Recovering chats

Sinch Contact Pro has a built-in mechanism to prevent losing ongoing chat conversations in case of service interruption.

This section describes how the mechanism works and how agents and supervisors see the system actions.

The mechanism protects incoming chat conversations arrived via Sinch Conversation API with the status In Queue or In Process. Note that it may take 5 to 10 minutes after interruption before conversations are restored. The mechanism doesn't protect chats originating from Sinch Contact Pro’s Visitor Chat client or chatbot offload from Chatlayer or other bots (whether integrated as a visitor bot or agent bot)

Terminology

The following table explains what mobile originated (MO) and mobile terminated (MT) messages mean in Conversation API and Sinch Contact Pro.

Product	MO	MT
Conversation API	A message from Conversation API that ends in Sinch Contact Pro	A message sent via Conversation API that ends in a client (for example WhatsApp)
Sinch Contact Pro	An incoming message, such as a message from customer	An outgoing message, such as the response to a customer message or creating a new conversation via Communication Panel’s Create new button.

Incoming mobile originated (MO) chat conversations with the status In Queue:

• Queuing conversations are disconnected, and new (replacement) conversations are generated into the queue. Note that queuing time for new conversation starts from zero.

• Agent can continue chatting with the customer normally. Customers receive the agent’s messages, and the responses are shown as part of the new conversation.

• The in-queue conversation transcript contains the text System restored chat.

• The customer’s earlier conversation is visible as previous conversations.

• The agent sees two conversations from the customer: one that is Abandoned and the other one In Queue.

Incoming mobile originated (MO) chat conversations with the status In Process:

• Active conversations are disconnected, and new (replacement) conversations are generated into the queue. Note that queuing time for the new conversation starts from zero.

• The agent sees two conversations from the customer: one that is Handled and other that is In Queue.

• The in-queue conversation transcript contains the text System restored chat.

• The customer's earlier conversation is visible as previous conversations.

• The agent can continue chatting with customer normally. Customers receive agent’s messages, and the replies are shown as part of the new conversation.

Outgoing mobile terminated (MT) chat conversations:

New chat conversations initiated by agents in Communication Panel via the Create new button are disconnected. Agent can reinitiate them if needed via the History view or using the Create new button.

Incoming (MO) and outgoing (MT) chat conversations in Wrap-Up:

Conversations that are in wrap-up when interruption happens, will remain in wrap-up even after recovery but are automatically marked as handled after 24 hours.

How the mechanism looks for agent in Communication Panel

After the system has run the recovery process, the conversation is allocated to an agent and the agent sees the message from the contact center System restored chat. The agent can click Previous Conversations to see where the chat was left off and continue serving the customer.

Note that typically the agent and supervisor need to login again after the interruption.

How results of the mechanism are visible in Dashboard

When you look at the conversation details of the original abandoned conversation, you see that the system has restored the chat.