Integrating with Salesforce

Before you begin

To connect to a Salesforce service desk, your organization must have a Salesforce Service Cloud plan that supports Live Agent Chat. Chat support is available in Salesforce Service Cloud Unlimited and Enterprise plans. It is also available with Performance or Developer plans that were created after 14 June 2012.

Your organization must have a Salesforce chat app with the following characteristics:

• Console navigation
• Navigation items: Cases, Chat sessions, Chat transcripts
• User profiles: Apply the appropriate profiles to ensure that agents can access the app and view chat history information. You can limit access to this page later. See Profiles.
• A chat deployment.
• A chat button deployment.
• Routing must be configured for the chat button. See Chat routing options.
• If you choose omni-channel routing, be sure to include omni-channel as a utility in the chat app. See Omni-Channel.

You must have a level of access to your Salesforce service desk deployment that allows you to do the following:

• Edit the chat app
• Get chat deployment and button code details
• Add custom fields to layout objects
• Create Visualforce pages

If you don't, ask someone with the appropriate level of access to perform this procedure for you.

Setting up the Salesforce service desk connection

To set up a Salesforce service desk integration, complete the following steps:

1. Go to your web chat settings. For more information, see Integrating the web chat with your website.

2. From the web chat integration page in watsonx Assistant, set the Allow transfers to live agents switch to On, and then choose Salesforce as the service desk type. Click Next.

3. For watsonx Assistant to connect to a Salesforce service desk, it needs information about your organization's Salesforce chat deployment and button implementations. Specifically, it needs the API endpoint, organization ID, deployment ID, and button ID. The service can derive the values that it needs from code snippets that you copy and paste to this configuration page.

   In a separate browser tab or window, open your Salesforce account settings page. Log in with a user ID that has administrative privileges. You must switch back and forth between your Salesforce and watsonx Assistant web chat integration setup pages. It's easier to do so if you have both pages open at once.

   • Get the deployment code for your Salesforce Agent Configuration chat deployment.

     Go to the Salesforce Feature Settings > Service > Chat > Deployments page. Find your organization's deployment. Scroll to the end of the chat deployment configuration page and copy the Deployment Code snippet.

   • Paste the deployment code snippet into the Deployment code field in the watsonx Assistant Salesforce configuration page.

   • Get the Chat Button code.

     Go to the Salesforce Feature Settings > Service > Chat > Chat Buttons & Invitations page. Find your organization's button implementation. Scroll to the end of the page, and then copy the Chat Button Code snippet.

   • Paste the chat button code snippet into the Chat button code field in the watsonx Assistant Salesforce configuration page, and then click Next.

4. Add a chat app that enables the Salesforce agent to see a history of the chat. To do so, create a Visualforce page, and then add a chat app to the page.

5. Add custom fields to the Salesforce chat transcript layout.

   This is a one-time task. If the fields already exist for your organization, you can skip this step.

   These custom fields are referenced from the Visualforce page code that you will use in the next step.

   See Create Custom Fields.

   From the Salesforce Data >Objects and Fields > Object Manager > Chat Transcript > Fields & Relationships page, create the following custom fields:

   • Token: Stores a watsonx Assistant authentication token that secures the communication between Salesforce and your assistant.

     • Data Type: Text Area
     • Field Label: x-watson-assistant-key

6. Create a Visualforce page.

   Visualforce pages are the mechanism that Salesforce provides for you to customize a live agent's console by adding your own pages to it. A Visualforce page is similar to a standard web page, but it provides ways for you to access, display, and update your organization’s data. Pages can be referenced and invoked by using a unique URL, just as HTML pages on a traditional web server can be. See Create Visualforce Pages

   • From the web chat integration page in watsonx Assistant, copy the code snippet from the Visualforce page markup field.
   • Switch to your Salesforce web page. Search for Visualforce Pages. Create a page. Add a label and name to the page. Select the Available for Lightning Experience, Lightning Communities, and the mobile app checkbox. Paste the code snippet that you copied in the previous step into the page markup field.

7. Add the Visualforce page that you created to the Salesforce chat app.

   To ensure the Salesforce agents can see history of the chat between the customer and your assistant, you must add the page that you created earlier into the console that they use to keep track of their work. See Create and Configure Lightning Experience Record Pages.

   • From the Salesforce App Launcher, open the chat app that you created for your agents to talk to customers.

   • Open the Chat Transcripts object, and then select a transcript page.

   • Click the Setup icon, and then select Edit Page.

   • Drag the Visualforce component and drop it into the Chat Transcript Record page layout where you want the chat window to be displayed.

   • In the component editor, select the Visualforce page that you created earlier, make any adjustments to the component height that you want, and then click Save.

     If you do make changes, make sure the height of the Visualforce page is 20 px smaller than the height of the component that you add it to. By default, the height of the component is 300 px and the height of the Visualforce page is 280 px. (The height of the Visualforce page is specified in the height attribute of the iframe HTML element in the code snippet that you copy and paste.)

   • Click Activation, and then click the APP, RECORD TYPE, AND PROFILE tab.

   • Select the apps to which you want to apply the page layout, and then click Next.

   • Select the appropriate record type, such as Main, and then click Next.

   • Select user profiles to give the appropriate set of users access to the page. Limit the group to include only those who you want to be able to view chat history information in the page.

   • Click Next, and then click Save.

8. From the Salesforce configuration page in watsonx Assistant, click Save and exit to finish setting up the connection.

When you test the service desk integration, make sure there is at least one agent with Available status.

Watch a 5-minute video that provides an overview of setting up a connection to a Salesforce service desk:

Adding transfer support to your actions

Update an action to make sure it understands when users request to speak to a person, and can transfer the conversation properly.