Service Cloud Chat Developer Guide

About This Guide
Prerequisites
API Versions
Customize Deployments with the Deployment APIs
Use Pre-Chat to Gather Visitor Information and Set Context for the Agent
Implement a Custom Chat Window Using Visualforce
Use Post-Chat to Wrap Up the Chat Interaction with Your Customer
Set Up Direct-to-Agent Chat Routing with the Deployment APIs
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Note: This release is in preview. Features described here don’t become generally available until the latest general availability date that Salesforce announces for this release. Before then, and where features are noted as beta, pilot, or developer preview, we can’t guarantee general availability within any particular time frame or at all. Make your purchase decisions only on the basis of generally available products and features.

About This Guide

Customize Chat to fit your company’s needs. This guide provides several examples to help you understand and create customized chat windows, buttons, forms, and pages.

The legacy chat product is scheduled for retirement on February 14, 2026, and is in maintenance mode until then. During this phase, you can continue to use chat, but we no longer recommend that you implement new chat channels. To avoid service interruptions to your customers, migrate to Messaging for In-App and Web before that date. Messaging offers many of the chat features that you love plus asynchronous conversations that can be picked back up at any time. Learn about chat retirement in Help.

Important

Chat lets service organizations connect with customers or website visitors in real time through a Web-based, text-only live chat. You can customize Chat to create a personalized chat experience for your customer service agents and the customers they serve using custom code. In this guide, we’ll show you how to:

Additionally, you can customize these and other Chat components through Salesforce settings. For more information, see Chat with Customers on Your Website in Salesforce Help.