Websocket: our real-time messages exchange protocol

The Websocket protocol is the real-time message exchange protocol by default for agent panel.

This major change protocol aims to :

  • Reduce the message exchange latency
  • Detect disconnections immediately (this detection currently occurs between 30 seconds and 2 minutes)
  • As a bonus, lower the network bandwidth by reducing the number of requests

Immediately detect disconnections will allow the following functional advantages :

  • Reconnect the user immediately after a disconnection, which will improve the recovery time and avoid sending messages never received
  • Knowing the presence of agents in real time to the nearest second, thus avoiding a visitor to commit a conversation while agents are no longer present
  • Specifically inform the visitor about the speaker’s connectivity

Nevertheless, Websocket is a standard that requires some technical prerequisites

  • The agent must use a recent browser: here is a list of compatible browsers> http://caniuse.com/#search=websocket
  • The customer network infrastructure - from which agents use the panel - must authorize the Websocket protocol

The tool https://websocketstest.com/ will help you to check your network compatibility.