Agent Profiles
An agent is any team member who handles escalated chats. FluentBot tracks agents through three concerns: identity, presence, and notifications.
Identity
Visitors see an agent identified by:
- Name — pulled from the agent’s Profile (first + last name).
- Avatar — the same avatar from the agent’s profile.
There’s no separate “agent display name” override. To change what visitors see, edit the agent’s profile.
If you want to hide individual identities behind a single team-branded name, use the team-level avatar / branding (see Widget Customization) and configure agents to share a generic name. The widget shows whoever is set on the agent’s profile.
Presence
Agents have a presence status, set from the Live Chat header:
| Status | Effect |
|---|---|
| Online | Counted as available for live chat. Pending and unresolved conversations remain visible to agents with access. |
| Offline | Not counted as available. The inbox is still accessible if the user has live-chat permissions. |
There is no skills-based routing or round-robin. Agents with access to a bot can respond to or assign conversations from Live Chat.
Heartbeat
Online agents send a heartbeat while the Live Chat page is active. If the heartbeat stops for a short period, FluentBot can mark the agent offline. Manually setting yourself offline is respected until you set yourself online again.
Agent availability shown to visitors
If Widget Settings → Show Agent Availability is on, the widget displays whether agents are currently online (or last-active time). Useful for setting expectations during off-hours.
Notifications
Agents can receive notifications about new escalations and unread messages through browser-based notifications:
- Browser notifications — native Web Notifications API. Click Enable in Live Chat to opt in. The browser asks for permission once.
- Push notifications — browser push after notifications are enabled.
Notification preferences
Open Live Chat → Notification to choose whether push/browser notifications should fire while your agent status is online or offline. You can also send a test notification after enabling notifications.
Agent ↔ team relationship
Agents are team members with the Chat Agent role, or another role that includes chat-handling permissions. Live Chat shows only chats from bots they can access.
Multi-team agents
If a user belongs to multiple teams, the visible bots and live-chat queue follow the active team and bot access.
Troubleshooting
- My status changed to Offline — the heartbeat may have expired while the Live Chat page was closed or inactive. Set yourself online again from the status menu.
- Browser notifications never fire — confirm permission was granted (browser settings → site permissions → Notifications). Re-toggle in the inbox if denied.
- Push notifications stopped after a while — the browser’s notification registration may have expired after a browser change or reinstall. Sign in again and re-enable notifications.
- Agent’s name showing as their email — they haven’t filled in first/last name in their Profile.
What’s next
- Live Chat — agent workflow.
- Profile — agent identity (name + avatar).
- Human Escalation — what triggers a chat to land on an agent.
- Message Shortcuts — canned replies.