Upgrade to Pro."
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