Overview: Chat UI API methods

Call the Kustomer.start() method to initialize Kustomer Chat. After you initialize chat, you can call and execute additional Web SDK JavaScript methods.

We've listed the available Web SDK methods below. Each entry provides a short description of what the method does and links to a page that provides syntax documentation and code samples for the individual method.

Initialize Kustomer Chat

Kustomer.start()

Initializes the chat widget and renders the chat icon on your web page.

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First, initialize chat fully

Kustomer Chat must finish initializing fully with Kustomer.start() before you can execute any additional Web SDK methods.

Tip: Call other methods inside the callback of Kustomer.start() to ensure Kustomer Chat always completes initialization before the code tries to run other methods.

To learn more, see Troubleshooting: Kustomer method calls won't execute.

Uninitialize Kustomer Chat

Kustomer.stop()

Uninitializes the chat widget and removes it from your web page.

Open and close chat

Kustomer.open()

Opens the chat widget.

Kustomer.close()

Closes and minimizes the chat widget.

Authenticate chat

Kustomer.login()

Authenticates a customer with a login and fetches their chat session data.

Authenticate customers with Kustomer.login() to require a login for your chat widget or to allow users to view previous conversations from across their devices. To learn more, see Authenticate chat.

Kustomer.logout()

Logs a customer out and clears their session data.

Update information about a customer or a conversation

Kustomer.describeCustomer()

Updates information about a Customer object in Kustomer.

Kustomer.describeConversation()

Updates information about a Conversation object in Kustomer.

Add or remove an event listener

Kustomer.addListener()

Adds a callback function to execute after a specific event.

Kustomer.removeListener()

Removes a callback function added with Kustomer.addListener().

Show chat availability

Kustomer.isChatAvailable()

Returns the current chat availability for an organization.

Check current number of unread messages

Kustomer.getUnreadCount()

Returns the current number of unread messages for a customer.

Create and open conversations

Kustomer.createConversation()

Starts a new conversation for a customer.

Kustomer.openConversationById()

Opens the conversation with the conversation id.

Kustomer.getOpenConversations()

Returns a list of open conversations.

Open Knowledge Base articles

Kustomer.openKbArticle()

Opens a Knowledge Base article based on the article id.

Kustomer.openKbCategory()

Opens a Knowledge Base category based on the category id.