Virtual Agent API features available in Store release 2.0.x
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- UpdatedJan 30, 2025
- 10 minutes to read
- Yokohama
- Virtual Agent
Virtual Agent API version 2.0.x provides access to more of the same features that are available in Virtual Agent and Agent Chat, including rich control support and notifications.
Support for additional rich controls
Virtual Agent API now supports the following rich controls.
- Boolean controls
- Boolean controls return responses as strings (either Yes or No) for easier localization.
For more information about topic localization, see Localizing Virtual Agent conversations.
Virtual Agent API sends the following example JSON for a boolean control: - Custom controls
- Topics that use custom controls are now supported. For more information about custom controls, see Customizing Virtual Agent with custom controls.
- Table bot response controls
- Topics that use table bot response controls are now supported. For more information, see Table bot response control.
All records are returned from Virtual Agent API at once. Virtual Agent will wait for a response from the API client to send the next control. Use the paginationBreak property to display records in chunks to the user. For example, if paginationBreak is set to 10, the user will see 10 records at a time. When the client is ready to move to the next control, it should send DONE.
Virtual Agent API sends the following example JSON for a table bot response control: - HTML bot response controls
- Topics that use HTML bot response controls are now supported. For more information,
see HTML bot response control.Virtual Agent API sends the following example JSON for an HTML bot response control:
- Multi-response bot response controls
- Topics that use multi-response bot response controls are now supported. For more
information, see Multi-response bot response control.Virtual Agent API sends the following example JSON for a multi-response bot response control:
- Rich text support
- Topics that use rich text are now supported. Rich text includes bold or italicized text, hyperlinks, bulleted lists, and emojis.
Additional Agent Chat features
The Virtual Agent API now supports the following features when transferring to Agent Chat.
- Pass agent name and avatar
- When the primary bot transfers a chat to a live agent, Virtual Agent can send the agent name and avatar to the primary bot. To enable this, activate Agent names and avatars in Agent Chat settings.An example message payload might look like this:
For more information, see Configure Agent Chat.
- Live agent wait time
- When transferring to a live agent, the primary bot can receive the wait time and display this to the user. To enable this, select Wait Time in the Live chat wait status field
in Agent Chat settings. The spinnerType value is set to wait_time. If the Live chat wait status is set to None, the
spinnerType value is none.Virtual Agent API sends the following example JSON in the body parameter of the payload.
For more information, see Configure Agent Chat.
- Send chat history from the primary bot to Virtual Agent
- The primary bot can pass chat history to a live agent so that the agent can see the context of the conversation.Virtual Agent converts the message history to HTML and then to an image.
- The converted image is sent to the live agent as the first message of the chat.
- The primary bot should send the message history in the first request. In any other request after the first request, the message history payload will be ignored.
- Only text messages are supported.
- The primary bot can pass any URL as a value in the text message, but the live agent can only view it as part of the image. The live agent will not be able to click the link.
Example message payload:Note: In the previous example, type is case sensitive and should have a value of text.
Enriched requests from the primary bot
The Virtual Agent API now supports the following requests from the primary bot.
- System parameters and context variables
- The primary bot can pass system parameters and context variables as input, and Virtual Agent will honor these parameters. System parameters such as liveagent_devicetype, liveagent_requester_session_language, liveagent_topic,
topic, live_agent_only, and liveagent_devicetimezone are supported. Custom context variables and Agent Chat context variables are also supported. Example message payload:
For more information, see Live agent chat context variables and Configure context variables for storing chat-related information.
- User timezone
- Set the user’s timezone by passing it in the request payload. Once set, that timezone setting is retained until it is reset.Example message payload:When using this functionality, consider the following:
- The conversation must be open (current) in order to convert date and time to the user's timezone.
- The primary bot must send date and time in one of the following formats:
- Timezone name. For example, Asia/Kolkata or America/New_York.
- Date Time 24-hour format. For example: YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS
- The Virtual Agent API uses the timezone specified by the primary bot, even if the timezone it sets differs from the value stored in the [sys_user] table.
- To set the user timezone, send the SET_TIMEZONE action. If the timezone name is not valid, the timezone value defaults to UTC time. For example, 2021-02-16 20:13:13.
Support for node skipping
Virtual Agent API supports skipping a node if it is designed to do so in the topic. For example, in Virtual Agent Designer, you can designate a user input control as skippable in the area of the property sheet.

For more information about defining a node as skippable, see Virtual Agent Designer user input controls.
Synchronous handshake support
- Agent Chat
- Notifications
- Typing indicators
- Exclude the Bot to Bot channel from Agent Chat.
- Navigate to All, and then enter sys_properties.list in the filter.
- Select the com.glide.cs.exclude.liveagent.support system property to open it.
- Add Bot To Bot to the Value field.
Figure 2. Exclude the Bot To Bot channel from Agent Chat - Click Update.
- Navigate to All, and then enter sys_cs_channel.list in the navigation filter.
- Select the Bot to Bot record.
- Clear the Enable Notifications check box to disable it.
- Clear the Support typing indicator check box to disable it.
- Select the Synchronous check box.
Figure 3. Bot to Bot channel with synchronous support enabled - Click Update.
Notifications support
- Simple: Text-only notifications. Simple notifications are delivered as soon as they arrive.
- Image Card: An image that is uploaded to the server or specified with a URL.
- Record Card: Specified columns from a record in a table.
- Actionable: Provides the user with the opportunity to perform certain actions. Actionable notifications are queued. The user can retrieve them on demand by sending the Show Notification command.
For more information, see Configuring Virtual Agent notifications.
- Navigate to All, and then enter sys_cs_channel.list in the navigation filter.
- Open the Bot to Bot record.
If prompted, enable editing on the record.
- Select the Enable Notifications check box.
- Click Update.
Admins can limit the number of recipients per notification by modifying the com.glide.cs.per_notification_user_limit property. The default value is 1000.
Topic switching using the topic name
- NLU topic discovery: Use the topic intent name or ID.
- Keyword topic discovery: Use the topic name or ID.
The primary bot can send the SWITCH action along with the topic name to switch directly to a particular topic.
Typing indicator support
- Displayed to the agent when the user is typing
- Displayed to the user when the bot is preparing a response
- Navigate to All, and then enter sys_cs_channel.list in the navigation filter.
- Select the Bot to Bot record.
- Select the Support typing indicator check box.
- Click Update.