Live Chat Addon

About this Addon Module

Live Chat allows you to chat and engage with customers. It includes in-chat access to customer products and billing, and chat transcripts become support tickets after the chat concludes. You can use Live Chat from a downloadable client that's available for most major mobile and desktop operating systems.

Addon Name	Latest Release	Current Version	Compatible With	Included in WHMCS
Live Chat Addon'	17th May 2021	5.8.9800	WHMCS 8.0 and later	No

Activating Live Chat Addon

Before you can activate Live Chat, you must download it from the WHMCS Marketplace.

Watch the video tutorial for this feature.

To do this:

If you have not already purchased it, purchase Live Chat from the Live Chat listing.
Log in here.
Go to Services > All Products & Services.
Perform one of the following actions:
1. If you purchased your WHMCS license directly, select your main WHMCS license, select the Information tab, and download Live Chat.
2. If you purchased your WHMCS license from a reseller, select your Live Chat purchase, select the Downloads tab, and download Live Chat.
Unzip the ZIP file.
Upload the contents of the upload_me directory to the root directory in your WHMCS installation.
Check to ensure that the /modules/livehelp/templates_c/ directory is writeable.
Go to www.example.com/whmcs/modules/livehelp/install, where www.example.com is the domain for your WHMCS installation, to complete installation.
Delete the /modules/livehelp/install/ directory.

License Update
If you purchased the Live Chat Addon prior to installation, you may need to force a license update for your WHMCS installation to recognise the purchase. If you receive a license error or have trouble logging in after installation, log in to the WHMCS Admin Area, go to Help > License Information, and click Force License Update. Then, reattempt login.

Using this Addon

To log in to Live Chat, visit www.example.com/whmcs/modules/livehelp/admin, where www.example.com is the domain for your WHMCS installation.

You can log in using the same username and password that you use for the WHMCS Admin Area.

First Login

The first time that you use this, a login prompt will display. Enter your account, username and password:

Account or Server: Enter the full path to the modules directory for your WHMCS installation.
Username / Password: Enter the same username and password that you use to log in to the WHMCS Admin Area.
Enable Secure Sign In: Enable this if your WHMCS installation uses SSL.
Sign In Automatically: Enable this to sign in automatically for future logins. If you enable this, in the future on this device you will only need to enter your password.

For more information, see the ChatStack website.

Desktop Applications

Downloadable clients are available for Windows®, Mac®, and Linux®. Mobile Apps are also available for iPhone® and Android™.

Download the latest version of the Windows desktop application and follow the automated installation process.

The Windows app has the following minimum requirements:

Windows 7 / Vista / XP SP 2
Internet Explorer 7 or above
.NET Framework 3.5 SP1 or above
Internet Connection

For other operating systems, check their app stores for the downloadable clients.

Upgrading

If you have an earlier version of the Live Chat Addon, perform these steps to upgrade to the latest version:

Log in here.
Go to Services > All Products & Services.
Select your Live Chat purchase.
Go to the Downloads tab.
Download Live Chat.
Unzip the ZIP file download.
Upload the contents of the upload_me directory to your WHMCS installation's root directory.
Log in to the Live Chat Addon administration panel to complete the upgrade process at www.example.com/whmcs/modules/livehelp/admin, where www.example.com is the domain for your WHMCS installation.
Delete the /modules/livehelp/install/ directory.

Uninstallation

To remove the Live Chat Addon from your installation, delete the /modules/livehelp/ directory and the /includes/hooks/livehelp.php file.

Optionally, you can also remove the database tables that begin with mod_livehelp.

Integration Outside of WHMCS

Do Not Attempt to add this code to WHMCS templates. Those templates handle it automatically.

To integrate visitor tracking and live help in pages outside of your WHMCS installation (for example, your main website), perform the steps below:

Add the following lines to each page, once per page, after the <title> tag and jQuery call and before the </head> tag:

<script type="text/javascript">
<!--
var Chatstack = { server: 'www.example.com/support/modules' };
(function(d, undefined) {
  // JavaScript
  Chatstack.e = []; Chatstack.ready = function (c) { Chatstack.e.push(c); }
  var b = d.createElement('script'); b.type = 'text/javascript'; b.async = true;
  b.src = ('https:' == d.location.protocol ? 'https://' : 'http://') + Chatstack.server + '/livehelp/scripts/js.min.js';
  var s = d.getElementsByTagName('script')[0];
  s.parentNode.insertBefore(b, s);
})(document);
-->
</script>

Make certain to updatewww.example.com/support/modules with the path to your WHMCS installation's modules directory.

Optionally, you can either or both of these chat initiation methods:

To display the Live Chat Operator status and end user chat initiation button:

<a href="#" class="LiveHelpButton"><img src="http://www.example.com/whmcs/modules/livehelp/status.php" id="LiveHelpStatus" name="LiveHelpStatus" class="LiveHelpStatus" border="0" alt="Live Help" /></a>

To display a static text link for chat initiation:

 <a href="#" class="LiveHelpButton">Chat With Us Live</a>

Troubleshooting

Chat button non-functional / Blank live chat window

If clicking the chat button results in nothing happening or the live chat popup window is showing a blank chat window, make certain that the /modules/livehelp/templates_c/ directory both exists and is writeable.

We recommend that you try the following permissions in this order: 755, 775, and 777.

The requested content cannot be loaded. Please try again later.

This message may appear when you click Chat Now. This indicates that the system cannot create the templates cache.

To resolve this, make certain that the /modules/livehelp/templates_c/ directory exists and is writeable.

We recommend that you try the following permissions in this order: 755, 775, and 777.

License Invalid / Unable to login

If you see a "License Invalid" warning message when you open the Live Chat admin interface, your WHMCS installation has not yet updated to recognise your purchase of the addon. Your WHMCS installation only calls home to validate your license with us periodically. If you recently purchased the addon, you may need to force a local key update to have it take effect.

To do this, navigate to Help > License Information and click Force License Update. Then, attempt logging in again.

Connection Error

Connection errors when attempting to log in to the Live Chat administration area are typically due to misconfigured file and folder permissions.

This configuration varies depending on your particular server environment. For example, the permissions setting for the /modules/livehelp/xml/WebService.php file should be 644.

suPHP and PHP suEXEC require more restriction. If you use DSO as your PHP handler, you must use 644 permissions.
Limit access to only the account that owns the web server process. Make sure that no other system or user accounts can read your configuration file or modify any WHMCS-related files.

If the issue persists, enable your browser network console and examine the response for more information.

Incorrect Server/Host

Receiving this error message in one of the Desktop or Mobile clients indicates that the Live Help installation cannot be found at the given URL. Make certain that you entered the correct URL.

Sending Emails

By default, the Live Chat addon will use the PHP mail() function, and not the WHMCS mail configuration, to send emails. To configure sending via SMTP, see Setup SMTP Authentication.

Change Log

See the Live Chat Marketplace listing.

Documentation