What it does

Live chat widget for websites and portals. Customers chat with reps or AI agents in real time; reps see survey responses, transcript, and customer history when they pick up the conversation.

Key facts

• Widget embed script is generated by the admin center; paste into the target page HTML
• Pre-conversation survey responses become context variables automatically and can drive routing rules
• Queue position and estimated wait time display are configurable toggles: both default to off
• Screen sharing and co-browse are not native: require separate third-party providers from the Microsoft Marketplace (one per capability, one per widget)
• Persistent chat (customer can reconnect to a previous conversation) requires authentication settings (JWT)
• Domain restriction is a separate toggle: without it, the embed script works on any domain
• data-enable-telemetry="false" must be manually added to the embed script to opt out of Microsoft telemetry
• Session storage and local storage must be enabled in the customer's browser

When to use / skip

Default for web-based support. Use for any public-facing or portal-embedded support chat. If you don't need real-time chat, just async messaging, a social channel works better.

Configuration decisions

• Pre-conversation survey on or off: strongly recommended on; survey responses feed routing rules without needing an AI agent
• Which user features to enable: file attachments, transcripts, voice/video escalation, co-browse (each has setup implications)
• Proactive chat: adds conditional invitation logic; design the trigger rules carefully or it becomes noise
• Authentication settings: required for persistent chat and for identifying authenticated portal users
• Domain restriction: should always be enabled in production

Gotchas

• Screen sharing and co-browse require a marketplace vendor; they're not built-in. Most clients assume they are: manage expectations in the design phase, not after go-live.
• Persistent chat requires JWT authentication; unauthenticated users can't reconnect to old conversations.
• Domain restriction defaults to off. Without it, anyone with the embed script can route chats to your queues. Enable this before go-live.
• Pre-conversation survey question names must exactly match context variable keys for routing. See feature-pre-conversation-survey.md for the required key names.

Consultant notes

• Domain restriction defaulting to off is the kind of thing that gets missed in a busy config sprint and then looks bad post-go-live. Make it a checklist item before UAT, not something you spot during a security review.
• Pre-conversation survey key names matching context variables exactly is an easy one to get wrong. A single typo routes conversations to the wrong queue with no obvious error. Test the full routing path end-to-end before UAT sign-off.
• Screen sharing and co-browse expectations should be settled in the design phase. Clients nearly always assume they're built in to the chat widget: correct this early so it doesn't become a scope gap late in the project.

---

Source last updated: 2026-03-10 | Worth checking again after native screen sharing lands, or if persistent chat support expands to unauthenticated users