Technical documentation

The article below will deepdive in technical possibilities of our new widget.

Initializing the widget

'Chatlayer.init(options: Options)'

Initializes the widget using the specified options . This method returns a promise like object.

Except for the on and off methods, the rest of the documented methods below needs to be called after init is completed

Options

Option	Optional	Default Value	Type	Description
channelId	No	-	string	The ID of the Chatlayer channel
title	Yes	-	string	The title to show in the header widget
subtitle	No	-	string	An optional subtitle to show below the title
position	No	right	right | left	The position of the widget. Possible values are left or right
buttonWidth	No	58	number	The width of the widget button
buttonHeight	No	58	number	The height of the widget button
customColors	Yes	-	CustomColors	Override the colors of the widget
headerIconUrl	Yes	-	url	URL of a public image to be shown in the header
region	Yes	eu-west1-gcp	string	The region of your Chatlayer account
customText	Yes	-	CustomText	Override the text of the different widget UI elements
enableTextInput	No	true	boolean	Set it to false to hide the text input, allowing users to interact only via buttons and quick replies
enableAudioInput	No	true	boolean	Set it to false to hide the audio recording button, preventing the users from sending audio messages via the widget
enableFileUpload	No	true	boolean	Set it to false to hidde the file upload button, preventing the users sending files via the widget. File upload request will still work
enableSoundNotifications	No	true	boolean	Control whether the user will receive sound notifications every time a new message arrives. It can be changed by the user as well from the settings

Custom colors

CustomColors

Option	Optional	Default Value	Description
brandColor	Yes	007171	This color will be used in the messenger header and the launcher. It must be a 3 or 6-character hexadecimal color.
conversationColor	Yes	007171	This color will be used for customer messages, quick replies and actions in the footer.
actionColor	Yes	007171	This color will be used for call-to-actions inside your messages. Must be a 3 or 6-character hexadecimal color.

Customize text

CustomText

Option	Optional	Default Value	Description
inputPlaceholder	Yes	Send a message	Placeholder text shown in the message input field
botDisplayName	Yes	Bot	This display name of the bot. Use an empty string to hide it.
agentDisplayName	Yes	Agent	This display name of the agent. Use an empty string to hide it.

To provide different values for different languages, add a subfield with the language code.

Opening and closing your widget

command	action
Chatlayer.open()	Opens the widget
Chatlayer.close()	Closes the widget
Chatlayer.toggle()	Toggles the widget
Chatlayer.isOpen	shows whether the widget is open

User authentication

When the widget is initialized an anonymous customer is created automatically. This customer can send messages to the bot. In some scenarios, you want to federate the customer identity with the ones of your website or application. This is done using the externalId. This field identifies the user on your system. It can be an email address, a username, a uuid or any other user id on your database. Most imporatnly it should be unique and always reference a entity from your system.

In order to proof the autenticity of the user, we require a signed JWT token that validates your ownership of the widget. Otherwise anyone can impersonate your users.

In order to create a signed JWT token:

1. Login into your Chatlayer account and create an access token at https://app.chatlayer.ai/settings/api-access/tokens

2. The token will have the form of [keyId]:[keySecret]. Notice there is : separating the two parts of the token.

3. Implement server side code to sign new JWTs using thekeyId and keySecret. The JWT header must specify the key ID in the kid field. The JWT payload must include a channel_id claim in the jwt payload and a sub claim wich should be set to your external user id.

A node.js sample is provided below using jsonwebtoken >= 6.0.0

var jwt = require('jsonwebtoken');
// given token 647f1ecd48f7f8aa3abe17fd:5e39a6051B53e7Cf92CF0dB9F2Bd5Eb0
var KEY_ID = '647f1ecd48f7f8aa3abe17fd';
var KEY_SECRET = '5e39a6051B53e7Cf92CF0dB9F2Bd5Eb0';
var CHANNEL_ID = 'liiq8woe:647f1f0910f7d21246e1df75';

var signJwt = function (userId) {
  return jwt.sign(
    {
      channel_id: CHANNEL_ID,
      sub: userId,
    },
    KEY_SECRET,
    {
      header: {
        alg: 'HS256',
        typ: 'JWT',
        kid: KEY_ID,
      },
    }
  );
};

4. From your website call

Chatlayer.login(externalUserId, signedJWT).then(() => {
  // user logged in
  }, err => {
// error occurred
  })`

command	necessary info
Chatlayer.login()	(externalId: string, jwt: string)
Chatlayer.logout()	(externalId: string, jwt: string)

Events sent by Chatlayer

Chatlayer.on(event, (arg1, arg2) => ...)

event	description	arg1
widget:opened	The widget was opened	-
widget:closed	The widget was closed	-
widget:custom_action	When a custom action button was clicked	-
message:received	A message was received	-
message:sent	A message was send by the user	-
event:received	An event was received	EventPayload
init	The widget was initialized	-
destroy	The widget was destroyed	-

EventPayload

Field	Type	Description
generic_event	GenericEvent	A generic event
agent_joined_event	AgentJoinedEvent	When an agent joins the conversation
agent_left_event	AgentLeftEvent	When an agent leaves the conversation

GenericEvent

Field	Type	Description
payload	JSON	Arbitrary data set to the event. A valid JSON object.

Note that you can use the JSON builder to send generic events from your user's session to the site you've hosted the widget on.

AgentJoinedEvent

Field	Type	Description
agent	Agent	Represents an agent that is involved in a conversation.

Agent

Field	Type	Description
display_name	string	Agent's display name
picture_url	string	The Agent's picture url.
type	AgentType	Agent's classification can be UNKNOWN_AGENT_TYPE, HUMAN or BOT.

Use Chatlayer.off(event, (arg1, arg2) => ...)to unsubscribe from these events

Changing the language

Chatlayer.setLanguage(language)

Set the current language. Only languages on the list of languages supported by your bot will be accepted.

Chatlayer.language

The current language of the widget

Setting Session Data

If you want to transfer data from your website to the chatbot, you can add that data to the chatlayer function after initializing the widget. All data will be put in the Chatlayer session. This data can then be used to customize the chatbot flow, based on actual website data.

Chatlayer.setSessionData(SessionData)

Sets extra data in the conversation session and returns a promise

Example

Chatlayer.setSessionData({
  Product: 'iPhone XS',
  });
// or
Chatlayer.setSessionData('Product', 'iPhone XS');

The example above shows how you can set the variable Product in the Chatlayer session. It will get the value iPhone XS in this case.