What the Web Widget preview shows

Plan requirement

App	pluscloud AI Agent Preview
Subscription	Suite Team or higher, Support Team or higher
Access	Client admin, Client editor, Client user

The Web Widget preview uses your design from Admin Center and shows AI agent replies the way the Zendesk messenger shows them to customers.

Your design

With the Admin role for Support, the preview reads the Web Widget settings of the AI agent's brand in Admin Center: the primary, message and action colours, the title and description, the avatar, the launcher shape and its corner radius, the frame radius, whether attachments are on, and the AI disclaimer. The AI agent's own avatar and display name come from the AI agent settings. As in the real widget, AI agent messages show a grey placeholder when the AI agent has no avatar. The header shows the Web Widget's avatar, or none when it is not set; an open conversation in a widget with several conversations shows the avatar of its last AI agent message instead. How you change the widget in Zendesk is in Changing the widget's name and appearance.

Without that role, the preview uses the public configuration of your Web Widget. To try other colours without touching Admin Center, use Colors for this account in the preview settings. If the preview does not look like your widget, see The preview does not look like your Web Widget.

How replies appear

Rich text. Bold, italic, headings, lists, code and links, following the AI agent's Activate rich messaging setting. You can override it in the preview settings.
Images, buttons and forms. Link buttons, postback buttons, quick replies and forms. An image, its text and its buttons share one bubble, and quick replies sit under the last message.
Carousels. Cards side by side, with arrows to scroll through them.
Streaming. AI agent text appears word by word and the bubble grows with it. Buttons and sources appear once the text is complete. While you are near the end, the conversation scrolls along; scroll up to stop that, and sending a message brings it back. Streaming text animation turns the word-by-word effect off.
Typing and receipts. The messenger's typing indicator and message status. The typing indicator shows the avatar and name of the AI agent's last message, and does not appear while quick replies are offered.
Launcher and footer. The launcher is optional and uses the shape from Admin Center. The footer reads Powered by pluscloud where the Zendesk branding would be.

The Web Widget preview with a reply in bold, italic and a bulleted list, followed by a carousel of bikes from a fictional shop. The first card shows an image, the title City Classic, a short description and a View bike button, with an arrow to the next card.

Generative replies show a Sources button. What it opens is described in Sources and the article viewer.

One or several conversations

The preview follows the multi-conversation settings of your Web Widget. To try the other setup, change Conversations in the preview settings. How you turn multi-conversations on in Zendesk is in Allowing multiple conversations per customer.

With several conversations, the header has a back button to the conversation list. The list shows the running test and your earlier test conversations with this AI agent, newest first, each with its last message, the time and Ended once it has ended. In the minimalistic style, the list is grouped by date. New conversation starts a new test, like Restart conversation. When customers can only start a new conversation once the current one has ended, the list shows that note from the widget instead of the button.

The Web Widget preview of a fictional bike shop showing the conversation list. At the top, marked as the open conversation, is the running test conversation, started today. Below it are two earlier test conversations, each with its start time, the AI agent's last message, the date and the label Ended. At the bottom is the New conversation button.

An earlier conversation opens read-only, without the message field, as an ended conversation does in the real widget. Test conversations the extension saved earlier load their messages from the conversation log. For this list, the extension keeps your 20 most recent test conversations per AI agent in Chrome and does not send them to pluscloud; see What the extension can access and store.

More of the widget

Pre-conversation screen. If you set one in the Web Widget customisation, the preview shows it until your first message. Zendesk does not document this screen; see Web Widget customisation options.
End conversation. With Customers can end conversations on in the preview settings, the header has the widget's End conversation button or menu item, with its confirmation. Confirming ends nothing in the test.
Proactive message. The customisation panel can show how a proactive message looks above the closed widget. The campaigns themselves are set up in Admin Center.
Keyboard and motion. As in the widget, Escape closes the sources sheet or options menu first, then the widget, Tab moves between launcher and window, and the arrow keys move through the conversation list. Reduced motion turns the animations off.
Webviews. A webview button opens a panel over the conversation. Sign-in pages often do not load there; see A website or webview does not load in the preview.

What the test widget cannot do

The preview runs on the test widget of the AI agents dashboard, so it shares its limits:

Attachments cannot be sent from the test widget.
A postback button is sent to the AI agent as text.
Structured message templates are filled in by Sunshine Conversations and cannot be previewed. See Structured message templates.

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