Set up your library's chat form
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Overview
Your Group/BME administrator must set up and publish your group's chat forms before you (as an Institution administrator) can set up the chat forms for your library.
You do the following in the Administration module to set up your library's chat forms:
- View the published chat forms, which are hosted by QuestionPoint, and get the URLs needed to create links to the forms.
- Customize the look and feel of the chat form banner, and add your customized banner to the published chat forms (optional).
- View and customize the chat-closed page that your patrons see if chat is not available (optional).
Other uses of Forms Manager:
- If you (as a Group/BME administrator) want to set up your group's chat forms, see Create your group's chat forms.
- If you (as an Institution administrator) want to set up the Qwidget for your library, see Create your Qwidget (QuestionPoint widget).
- If you (as an Institution administrator) want to set up the e-mail question form for your library, see Create your library's e-mail question form.
Benefits
This method for managing your chat forms:
- Is easy to use and reduces the need for IT staff involvement.
- Supports improved access to data about reference transactions.
- Provides improved protection against spam.
Setup steps
To set up your library's chat forms:
- Log on to QuestionPoint and go
to the Chat Form page at Administration > Institution > Forms > Forms
Manager > Chat Settings and URLs.
- If "None available" appears at the bottom of the page, you cannot set up your chat forms now. You may want to ask your Group/BME administrator about the status of your group's chat forms.
- If one or more View links and URLs appear at the bottom of the page, You can set up your chat forms now. Go to the next step.
- Click each View link to view each published
form and consider changes that you want to make to the banner that
appears at the top of the form. If you have questions about fields
or messages in the form, contact your Group/BME administrator.
- For any View links listed under the Chat heading, the chat form consists of the elements of the form only. There is no Viewport frame. During the chat session, only the chat transcript is displayed. Any links sent by the librarian appear in the transcript. If a patron clicks a link, the link opens in a separate browser window. This type of chat was formerly known in QuestionPoint as Chat 2 (Preview) or ADA-compliant Chat.
- For any View links listed under the Chat with Viewport and Cobrowse check heading, the chat form consists of the Viewport in the left frame and the form elements in the right frame. When a chat session starts, the frames switch: the chat box and chat history are on the left and the Viewport is on the right. This type of chat lets librarians push web pages to the patron's browser. If you want to change the Web page that appears in the Viewport, see Specify the initial Web page for the Viewport.
- If you want to change the banner that appears at the top of the form, click Define Chat Look and Feel on the Chat Form page and customize the banner. For more information, see Options for Define Chat Look and Feel. To add your banner changes to the published chat form, click Publish Chat Form Look and Feel on the Chat Form page.
- Click Chat Closed Page on the Chat Form page
to go to the Chat Closed page. It contains a View link
and editing tools for the chat-closed page for each language in
which your group's chat forms are published. Click each View link to
view each chat-closed page and consider changes that you may want
to make to the message on the page.
Note: Patrons see the chat-closed page, instead of the chat form, if chat is not available when they click a link to your library's chat form. - If you want to change the message that patrons see on the chat-closed page, enter your changes using the editing tools and click Save. Then click the View link to view your changes. For more information, see Options for Chat Closed Page.
- When you are ready to provide the forms for your patrons, copy the URLs included on the Chat Form page for the forms that you want to provide. Use the URLs in the links that you place on your library Web site.
Options
Options for Define Chat Look and Feel
Here you define the following elements of the banner for the top of your library's chat form:
- URL of the image file for the logo or image that appears on the left in the form banner. Recommended height of the image is 40 pixels.
- URL of the web page to which the patron goes if the image is clicked.
- Alternate (alt) text for the image.
- Banner text that appears next to your logo (40 character limit).
- Color (hexadecimal color code) of the background of the banner.
- Color (hexadecimal color code) of the banner text.
- URL and link text for up to two links that will appear in the banner.
If you have forms in two or more languages, you may either define a default banner that applies to all languages or customize the banner for each language.
Click Save before you click Return to Chat Settings and URLs to save any changes.
Options for Chat Closed Page
Here you can change the message that patrons see on the chat-closed page. Patrons see the page, instead of the chat form, if chat is not available when they click a link to your library's chat form. You can change the message text, include HTML codes to format the message, and include HTML links to other resources, such as your e-mail reference service.
Examples:
- Enter HTML codes in the Text box to format the content. If you do not enter HTML codes, the content appears as a single paragraph. For example, enter <br><br> before each additional paragraph to separate it from the previous paragraph. Or, enter <br> to simply start a new line.
- Enter HTML links in the Text box to include links in the message. For example, enter <a href="http://www.google.com">Google</a> to include a link to Google.
Click Revert to Original Message if you want to return to your last saved-message.
Click Restore BME Message if you want to return to your Group/BME administrator's message.
Click Save before you click Return to Chat Settings and URLs to save any changes.
