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Use the Compact Messenger

Help customers focus their attention and find information faster with a subtle Compact Messenger.

Beth-Ann Sher avatar
Written by Beth-Ann Sher
Updated this week

The Compact Messenger layout allows you to display the Messenger in a more condensed format that is:

  • Concise - With greater information density, you can strike a balance between information sharing and information overload. Customize the Messenger to be as compact or as elaborate as you want.

  • Action-oriented - Help customers focus their attention on the specific Messenger spaces and find information faster. They see all the condensed spaces up-front and can quickly navigate to the right space or information they need.

  • Convenient - Compact Messenger is smaller and more subtle than the Default Messenger, enabling website visitors and product users to focus on your main content while still having easy access to the Messenger when they need it.

Important: You must have the Can access Messenger settings permission enabled for your Teammate profile to be able to changes to Messenger settings.


How to set it up

Go to Settings > Channels > Messenger > Content > Layout and Spaces and select the “Compact” layout option. This will show you a preview of how Messenger will appear in the window to the right:

Content sections

In the Content tab, With the "Compact" layout selected in the Layout and Spaces section, you can then choose which spaces you want to make available to Visitors or Users using the toggles within the box for each "Space":

Note: The Home space cannot be toggled "on" or "off".

The Spaces shown to Visitors and Users in Messenger will need to be configured in the respective Visitors and Users settings area, which you can access and switch between using the "Visitors"/"Users" button in the Spaces section and at the top of the Preview window:

Within the Content tab, you an also Set your welcome message, and open the Customize Home with Apps section to configure apps similar to how you would with the Default Messenger.

Note: You can only add the “New conversation” and “Add external links” cards. Apps like the News space, Articles Search, and Canvas Kit apps are not available within the Compact layout.

Styles

From the Styles tab, “Set your brand colors" and choose to show or hide your team avatars. The action and background colors you choose will be used to style the icons, buttons, space headers, and launcher in the Compact Messenger.

If you switch from using the Default Messenger layout to the Compact layout, any previous configuration of the Home space will be saved, so if you switch back you won’t lose any settings you had.

For example, if you added the Content Showcase app on the Default Messenger but then switch to Compact, when toggling back to Default that Content Showcase app will still be there in your configuration.


The customer experience

When first clicking on the launcher, customers will be presented with a smaller, condensed menu.

From here, they can navigate to the Messenger spaces that you’ve configured, like Messages or Help.

Customers can also navigate directly to a new conversation via the “Send us a message” button, or they can navigate to external links, like your community or blog.

If customers click the back button from a space, they'll be taken back to the Messenger Home.


Compact Messenger on mobile

Because the Compact layout is a condensed version of the Messenger, there are a few settings that exist on the Default Messenger that don’t exist on Compact:

  • Introduction

  • Header color

  • Logo

  • Certain Home apps, like Articles Search, Canvas Kit apps, etc.


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