The Google Hangouts App: Part 2 - For Customers

If you signed up before Aug 9, 2021, please click Previous plans to view your applicable plans.

Note: This feature is currently not available on Freshdesk Mint.

Your customers can initiate a hangout with your agents right from their ticket in the Freshdesk support portal. This way, your agents and customers can set up a time for a hangout session and troubleshoot problems easily. 

Quick guide to set up a hangout widget on the end user portal

• Login to your support portal as an administrator.
• Go to Admin > Channels > Portals 
• Click on the Customize portal button on the top fold.
• In the Portal customization page, click on the Layouts & Pages tab.
• In the Portal layout tab, paste this javascript code in the footer section, above the existing code:

{% if portal.current_page == "ticket_view" %}
  {% assign email_flag = false %}
  {% if ticket.agent.email == null %}
    {% for ticket in portal.user.recent_tickets %}
        {% if ticket.agent.email != null %}
            {% assign agent_email = ticket.agent.email %}
            {% break %}
        {% endif %}
{% if forloop.last %}
          {% assign email_flag = true %}
        {% endif %}
    {% endfor %}
  {% else %}
        {% assign agent_email = ticket.agent.email %}
  {% endif %}

  {% if email_flag == false %}
    <style>
      .google_hangout{
        margin-bottom: 15px;
      }
      .google_hangout h3{
        margin-bottom: 10px;
      }
    </style>
  
  
    <script type="text/javascript">
      
      jQuery('body').append
('<div class="google_hangout" id="google_hangout">' +
 '<h3 class="heading">Google Hangout with agent</h3>' +
'<div id="placeholder-div"></div>' +                          
 '</div>');
      jQuery('#ticket-sidebar-details .lead').before(jQuery('#google_hangout'));
      
      window.___gcfg = {
        lang: 'en-US'
      };
      (function() {
        var po = document.createElement('script'); 
po.type = 'text/javascript'; po.async = true;
po.src = 'https://apis.google.com/js/platform.js?onload=renderButtons';
var s = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(po, s);
})();
      
function renderButtons(){
gapi.hangout.render('placeholder-div', {
'render': 'createhangout',
'invites' : "[{'id': '{{agent_email}}','invite_type': 'EMAIL'}]",
'initial_apps': 
"[{'app_id' : '184219133185', 'start_data' : 'dQw4w9WgXcQ', 'app_type' : 'ROOM_APP' }]",
 'widget_size': 72
});
}
</script>
  {% endif %}

{% endif %}

• You can preview this change and then click on Save and Publish for the changes to reflect immediately.
• Now when your customers log on to your helpdesk and check their tickets, they can see a hangout button right next to it.

• Your customer can click on the Start button to initiate the hangout with the agent assigned to their ticket, in a pre-defined time

Learn how to set up a hangout widget in the tickets page for agent to initiate the hangout.

Requirements

• A customer can only initiate hangout with the agent who has been assigned to their ticket or the agent who was assigned to his recent ticket (last 5 tickets will be considered). If the customer's ticket is unassigned the hangout widget will not be shown.
• The agent and the customer should be logged into Freshdesk with a Gmail account.
• The agent and the customer should be online in the hangout time agreed upon.