Build Conversation Flows

Conversation Flows guide a visitor at the start of a new chat. A question offers clear choices; each choice leads to the next useful action: show an explanation, collect a detail, open a help article, ask RIO, or hand the thread to your team.

They belong to Live Chat. Monitor is the separate feature for observing business processes reported by your backend.

Create a draft

Choose the correct application, open Settings → Live chat → Conversation flows, and create a flow. Start from a template such as Sign-in help, Route to the team, or AI triage with team fallback, or start from scratch. Name it for the support journey it handles. Creating or saving it keeps a draft; publication is a separate action.

Choose where it is shown: a particular widget, or the application-wide default. A widget-specific live flow takes precedence over the application default. Only one live flow can occupy the same scope. If publishing reports another live flow there, pause that flow before publishing the replacement.

Understand the eight step types

Step	What it does	What to configure
Question	Asks the visitor to choose an option.	Prompt, 2–5 distinct options, and the destination for each option. The first step must be a Question.
Message	Shows text and continues.	The message and next step.
Collect text	Waits for a short typed detail.	A clear prompt and next step. The answer is recorded in the conversation.
Condition	Chooses a branch without showing a message.	Ordered rules and an Otherwise destination.
Help article	Shows a published Help Center article.	The article, optional text, and next step.
AI assistant answers	Asks RIO to answer.	The input source, a question prompt when needed, and a fallback.
Hand to the team	Lets a teammate continue.	The customer-facing message and a fallback if handoff cannot run.
End	Ends guided steps.	Optional closing text. The visitor can still write afterward.

Every choice should lead somewhere useful. An End step ends the flow rather than resolving the support issue automatically or disabling the conversation.

Build a practical sign-in journey

1. Start with What is stopping you from signing in? Offer Forgot password, No sign-in email, and Something else.
2. Route Forgot password to a published reset guide or a short message describing the real reset action in your product.
3. Route No sign-in email to an explanation of spam checks, address checks, and using the newest email.
4. After either explanation, ask Can you sign in now? Route Yes to End and No to Collect text.
5. Ask for the sign-in method and error message, then hand the conversation to the team.
6. Add a fallback explaining the alternative support channel when the team cannot be reached.

Do not ask for passwords, one-time codes, reset links or card details. Use your own product’s policies and screens; templates are editable starting points.

Branch with conditions

Conditions can test a previously selected option, the visitor’s language, whether the visitor is signed in, whether AI answers directly, and whether the team can be reached. Rules are evaluated in order; the first matching rule wins. If no rule matches, the flow follows Otherwise.

For example, after collecting a question, check The AI assistant answers directly. Send a matching visitor to AI and everyone else to the team. This keeps the journey useful when AI is disabled or configured for suggestions.

An availability condition is not a promise that an agent is online or that an answer will arrive immediately. The team step uses the configured application routing; a technical/billing question by itself does not assign different teams.

Connect Help Center and RIO

The Help article picker offers published articles. Keep the selected article published and relevant. If it is no longer available, the flow can skip the article step; make the following step useful without relying on its text.

For AI, choose between answering the preceding choice or collected text and asking the visitor to write a fresh question. When reusing input, link the AI step from an option, Collect text, or a valid Condition path. An intervening message can make that input unavailable. Configure a fallback in either case.

RIO must be enabled and available for direct replies. A team step also needs working routing and permitted handoff. See RIO in Live Chat and Set up Live Chat before testing those branches.

Write the journey in your visitors’ languages

Set a default language, then add the languages your audience needs. Translate prompts, option labels, messages and closing text. Language tags support the general locale contract; language support is not limited to a pair of languages.

Missing translations fall back to the default language and appear as warnings. Review the whole journey in each offered language, including fallbacks, rather than translating only the entry question. The current authoring limits allow up to 10 languages per flow.

Preview and fix issues

Use Steps, Edit, and Preview to inspect the journey. Follow every option, including Otherwise, missing knowledge, unavailable AI, and unavailable team routes. Fix errors on the affected steps before publishing.

Typical errors include missing destinations, deleted targets, fewer than two options, duplicate labels, missing default-language text, unpublished articles, and missing fallbacks. Avoid automatic loops. At most 10 automatic steps can run in a row before another visitor answer or an end.

The current limits are 50 flows per application, including archived flows, 50 steps per flow, five options per Question, and five rules per Condition. Prefer a focused journey that is easy to review over a long decision tree.

Preview is a simulation. It does not send a real customer message or verify an AI provider’s answer. After publication, test from the installed widget on an allowed website and confirm the expected thread arrives in Live Chat.

Save, publish and manage versions

• Save stores edits to the draft. A live flow can have unpublished changes.
• Publish creates the version used for new starts. Test with a new conversation rather than assuming an existing thread restarts.
• Pause stops the flow being offered for new starts; Resume makes its live version available again when valid.
• Archive removes a flow from active use. Restore it before editing again.
• Use the version history to inspect published versions and the available restore or revoke actions. Revoking a live version affects its availability; review the current status afterward.

If another editor changes the flow, reload the latest version and review your changes. Do not keep retrying a stale save. Editing a live flow’s widget scope can affect where it is served immediately, so review scope changes as carefully as publication.

Troubleshooting

Symptom	What to check
No entry question appears	Flow status and published version, application/widget scope, Live Chat setup, runtime availability, and whether this is a new conversation.
Another flow appears	A widget-specific flow takes precedence over the application default.
AI always takes the fallback	Direct-answer mode, AI availability, and whether valid input reaches the AI step.
Team handoff takes the fallback	Handoff permission, conversations enabled, and an available team linked to the application.
An article is skipped	Confirm it is still published and selected in the flow.
Some text uses the default language	Complete the missing translation for that step or option.
Publish is blocked	Fix the marked errors and check for an existing live flow in the same scope.

Once customers reach your team, use Work live conversations to manage replies, notes, ownership and status.