GWS Chat

Unlike the majority of APIs exposed by Genesys Web Services, this API is intended to be used by customers to submit chat requests to agents, opposed to being used by users known to GWS (agents, supervisors, etc.).

RESTful API

Authentication

When utilizing the GWS Chat Service, an apikey header is required to initiate a chat session and participate in the chat thread. The apikey header is the constant value N18TFGbKpn0zaGLXDFZhPWpTcB2eyx44.

RequestChat

Overview

This operation submits a new chat request for the website visitor / customer. After successfully sending this request to start the chat, you should begin checking for updated state and new messages periodically.

POST {baseUrl}/v2/chats

Parameters

Name	Type	Value
operationName	string	`RequestChat`
nickname	string	Nickname of the customer requesting chat
subject	string	Subject of the chat request

Example

POST /api/v2/chats

{
    "operationName": "RequestChat",
    "nickname": "James",
    "subject": "Question about relativity"
}

Response

Status: 200 OK

{ 
  "id" : "652492d9-c2d9-44c9-b9ad-0ab7984114bb",
  "statusCode" : 0,
  "path" : "/api/v2/chats/652492d9-c2d9-44c9-b9ad-0ab7984114bb"
}

SendStartTypingNotification

Overview

This operation notifies the chat that the customer has started typing.

POST {baseUrl}/v2/chats/:id

Parameters

Name	Type	Value
operationName	string	`SendStartTypingNotification`

Example

POST /api/v2/chats/652492d9-c2d9-44c9-b9ad-0ab7984114bb

{
    "operationName": "SendStartTypingNotification"
}

Response

Status: 200 OK

{ 
  "statusCode" : 0,
}

SendStopTypingNotification

Overview

This operation notifies the chat that the customer has stopped typing.

POST {baseUrl}/v2/chats/:id

Parameters

Name	Type	Value
operationName	string	`SendStopTypingNotification`

Example

POST /api/v2/chats/652492d9-c2d9-44c9-b9ad-0ab7984114bb

{
    "operationName": "SendStopTypingNotification"
}

Response

Status: 200 OK

{ 
  "statusCode" : 0,
}

SendMessage

Overview

This requests sends a new text message to the chat.

POST {baseUrl}/v2/chats/:id

Parameters

Name	Type	Value
operationName	string	`SendMessage`
text	string	The text to be sent

Example

POST /api/v2/chats/652492d9-c2d9-44c9-b9ad-0ab7984114bb

{
    "operationName": "SendMessage",
    "text": "Are you there?"
}

Response

Status: 200 OK

{ 
  "statusCode" : 0,
}

Complete

Overview

This operation is used to complete the chat. After sending this request, no further requests should be sent for the chat.

POST {baseUrl}/v2/chats/:id

Parameters

Name	Type	Value
operationName	string	`Complete`

Example

POST /api/v2/chats/652492d9-c2d9-44c9-b9ad-0ab7984114bb

{
    "operationName": "Complete"
}

Response

Status: 200 OK

{ 
  "statusCode" : 0,
}

GetChat

Overview

This request returns the specified chat resource. Send this request periodically to keep state up to date.

GET {baseUrl}/v2/chats/:id

Parameters

Name	Type	Value
N/A	N/A	N/A

Capabilities

The capabilities property of the chat resource provides an array of operation names that are valid for the current state of the chat.

Participants

The participants property will include details of all known chat participants.

States

The state property of the chat resource can have one of the following values:

WaitingForAgent - agent not yet joined
Chatting - agent has joined, chat has begun
Idle - user has disconnected

Example

GET /api/v2/chats/652492d9-c2d9-44c9-b9ad-0ab7984114bb

Response

Status: 200 OK

{
    "chat": {
        "capabilities": [
            "SendMessage",
            "SendStartTypingNotification",
            "SendStopTypingNotification",
            "Complete"
        ],
        "id": "652492d9-c2d9-44c9-b9ad-0ab7984114bb",
        "participants": [
            {
                "nickname": "Chris",
                "participantId": "1",
                "type": "Customer"
            }
        ],
        "state": "WaitingForAgent"
    },
    "statusCode": 0
}

GetTranscript

Overview

Send this request periodically to retrieve new chat messages. By specifying the index parameter, previous messages can be recovered (ex. index=0 will return all messages).

GET {baseUrl}/v2/chats/:id/messages

Parameters

Name	Type	Value
index	int	Optional. The index of the first entry to return. If not specified, will return messages that the client has not received yet.

Types

The type property can contain any of the following values:

Text
ParticipantJoined
ParticipantLeft
TypingStarted
TypingStopped

Example

GET /api/v2/chats/652492d9-c2d9-44c9-b9ad-0ab7984114bb/messages

Response

Status: 200 OK

{
    "messages": [
        {
            "from": {
                "nickname": "Chris",
                "participantId": "1",
                "type": "Customer"
            },
            "index": 1,
            "type": "ParticipantJoined"
        },
        {
            "from": {
                "nickname": "Chris",
                "participantId": "1",
                "type": "Customer"
            },
            "index": 2,
            "text": "Hello?",
            "type": "Text"
        },
        {
            "from": {
                "nickname": "Kristi Sippola",
                "participantId": "2",
                "type": "Agent"
            },
            "index": 3,
            "type": "ParticipantJoined"
        }
    ],
    "statusCode": 0
}

Sample Client / Server

The following are example client & sample server applications which can be used to emulate the capability of the HTCC e-Services chat server. Chat threads are persisted to disk and therefore the server can be restarted without fear of losing data. Note: the server emulator does not evaluate the apikey header.

When a client initiates a chat thread with the server, a "system" participant will join who will provide a periodic message of type "External" to the thread. In addition, an "agent" participant joins at a random interval shortly thereafter (< 5 seconds). As each message is submitted from the client, another message is added from the "agent" to the thread using a non-scientific method of evaluating the last character from the client's message and attempting to respond with an appropriate string.

Structure

.
├── LICENSE
├── README.md
├── client
│   ├── index-apigee.html
│   ├── index.html
│   └── src
├── examples
│   └── php
└── server
    ├── log4js.json
    ├── manager.js
    ├── package.json
    └── server.js

Setup

$ cd server && npm install

Run

You may specify an optional port by setting a PORT environment variable to the port you wish to listen on.

$ node server.js

Once started, two subdirectories will be created logs and chats. In them you may find associated persisted data.

Client

Access to the sample web client application can be found by directing your browser to http://localhost:8888/client/

Sample Code

There are some samples of api usage in various languages in examples folder

Coding Notes

You can code against the Chat API running locally when following the setup & run instructions above or remotely against a hosted instance of the HTCC e-Services chat server by utilizing one of the following baseUrl values:

Local	Remote
http://127.0.0.1:8888/api	http://vladm-prod.apigee.net/chat-key

Please notice a minor difference in context of URLs and remember to set the apikey header.

skreis/gws-emulator

GWS Chat

RESTful API

Authentication

Resources

RequestChat

Overview

SendStartTypingNotification

Overview

SendStopTypingNotification

Overview

SendMessage

Overview

Complete

Overview

GetChat

Overview

GetTranscript

Overview

Sample Client / Server

Structure

Setup

Run

Client

Sample Code

Coding Notes