Live Chat: Behind The Scene

Intersoft Solutions Live Chat is built on top of our own product, WebUI Studio.NET 2007 R2. Most of the request and response actions are managed by WebNotification and WebFlyPostBackManager.

When you send a live chat request, the request will be sent to the server using WebFlyPostBackManager where it waits for a support member to take the request. In the Support member’s TDN page, notifications (complete with sounds) about your request will be displayed. This way, they can still know the incoming requests even though they are busy in different browsers.

While waiting for the status, you will be redirected to the Live Chat Loading page. In the Loading page, requests will be sent to server to check the status of the request. Using WebNotification, requests will be made at a time interval, which is 5 seconds. The request will be sent to server using WebFlyPostBackManager where the status of the request will be checked. When the request has been taken by a Support member, an indicator will be returned which stated that the request has been handled. The page will be redirected to the Live Chat page, where you can start to type a message.

A message will be sent to server when you click the Send button or when you press Enter after typing the message. Hmm.. How can the support receive the message then? Well, here is where the WebNotification and WebFlyPostBackManager will be useful again. WebNotification is used to create the request in a timely interval and WebFlyPostBackManager is used to get the not-yet delivered messages. When there are still not-yet delivered messages while you type and send a message, those not-yet delivered messages will be retrieved as well, so the sequence of the messages sent and received will still be in order. The above image is the LiveChat Window in the Support member account.

A Support member can invite another Support member to help solving your issues. In that case, you will be assisted by 2 Support members. FYI, only Support members that can invite other Support member into the chat session.

Here is the Live Chat window in the invited support. Note that the messages sent and received before he is invited are not included in the conversation.

When one of them left the conversation, the chat session will not end. You can still chat with the other Support member.

When you want to end your chat session, simply click the “End Chat” command in the ToolBar or close the window. The chat sesion will be ended if you confirm the action. If you checked the “Automatically send the history of conversation to my email” checkbox at the Live Chat Login page, an email that contains the conversation history will be sent to your email.

When you have left the conversation, the chat window in the Support member view will be disabled and the message will be sent to the support team indicating that the conversation has ended.

If you think our Live Chat should have more features, please send your feedback to technical@intersoftpt.com. We will be more than happy to receive your feedback