Widget Settings
Widget settings control what the website chat may say, how it looks, and when it greets visitors first. Open 'Communications', then 'Website chat', then 'Settings'. You need the 'Website Chat' permission.
'Settings' has three cards: 'Agent', 'Appearance' and 'Proactive greeting'. Change what you need, then click 'Save changes' at the bottom. The button stays disabled until something has changed, and 'Saved' appears once it's done.
Agent
| Setting | What it does |
|---|---|
| 'Answer from' | Which knowledge the AI may use: 'Every knowledge base this company can read', 'Only these knowledge bases' or 'Only these sections' |
| 'Tone' | 'Default', 'Friendly', 'Professional', 'Short and direct', 'Warm and reassuring', or 'Custom…' with a few words of your own (up to 64 characters) |
| 'Language' | 'Match the customer' replies in the visitor's language. 'Always reply in' uses the language you pick |
| 'Instructions' | Added to every reply, up to 2,000 characters. Keep it short; the knowledge base does the work |
| 'Escalation keywords' | Comma-separated words that hand the visitor to a person without an AI answer |
| 'Blocked topics' | Comma-separated words the agent declines to discuss |
| 'When it cannot answer' | The message sent when the knowledge base doesn't cover a question, up to 1,000 characters |
| 'Daily reply cap' | The most AI replies per day, 200 by default. Zero stops the agent entirely |
| 'Pause the widget' | Hides the widget on your site until you untick it |
To limit the AI to part of your knowledge, pick 'Only these knowledge bases' and tick the ones it may use. For finer control, pick 'Only these sections', tick a knowledge base, then tick the sections under it. Unticking a knowledge base also clears its sections.
When a message contains an escalation keyword, the widget doesn't ask the AI. It sends your 'When it cannot answer' message and shows the contact card, even after the daily reply cap is reached. A blocked topic gets a short line saying the agent can't help with that here, with no contact card.
Escalation keywords and blocked topics are not case-sensitive. You can add up to 50 of each, of up to 64 characters. For words in Latin letters, only whole words match, so 'cancel' doesn't match 'chancellor'. Words in other alphabets, such as Cyrillic, can also match inside a longer word.
When 'Pause the widget' is saved, a banner at the top of the page reminds you. The chat button no longer appears on new page views, and a visitor who still has the chat open gets 'We are not taking messages right now.'
Appearance
'Appearance' has four parts: 'Colours', 'Chat button', 'Attention animation' and 'Chat window'. The chat button and the attention animation are described in Chat Button and Attention Animation.
| Setting | Options |
|---|---|
| 'Accent colour' | Any colour, picked or typed as a hex code such as #14b8a6 |
| 'Theme' | 'Follow the visitor's device', 'Light' or 'Dark' |
| 'Agent name' | The name in the chat header. Left empty, it shows 'Support' |
| 'Status line' | A short line under the name, such as 'Typically replies in a few minutes' |
| 'Greeting' | The text in the empty chat before the visitor writes |
| 'Show "Powered by KnowStack"' | A small link to knowstack.ai under the message box. On by default |
KnowStack picks white or dark text for your accent colour so buttons stay readable. If neither is readable enough, you see 'Text on this colour is too faint to read' and 'Fix the accent colour before saving.' Pick a darker or lighter shade to save.
'Preview' shows the real widget with your unsaved changes, on a light or dark background of your choice. The greeting appears in the preview after you save. On a phone, or any window 480 pixels wide or narrower, the chat opens full screen.
Text you type in 'Settings', such as the greeting, the 'When it cannot answer' message and the proactive message, is shown to every visitor exactly as written, whatever their language. The AI's own replies follow the 'Language' setting.
Proactive greeting
A proactive greeting shows a small bubble with your message beside the chat button. It never opens the chat window by itself. The visitor clicks the bubble to start, or closes it with its x button.
| Setting | What it does |
|---|---|
| 'Greet visitors automatically' | Turns the greeting on. It is off by default |
| 'Message' | The text in the bubble. Nothing shows without it |
| 'Show after (seconds)' | Time on the page before the bubble appears: 3 to 600 seconds, 15 by default |
| 'Also show after scrolling (%)' | Also shows it once the visitor scrolls this far down the page. Leave it empty to turn this off |
| 'Also show when the visitor moves to leave' | Also shows it when the cursor leaves through the top of the window. Not used on touch screens |
| 'Show again after (days)' | After a visitor closes the bubble, how long to wait before showing it again: 0 to 365 days, 7 by default |
The bubble never shows to a visitor who already has a conversation, or who opened the chat earlier in the same browser tab. A visitor who ignores it without closing it can see it again on the next page.