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MrBungleMrBungle 

How can I get a Live Agent Pre-Chat to Auto-Submit?

We have a Live Agent chat button in our Customer Portal because only customers paying for our support can use Live Agent chat. We can get the customer portal user's Name, Email & Account and pre-populate a Pre-chat window but this hits the user with an unnecessary screen pop where they click a button to chat again. How can I set up the pre-chat window to just auto-submit? I have tried to programmatically click the submit button using javascript in window and body onloads and it does not work. I thought that I could maybe do this all in apex if I could use httprequest setmethod(‘POST’) but I couldn’t figure out how to do this or if it is even possible.

 

Does anyone know of a way that I can do this?

 

 

Pre-chat vf code:

<apex:page showHeader="false" standardController="User" extensions="NICP_Functions">

    <script>
        function clickBtn()
        {
            var btnSubmit = document.getElementById('prechat_submit');
            btnSubmit.click();
        }
    </script>

    <!-- This script takes the endpoint URL parameter passed from the deployment page and makes it the action for the form -->
    <script type="text/javascript">
        (function() 
        { 
            function handlePageLoad() 
            {
                var endpointMatcher = new RegExp("[\\?\\&]endpoint=([^&#]*)");
                document.getElementById('prechatForm').setAttribute('action', decodeURIComponent(endpointMatcher.exec(document.location.search)[1]));
            } 
            if (window.addEventListener) 
            {
                window.addEventListener('load', handlePageLoad, false);
            } 
            else 
            { 
                window.attachEvent('onload', handlePageLoad, false);
            }
        })();
    </script>
    
    <h1>Pre-chat Form</h1>
    <form method='post' id='prechatForm'>
    
        <style type="text/css">
            body {
                margin: 0 auto;
                padding: 0;
                font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', Helvetica, sans-serif;
                font-size: 12px;
                color: #737373;
                line-height: 16px;
            }                    

            p {
                font-weight: bolder
            }
            
            td {
                font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', Helvetica, sans-serif;
            }
            
            h1 {
                font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', Helvetica, sans-serif; 
            }

            .btnClass {
                font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', Helvetica, sans-serif; 
            }

        </style>

        <!-- Creates an auto-query for a matching Contact record’s Email field based on the value of the liveagent.prechat:Email field -->    
        <table border="0" width="400px">
            <tr>
                <td>
                    <b>Name: </b>
                </td>
                <td>
                    <input type='text' size="40" name='liveagent.prechat:Name' id='prechat_field' value='{!$User.FirstName} {!$User.LastName}' />          
                </td>
            </tr>
            <tr>
                <td>
                    <b>Email Address: </b>
                </td>
                <td>
                    <input type='text' size="40" name='liveagent.prechat:Email' width="500" value='{!$User.Email}' />
                </td>
            </tr>
            <tr>
                <td>
                    <b>Property Name: </b>
                </td>
                <td>
                    <input type='text' size="40" name='liveagent.prechat:Account' value='{!getAccountName}' />
                </td>
            </tr>
            <tr>
                <td>
                    
                </td>
                <td align="center">
                    <input type='submit' value='Request Chat' id='prechat_submit' class="btnClass" />
                </td>
            </tr>
        </table>

        <input type="hidden" name="liveagent.prechat.query:Email" value="Contact,Contact.Email" />         

    </form>


</apex:page>

 Pre-chat extension code

public with sharing class NICP_Functions 
{

    public String getAccountName{get; set;} 
    public User u;
    
    public NICP_Functions(ApexPages.StandardController controller) 
    {

        try 
        {
            User u = [SELECT Id, AccountId FROM User WHERE Id =: UserInfo.getUserId()];
            Account a = [SELECT Id, Name FROM Account WHERE Id =: u.AccountId];
            getAccountName = a.Name;
        }
        catch (Exception e){getAccountName = 'Please Specify';}   
        
    }
    

 

Best Answer chosen by Admin (Salesforce Developers) 
MrBungleMrBungle

I figured out how to get the pre-chat form to auto-submit. I added the following body tag and javascript right after the page tag.

 

 

    <body onload="">
    </body>
    
    <script>
    
        function initSubmit() 
        {
            window.setTimeout(doSubmit, 2000)
        }
        
        function doSubmit()
        {
            var btnSubmit = document.getElementById('prechat_submit');
            btnSubmit.click();
        }    
            
    </script>

 

All Answers

MrBungleMrBungle

I figured out how to get the pre-chat form to auto-submit. I added the following body tag and javascript right after the page tag.

 

 

    <body onload="">
    </body>
    
    <script>
    
        function initSubmit() 
        {
            window.setTimeout(doSubmit, 2000)
        }
        
        function doSubmit()
        {
            var btnSubmit = document.getElementById('prechat_submit');
            btnSubmit.click();
        }    
            
    </script>

 

This was selected as the best answer
Dev2IndiaDev2India

Hi Expert ,

 

I am also trying to prepopulate the email id and and name of portal user but not working ........

 

It seems, however, that the (!$User} is returning the guest user of the Force.com Site. Specifically, {!$User.FirstName} and {!$User.ContactId} is being used. The code below shows their usage in context. The first merge field ends up displaying the Force.com Site name rather than the logged in portal user.

 

Is there a way to get the portal's logged in user information into the pre-chat form? HOw this works for you.

 

I would much appreciate your suggestions and Help..

 

Thanks

Dev2IndiaDev2India
@MrBungle

Hi MrBungle , need your urgent help. Please look into this
Appreciate that...
MrBungleMrBungle
Hi Dev2India, I am not an expert. I have gotten this to work for my org. I have seen the behavior that you have explained. It happened when the button code (the generated code that saleforce creates in Customize | Live Agent sections). After a Salesforce update I had to recreate the button code in setup and update the page that has the user-facing chat initiation button.

One important note is that we have the button on a page in our customer portal. This means that users are logged into Salesforce that initiate chats. If you are just getting the guest user info in your pre-chat form perhaps it is because you are accessing it anonymously.

Hope this helps.
Dev2IndiaDev2India

It will be helpful. Yes , I am using the button code on the Customer portal page from where clients can initiate the chate.  Everything yous said as designed however the only the button part which I am not sure what needs to be modified. If you can recall the updates from Salesforce , which you changed in the button code, would be helpful for me. Please share the button code if possible OR the updates required for this.

 

I will appreciate that.

And thanks so much for paying attention to this.

.

 

Dev2IndiaDev2India

@MrBungle,

 

Please reply this. Its a pain for us and your help will be highly appreciated in this situation.

 

Thanks alot ......