Accessing and navigating Self Service Portal


As an end user you can use the Self Service Portal in Live Chat to interact with support agents and receive suggestions for solutions to your queries.

You can enter up to 1500 characters in a chat message, although the character limit can depend on the ASCII characters used. For example, characters such as " & and % occupy three to five characters, not one character. The minimum size for the chat window is 480 x 670 pixels . You can also send files to a support agent to provide more information about an issue.

Related Topics

Important

The administrator configures the tabs and other UI elements on the Self Service Portal according to your organization's requirements.

Know more about the Configuring-the-Self-Service-Portal.

 

Self Service Portal UI elements

The Self Service Portal has the following UI elements:

Self Service Portal UI element

Description

Open Items > My Open Chats

Displays all previous chat sessions. Clicking a chat session reactivates the session and displays the associated chat log.

Open Items > Show Open Incidents 

Displays all the service request IDs that are created in BMC Service Request Management to correspond an incident or work order in Smart IT. The service request ID is not clickable.

If administrators enable the the rule to create a service request that corresponds to an incident or work order in Smart IT, the service request ID is displayed to end users. 

Clicking an incident shows the details of that incident, such as status, modified date, and agent assigned.

Important: End users can access only open incidents. They cannot access open work orders from the Self-Service Portal.

Quick Links

Important links available to the end users.

Important: You can view the links only if the administrator has enabled this feature and created quick links for end users.

Alerts

Displays active service alerts. Clicking the alert displays the alert description and history.

 

Select a topic 

Provides a list of subjects that a question may relate to. Selecting a topic routes the user to a chat session with the subject matter expert for that topic.

Note: You can view the topics only if the administrator has enabled the support queues and topics.

Start typing your question

Provides an area for the self-service user to type a question to ask the support agent.

Email ​​​​​​

Send an email of the chat transcript to self or to any other email address.

Important: The chat transcript email is sent in the locale that is specified as the notification language for the user (set in the CTM:People form). This locale could be different than the language in which the chat conversation occurred.

View the chat transcript email subject and an example
  • Email subject when the agent creates a service request on behalf of the user—Chat Transcript of Service Request ID started on chat start timestamp with timezone
  • Email subject when service request is not created—Chat Transcript of conversation started on chat start timestamp with timezone

chat transcript email.png

Attachment

Send an attachment to the live agent either by clicking the attachment icon or by dropping the file to the chat window.

You can also share the screenshots and images by copy-pasting them to the chat window.

When the attachment is an image type, it appears inline in the conversation window. For all other file types, a file icon is displayed with the download option.

Live Chat Hours

Displays the hours that live agent support is available.

Cancel Chat

Cancels the chat session and notifies the support agent.

 

To access the Self Service Portal

After the administrator configures access to the Self Service Portal, end users can perform the following steps to access the portal:

  1. In a browser, enter or navigate to the URL supplied by the administrator.
  2. In the Login dialog box, type the self-service user ID and press Enter.
  3. Post your question in the text box. 
    A support agent accepts the chat session and continues the conversation. 

If an agent is disconnected from the chat session, the end user is notified after a minimum time period of 60 seconds. If the administrator has configured the settings, the chat is released back to the queue. If the chat is released to the general queue, then the previous messages are transferred to the agent who is assigned the chat.

To provide feedback for a live chat session

After a live chat session ends, a feedback survey is displayed automatically in the Self Service Portal.

  1. In the feedback survey that is displayed, rate the service by selecting the required smiley.
    23302_Provide feedback_Enhancements.png

    Important

    If you select any of the following ratings, the Feedback field is mandatory:

    • 1Rating 1.png
    • 2Rating 2.png
    • 3Rating 3.png

    This functionality is applicable only when the feedback survey is enabled and the threshold for mandatory feedback is set to 3.

  2. Click Send.

 

 

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