Would it be possible to get the Messages availability to work in the same fashion as the Meetings integration?
A person online/offline status would be toggled on and off based on their calendar.
I would even suggest giving an option, to turn off the Messages from the website when all users are either blocked based on their calendar or offline based on their schedule.
This would be great if we could set someone as busy when they are in a meeting. As it is a hassle to change your availability yourself. Am interested to know more about the beta.
For additional availablity features, as the main post mentions, we are currently researching some different options and will share an update in the next few months when we have more details. Thanks!
To add here, for users set up with the Meetings tool and a calendar integration, it would be great to have a toggle setting to "Adjust my chat availability based on my calendar availability". That way, live chats would not be assigned to a salesperson in a meeting with a prospect.
Hi! I would love to know an update on this idea. We would like to sync our Google calendar to the live chat availability - so we show as unavailable if we are in a meeting. Is this still be considered? Thank you!
I'd love to see availability status linked to my presence status in Microsoft Teams. This is the most dynamic yet accurate way to reflect my ability and availability to engage. I thought about building this but it appears that there is no HubSPot API for the availability status?
Without a dynamic status we keep having chats missed which is terrible customer service.
This would be so helpful for the team. It is clunky and a nuisance for them to have to go in and change their availability all of the time. It gets forgotten a lot too. Would love to see the option of this being automated based on their calendar.
Hi, @cdewey22 your suggested remedy for an admin to manually change someone's availability does not solve the issue at hand. If there is a beta to test status changes corresponding with calendar availability my team would very much like to participate. This is a pretty standard functionality across other chatbots and IM's. If you would like to meet with a client to talk through use cases and needs, please reach out to me! Hope you all can get this project figured out soon!
Struggling with the same issues mentioned in this thread. We have business development teams in different timezones and setting universal business hours for the live chat is not an option. At the same time it's too easy to forget to set the availability status for oneself so that is not the ideal solution for us either.
Therefore a direct sync with the agents calendars would be the best solution, but if that's not an option then at least let us set the availability times per team and/or agent!
Voting this up too. Currently, there is no way to set up a chat that automatically switches between teams in different timezones unless the users are manually turning their availability on and off. The best way would be the mentioned calendar integration
Some other ways that are not perfect, but still better: Available if logged into Hubspot /open in browser Available during set business hours (least perfect, but at least it saves the effort of turning it on and off when shifts start/end)
Upvoting. There needs to be a better option for managing individuals' inbox availability than toggling on/off a switch every time someone logs on/off for the day or jumps on/off a call. Inbox availability needs to automatically pull in a user's availability from their connected calendar in the same way Meetings links do.
Basing availability on business hours and someone remembering to toggle on/off availability throughout the day makes HubSpot chat impractical growing businesses with limited resources.
I’m going to jump in here with some pretty strong statements:
1. Not having this functionality breaks the chat experience if you or one of your reps forgets to set their availability. It is really trash. The options that HS offers are for you to either a. set your chat so that it leaves an "unavailable message", meaning that users can't use the chat to chat with the bot (which is one of the reasons why one would upgrade to Service Pro) or b. set your chat so that it might accidentally allow users to get put in touch with an AFK agent.
2. The ability to schedule rep availability should be BASIC functionality for an app like this. Especially for those that upgraded to Service Pro. Elementary chatbots and chat SaaS companies offer this, so why would the PAID version of HubSpot Service not??
HubSpot always does this it feels like. The number of times that we have signed up for one thing, which should feel like BASIC functionality, only to find out that the basic function isn't included/not developed yet is pretty ridiculous.
As a cherry on top, this thread has been open for 2 years! And STILL nothing has been done.
We also think that the "availibilty feature" (if the calendar is linked) is very basic and a MUST HAVE. Why does it work with the meeting links (you can't book a person if the calender slot is blocked) but not with the integrated chat?
@rtejpar Agreed on all points, especially the "Hubspot always does this" sentiment. Given the rough edges, lacking depth, and generic reporting capabilities, Conversations as a live chat or support mechanism is obviously a second-class feature masquerading as a first-class one.
In general, Hubspot has all the keywords but very little of the usability - needing anything that's a layer deeper than the surface level sales quote "yes, we have live chat" is rolling the dice.
