SDK Configuration

Helpshift provides several configuration options that you can use to customize the behavior of the SDK. Use these options in conjunction with our Helpshift APIs.

Note

All the public APIs in the SDK should be called after initializing the SDK via Helpshift installWithPlatformId API

Enable Logging

Upon setting enableLogging to YES, Helpshift SDK logs will be generated in the Xcode console. These logs can be useful for debugging the SDK during integration. Turning on logging can help the developer resolve common integration issues.

Option:	enableLogging
Values:	YES / NO
Default:	NO
Min SDK	v10.0.0
Supported by:	installWithPlatformId:domain:config:

Note

• From 10.4.0,
  • Error Logs will always get logged regardless of enableLogging config.

Example:

Objective-C

NSDictionary *config = @{ @"enableLogging":@YES };

[Helpshift installWithPlatformId:@"<PLATFORM_ID>"
                          domain:@"<DOMAIN>"
                          config:config];

Swift

let config = ["enableLogging": true]
Helpshift.install(withPlatformId: "<PLATFORM_ID>", domain: "<DOMAIN>", config: config)

FAQ Filtering by tags

We have FAQ filtering capability by tags. With the goal of helping the end user see focused & related content e.g. basis the user demographic or device profiles, developers can now choose this capability for FAQ filtering and showing a focused FAQ list to the right audience.

Typical cases why you would want to use FAQ filtering are :

• You want to show specific FAQs for specific audience. E.g. if you may categorize the users as ‘beginner’, ‘intermediate’ or ‘expert’ based on your business logic.
• You may want to show specific FAQs based on the device. E.g. a set of FAQs for iPad vs. iPhone.

FAQ filtering is a 2 step approach :

1. FAQs need to be classified using the <issue tags> field on the dashboard e.g. tags iphone & ipad.
2. Once the FAQs are tagged, they can be filtered at the SDK using the filter options described here.

Note

Helpshift has 2 types of tags mainly ‘Issue Tags’ & ‘Search Tags’.

• Issue tags are used to filter the FAQ list on the SDK with the filter rules.
• Search tags (a.k.a Search Keywords) When performing in-app search, Helpshift SDK gives preference to these keywords. You can also use this to add alternative keywords that users might search for, but which may not exist in the FAQ title or the content.

How to use FAQ filtering

This will be a config option which will be supported by the showFAQs and showFAQSection APIs.

The filter option will be a dictionary containing 2 keys

• operator : one of AND, OR, NOT which will serve as conditional operators for the given tags.
• tags : the actual tags in the query

The filter option will be should be added as an object against key “filter” in the dictionary config that is taken by showFAQs, showFAQSection and showSingleFAQ APIs.

Option:	filter
Sub-Options:	tags / operator
Default	nil
Min SDK	v10.0.0
Supported by	showFAQs, showFAQSection, showSingleFAQ

Example:

Objective-C

NSDictionary *config = @{ @"filter": @{ @"tags": @[@"game", @"paid"], @"operator": @"AND"} };
[Helpshift showFAQs:self config:config];

Swift

let config = ["filter": ["tags": ["game", "paid"], "operator": "AND"]]
Helpshift.showFAQs(self, config: config)

Note

You can have only one tag filter config which will be respected on showFAQs, showFAQSection and showSingleFAQ. Also the tag filtering respects only one operator.

Enable Contact Us

Controls the visibility of the Helpshift Contact Us button when a user is viewing FAQs. You can customize this option to make it easier or more difficult to contact support. If specified, this configuration takes precedence over the value of Enable Contact Us set on admin dashboard.

Option	enableContactUs
Values	"ALWAYS" / "AFTER_VIEWING_FAQS" / "AFTER_MARKING_ANSWER_UNHELPFUL" / "NEVER"
Default	nil
Min SDK	v10.0.0
Supported by	showFAQs, showFAQSection, showSingleFAQ

Example:

Objective-C

NSDictionary *config = @{ @"enableContactUs": @"AFTER_VIEWING_FAQS" };
[Helpshift showFAQs:self config:config];

Swift

let config = ["enableContactUs": "AFTER_VIEWING_FAQS"]
Helpshift.showFAQs(self, config: config)

Best Practices

• Provide tier-based support by setting enableContactUs to ALWAYS for paid users and AFTER_VIEWING_FAQS for unpaid ones.
• Provide country based support by setting enableContactUs to ALWAYS for local users and AFTER_VIEWING_FAQS for foreign ones. Example Code:

Objective-C

CTTelephonyNetworkInfo *netinfo = [[CTTelephonyNetworkInfo alloc] init];
CTCarrier *carrier = [netinfo subscriberCellularProvider];
NSString *enableContactUsValue = @"AFTER_VIEWING_FAQS";
if([[carrier mobileCountryCode] isEqualToString:@"<LOCAL_COUNTRY_CODE>"]) {
    enableContactUsValue = @"ALWAYS";
}
NSDictionary *config = @{ @"enableContactUs": enableContactUsValue };[Helpshift showFAQs:self config:config];

Swift

let netinfo = CTTelephonyNetworkInfo()
let carrier = netinfo.subscriberCellularProvider
var enableContactUsValue = "AFTER_VIEWING_FAQS"
if carrier.mobileCountryCode == "<LOCAL_COUNTRY_CODE>" {
    enableContactUsValue = "ALWAYS"
}
let config = ["enableContactUs": enableContactUsValue]
Helpshift.showFAQs(self, config: config)

Full privacy

Full privacy option helps ensure COPPA compliance by:

1. Disabling user-initiated screenshots (users will not be able to attach files, including images, using SDK).
2. Making sure that Personally Identifiable Information (PII) such as name and email are not collected by SDK (using Identity Bot and/or the helpshiftConfig object). This means that if you set userName and userEmail, and with fullPrivacy set to true, Helpshift will not use the userName and userEmail values.
3. Not collecting any of the following personal information:
   • Mobile country code, mobile network code and carrier name.
   • Custom meta-data that is labeled "private-data".

Moreover, in scenarios where the user attaches objectionable content, it becomes a huge COPPA compliance concern. This option helps to solve this problem.

Option	fullPrivacy
Values	YES / NO
Default	NO
Min SDK	v10.0.0
Supported by	showConversation, showFAQs

Example:

Objective-C

NSDictionary *config = @{ @"fullPrivacy": @YES };
[Helpshift showConversationWith:self config:config];

Swift

let config = ["fullPrivacy": true]
Helpshift.showConversation(with:self, config:config)

Best Practices

In your registration process, ask your user for their age. If the user's age is 13 or younger, set fullPrivacy to YES. This way, you comply with COPPA for your under-age users, but collect valuable user and device data for your other users.

Enable In-App Notifications

If you do not want the in-app notifications support provided by the Helpshift SDK, set this flag to NO.

On setting this flag to NO, the SDK will stop showing notifications in the notification tray of the device but it will fetch messages in background.

The default value of this flag is YES i.e., the in-app notifications will be enabled.

Option:	enableInAppNotification
Values:	YES / NO
Default:	YES
Min SDK	v10.0.0
Supported by:	installWithPlatformId:domain:config:

Example:

Objective-C

NSDictionary *config = @{ @"enableInAppNotification": @YES };

[Helpshift installWithPlatformId:@"<PLATFORM_ID>"
                          domain:@"<DOMAIN>"
                          config:config];

Swift

let config = ["enableInAppNotification": true]
Helpshift.install(withPlatformId: "<PLATFORM_ID>", domain: "<DOMAIN>", config: config)

In-App Notificaton Appearance

This config represents the appearance of the in-app notification in the SDK. When the agent/bot sends a message and the user is using the app, an in-app banner is shown and the appearance of that banner can be customized using this dictionary

Option:	inAppNotificationAppearance
Sub-Options:	bannerBackgroundColor / textColor
Min SDK	v10.0.0
Supported by:	installWithPlatformId:domain:config:

Example:

Objective-C

NSDictionary *config = @{ @"inAppNotificationAppearance": @{
                            @"bannerBackgroundColor": @"000000",
                            @"textColor": @"FFFFFF"
                            }
                        };

[Helpshift installWithPlatformId:@"<PLATFORM_ID>"
                          domain:@"<DOMAIN>"
                          config:config];

Swift

let config = ["inAppNotificationAppearance": ["bannerBackgroundColor":"000000", "textColor":"FFFFFF"]]
Helpshift.install(withPlatformId: "<PLATFORM_ID>", domain: "<DOMAIN>", config: config)

Initiate new conversation on chat screen load

In config dictionary of showConversation:, setting the initiateChatOnLoad option to YES will start a new conversation if the previous issue is resolved, without the end user clicking the New Conversation button or going through the post resolution flows like feedback bots of the previous issue.

Option:	initiateChatOnLoad
Values:	YES / NO
Default:	NO
Min SDK	v10.0.0
Supported by:	showConversation

Example:

Objective-C

NSDictionary *config = @{ @"initiateChatOnLoad": @YES };
[Helpshift showConversationWith:self config:config];

Swift

let config = ["initiateChatOnLoad": true]
Helpshift.showConversation(with:self, config:config)

Conversation prefill text

Setting conversationPrefillText in the config allows you to set some text in the user's input box. This text will be inserted provided that:

• There is no ongoing (active) issue for the user.
• Text inputs are enabled for new conversations (e.g. the User Reply Input Type is not "Only Intent Menu").

Note

The end-user can edit this text before sending it. There is a limit of 1,000 characters for this configuration value, so only the first 1,000 characters will be kept in the user input.

We recommend keeping your actual text even shorter for a better user experience, since the user has to read and edit it before sending it.

Option:	conversationPrefillText
Values:	Any string value
Default:	""
Min SDK	v10.0.0
Supported by:	showConversation

Example:

Objective-C

NSDictionary *config = @{ @"conversationPrefillText": @"INSERT YOUR PREFILL TEXT" };
[Helpshift showConversationWith:self config:config];

Swift

let config = ["conversationPrefillText": "INSERT YOUR PREFILL TEXT"]
Helpshift.showConversation(with:self, config:config)

Conversation Initial User Message

Initial user message configuration, initialUserMessage, helps you send the first message in a conversation on behalf of the user so that certain workflows are automatically triggered based on that message.

You should set this configuration before a conversation starts. In other words, it works only when there is no active conversation for the user i.e. when a new user opens the chat screen for the first time or existing user has already closed an ongoing conversation.

Note

If you set this configuration in the middle of an existing conversation, it will not have any effect.

Option:	initialUserMessage
Values:	Any string value
Default:	""
Min SDK	v10.0.0
Supported by:	showConversation showFAQs

Example:

Objective-C

NSDictionary *config = @{ @"initialUserMessage": @"INSERT YOUR INITIAL USER MESSAGE" };
[Helpshift showConversationWith:self config:config];

Swift

let config = ["initialUserMessage": "INSERT YOUR INITIAL USER MESSAGE"]
Helpshift.showConversation(with:self, config:config)

Clearing Initial User Message

If the end user starts a new conversation immediately in the same session, then, by default, the initial user message is applied to all subsequent issues in the same session. You can change this behaviour by setting the initialUserMessage key in subsequentIssuesInSameSessionConfig to an appropriate value.

You can set the initial user message to an empty string, which will clear it and allow the end-user to type a message for their subsequent issues. Alternatively, you can also supply a non-empty string which will be used for all subsequent issues in the same session.

We recommend setting this value to an empty string unless you want to run specific automation flows for subsequent issues in the same session.

Note

Currently, only the initial user message can be reset. Tags, Custom Issue Fields, and Conversation Prefill Text values stay the same for subsequent issues in the same session.

Example:

Objective-C

NSDictionary *config = @{
    @"initialUserMessage": @"INSERT YOUR INITIAL USER MESSAGE",
    @"subsequentIssuesInSameSessionConfig": @{
        @"initialUserMessage": @""
    }
};

[Helpshift showConversationWithConfig:config];

Swift

let config = ["initialUserMessage": "INSERT YOUR INITIAL USER MESSAGE",
              "subsequentIssuesInSameSessionConfig": [
                "initialUserMessage": "" ]
             ]
Helpshift.showConversation(withConfig:config)

Full Screen on iPad

The presentFullScreenOniPad flag will determine whether to present support views in UIModalPresentationFullScreen or UIModalPresentationFormSheet modal presentation style on iPad. This config has no effect on iPhones.

The default value is NO, which presents support views in UIModalPresentationFormSheet. When the value is set to YES, support views are presented in UIModalPresentationFullScreen. Use this setting to show Helpshift in full-screen mode.

Option	presentFullScreenOniPad
Values	YES / NO
Default	NO
Min SDK	v10.0.0
Supported by	showConversation, showFAQs

Example:

Objective-C

NSDictionary *config = @{ @"presentFullScreenOniPad": @YES };
[Helpshift showConversationWith:self config:config];

Swift

let config = ["presentFullScreenOniPad": true]
Helpshift.showConversation(with: self, config: config)

Theming the SDK

Please check design page to apply your styles and theming to the SDK.

Tracking

This config represents the tracking of user actions. For more information, please check tracking.