When to fire invitations: Auto-Invite Rule Criteria

Use this table to match you business goals with rule criteria when creating rules in an Auto-Invite Ruleset

If you enable more than one criteria for a particular rule, then all criteria must match in order for the rule to trigger an invitation.

Fastpath: Setup > Account Setup > Invitations > Auto-Invite Rulesets > New > Rules List > New
Table 1. Rule Criteria for rules in an Auto-Invite Rule Set
Goal Criteria name Notes, Tips
Invite all visitors, first-time visitors, or repeat visitors? Who to Invite
Invite only after visitors have viewed a certain number of pages on your site. Minimum page views this visit
Avoid sending an invitation too soon after the visitor completed a chat or received a previous invitation. Seconds since last chat or last chat invites The minimum amount of time (in seconds) that must elapse since the visitor's last chat or chat invitation before a new chat invitation is shown.
Invite when the visitor is in a specific country Visitor's Country
Invite based on the URL of the page being visited. "The invitation fires if the visitor is on a certain page." Page URL Contains For example, if you specify /products/shoes.html, then the URL of the current page view must contain that exact phrase.
Invite based on the URL of the page a visitor has just left (the page visited before the visitor's current page). "How do I create an invitation rule that fires off if the visitor is on my checkout page but returns to a product page?" Previous URL contains For example, if you specify /products/shoes.html, then the URL of the previously visited page must contain that exact phrase.
Invite based on the URL of the first page the visitor sees on your site Entry URL Contains Since the entry URL for a particular visit does not change, each page view checks this criteria. To avoid repeated chat invitations during a visit, use this together with the Seconds since last chat or last chat invite criteria.
Invite based on the URL of the page from which the visitor entered your site Referrer URL Contains Since the referral URL for a particular visit does not change, each page view checks this criteria. To avoid repeated chat invitations during a visit, use this together with the Seconds since last chat or last chat invite criteria.
Invite only when an operator is available in a specific department. "How do I configure an invitation to route to a specific departments?" Department is available Also applies to rollover departments.
Invite according to information gathered about visitors using Custom Variables Advanced Custom Field Rules See About Custom Variables
Invite according to regular expressions Match "Contains" Rules Using Regular Expressions For example, to match only page URLs that contain "/products/shoes.html AND a parameter with the value dress, the page URL you would use the simple regular expression "/products/shoes\.html.*dress".

This is enabled for all containment matching criteria, so all criteria involving containment must use a regular expression for proper matching.

Invite from all other pages except one, for example your home page multiple settings
  • Page URL Contains must have the dollar sign appended to the page: yourhomepage.com/$
  • Match "Contains" Rules Using Regular Expressions must be selected
  • Activate This Custom Chat Invite must be <None>
Invite only when the visitor has already been invited using a specific chat invitation Last Chat Invite Was
Invite when the visitor is using a specific browser Browser type
Table 2. Actions to take when a rule is matched
Action Description Notes, tips
Activate This Custom Chat Invite Specify the Custom Chat Invitation to display when criteria are matched. This answers the question "Which invitation is presented to the visitor when the rule is triggered?"

See also How to implement A/B testing of invitations

Do not auto-invite the visitor if they have already had a chat during this visit When selected, visitors who have already had a chat session during their current visit are not invited a second time.
Minimum Time on Site Before Invite Specify the amount of time that a visitor must be on your site before triggering the active Custom Chat Invitation. In minutes. The longer a visitor is on your site, the more interested they may be in your content, and hence the more receptive they may be to a chat invitation
Minimum Time on Page Before Invite Specify the amount of time that a visitor must be on a particular page before triggering the active Custom Chat Invitation. In minutes.
Minimum Time Since Last Invite Specify the time to wait between invitations. In seconds.
Personalize invitation by assigning an operator to it When selected, chat invitations display the name of a pre-assigned, random operator.