Siebel Chat Guide > Working with Siebel Chat >

Accepting an Incoming Chat

Agents accept an incoming chat that has been queued to them by clicking the Accept Work Item button, when it flashes, on the communications toolbar of the Siebel Call Center application. However if chat auto answer is enabled for agents in Siebel Call Center, then agents do not need to manually accept the incoming chat as the chat either opens up automatically on the agent's screen or the chat tab flashes to indicate that a new chat has been automatically accepted and queued.

By default, when an agent accepts a chat, the agent automatically becomes not ready or unavailable for other channels. If an agent does not accept an incoming chat:

• The status of that agent automatically changes to not ready, and no further incoming chats are queued to that agent until that agent changes the status back to ready. Agent status is indicated by the status button (State: ready or State: not ready) on the communications toolbar.

  If chat auto answer is enabled and the agent is configured to accept a maximum number of chats at the same time in Oracle Contact On Demand, then chat auto answer accepts incoming chats, up to the maximum number of chats allowed. For more information about agent status, see Changing Agent Status.

• Depending on workgroup setup in Oracle Contact On Demand, the customer requesting the chat is either disconnected if no agents are available, or waits in the queue for the next available agent.

  The length of time that a customer waits can be configured during workgroup setup. For more information about workgroups, see Setting Up Workgroups in Oracle Contact On Demand Administration Manager.

  While the customer waits, Web pages can be pushed to the customer according to chat project setup in Oracle Contact On Demand. For more information about projects, see Setting Up a Chat Project in Oracle Contact On Demand Administration Manager.

Accepting an Incoming Chat Manually

Use the following procedure to manually accept an incoming chat. Agents must manually accept incoming chats when chat auto answer is disabled for agents. For more information about chat auto answer, see Roadmap for Configuring Siebel Chat Auto Answer for Agents.

To accept an incoming chat manually

1. Click the flashing Accept Work Item button on the communications toolbar.

   A chat pane opens in an action pane to the right of your Siebel Call Center application. The chat dashboard is prepopulated with the information provided by the user on the chat request form. The customer dashboard in Siebel Call Center also opens, showing customer information.

2. Respond to the incoming chat as described in Responding to an Incoming Chat.

Opening an Automatically Accepted Incoming Chat

Use the following procedure to open an incoming chat that has been automatically accepted. This happens when chat auto answer is enabled for agents. This procedure assumes that there are other active chat sessions or that agent is already working on an existing chat.

NOTE:  If there are no other active chat sessions or the agent is not working on an existing chat, then the agent does not need to do anything to open the incoming chat as the chat pane opens up automatically.

For more information about chat auto answer, see Roadmap for Configuring Siebel Chat Auto Answer for Agents.

To open an automatically accepted incoming chat

1. Click the flashing chat tab to open the chat session.

   The chat tab stops flashing and a chat pane opens in an action pane to the right of your Siebel Call Center application. The chat dashboard is prepopulated with the information provided by the user on the chat request form. The customer dashboard in Siebel Call Center also opens, showing customer information.

2. Respond to the incoming chat as described in Responding to an Incoming Chat.