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Live Agent and Knowledge

The Salesforce Service Console is an amazing piece of technology.  It has many, many features that can make agents extremely productive and able to work very efficiently on a single screen.  Giving agents the ability to use Knowledge Articles as chat answers in Live Agent can add to their efficiency.

The purpose of this article is to show how to set up Knowledge to work with Live Agent in the Service Cloud.  It is not a step-by-step guide on how to configure Live Agent, Knowledge, or the Service Cloud console from scratch.  For a deeper dive into LIve Agent or more general background on it, see the Help Page for Setting Up Live Agent, the Live Agent Developer’s Guide, and the section on Live Agent in the Service Cloud Workbook.  For more on Knowledge see the Help Page for Setting Up Salesforce Knowledge, the Knowledge Implementation Guide, and the section on Salesforce Knowledge in the Service Cloud Workbook.

 

Service Cloud console settings

Make sure that you have the Service Console app checkboxes checked for the options Include Live Agent in this App and Include Suggested Articles from Salesforce Knowledge in Live Agent.

Service Console Settings
Service Console Settings

Knowledge Article Type Configuration

It is assumed that Knowledge has already been set up and an Article Type has been created.  In this example I have a single Article Type called FAQ that has a Text field called Question, and a Text Area (Rich) field called Answer as shown below.

Article Type with Question and Answer fields
Article Type with Question and Answer fields

This is the step where the magic happens.  You need to create a field with the exact name of Chat Answer on the Article Type.  It has to be named exactly that. If it isn’t you won’t be able to add quick responses from Articles to Live Agent. You can create it as a Text Area (Long) but not as a Text Area (Rich).

Article Type with Chat Answer field
Article Type with Chat Answer field

After this, when you edit your Article you need to provide a separate value for the Chat Answer field.  It is best to try to provide a value that would be meaningful to a person engaged in a chat.  Here’s an example of a FAQ on How to Reset a Password.

FAQ Knowledge Article with Chat Answer
FAQ Knowledge Article with Chat Answer

Knowledge Article as Chat Answer in Live Agent

Once you have the Article published an you have provided a Chat Answer you will see the Article show up in Live Agent with a plus control [+] next to it.

Knowledge in Live Agent
Knowledge in Live Agent

Clicking that plus will add the contents of the Chat Answer to the Send Box.  Note that it does not send it automatically.  You have the ability to edit it or remove it prior to sending it.

That’s all that there is to it.  There is so much more that can be done with the Service Cloud in Salesforce.  This article has shed some light on the process of getting Knowledge to work with Live Agent to increase agent productivity.

15 thoughts on “Live Agent and Knowledge

  1. I haven’t done many Service Cloud implementations with Live Agent and Knowledge, but this is a great article. Bookmarked for later when this comes up (and I’m sure it will)!

    Great looking site by the way Peter. Love the responsive design of it.

  2. This is a great post! One quick question. What if I want to also send this article via email int he enhanced case feed? Will it also included a field chat answer to the recipient?

  3. Hi
    You can pass knowledge search keyword map to chat button action using following code
    liveagent.addCustomDetail(‘Subject’, ‘Battery Issue’).doKnowledgeSearch();
    and it will by default search filter article to agent chatlet once they accepted the chat.

    I just want to research how would it work with pre chat api

    1. Hi Sonaal,

      Did you find any solutions for do Knowledge search on the basis of subject that are take Using Pre Chat Form?

      Thanks,
      Rajendra

        1. Hi All,

          Finally i got it solution for that:

          To search knowledge articles in Knowledge Widget as per the case Subject or any other field we need to use liveagent.prechat.knowledgesearch:{detailname} where detailname is the field with which you want to search.

          For Example lets take “detailname” field as Case Subject.

          To search Knowledge Articles as per the Case Subject in Knowledge Widget when the Chat begins, we have to add the below line of code in the Pre Chat form.

          Subject:

          See here fore more information:

          http://help.salesforce.com/apex/HTViewSolution?urlname=Search-Knowledge-Articles-as-per-Case-Subject-in-Knowledge-Widget-of-Console&language=en_US

  4. Hi Peter,

    First of all thank you for that great article related to Live Agent and knowledge Aritcle.

    But now i have need to auto search Knowledge Aritcle based on the subject that user input in Pre Chat Form.
    So the agent have no need to search manually knowledge article manually.
    So can you please let me know how we do that thing?

    Thanks,
    Rajendra

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