Changing the starting block

There are many situations where you might want to show a different message to the user when they start a conversation. For example, this might be on a particular day of the week, or based on the page they are currently viewing. Both IntelAgent and the chat widget support this use case and enabling it is very simple.

Just as you would pass other Configuration options, there is a startBlock option which can be set to change the initial block sent to a user. This can be used as follows :

startBlock parameter

window.addEventListener('wbb_plugin_loaded', function(event) {
  new window.WBBChatPlugin({
    // Other settings here...
    
    // Starting Block
    startBlock: getQueryParam("startBlock") || "intro",
    
    // more settings as required...
  });
});

The startBlock parameter shown is either the Block ID of the block you wish to trigger or the title of the block.

In this example, setting startBlock to either 5c62ead3ab358c3780bb60dc or intro will trigger the same block.

Using the blockID is generally best practice because there is a possibility that someone might change the block title, and forget to update the widget settings. In contrast the blockID will always remain the same regardless of any content changes inside it.

Conditional logic

While there may be lots of scenarios where you want to trigger different blocks, one such example might be based on the URL the user is currently on. The following example will show you how to add some code to the way you load the widget so that you will get a different block each time.

Change the starting block

window.addEventListener('wbb_plugin_loaded', function(event) {
  const NEW_USER = "intro";
  const LOCAL_GOV = "5d83816be584e656e7b86eeb";
  const UTILITIES = "5fa126d6b0622f3854fa8148";
  
  let startBlockID = NEW_USER;
  if ( document.location.pathname == "/government" ) { 
    startBlockID = LOCAL_GOV;
  }
  if ( document.location.pathname == "/utilities" ) { 
    startBlockID = UTILITIES;
  }
  
  new window.WBBChatPlugin({
    // Other settings here...
    
    // Starting block
    startBlock: getQueryParam("startBlock") || startBlockID,
    
    // more settings as required...
  });
});

Also note that this startBlock parameter will only be used if the user hasn't previously had a conversation with the bot. In the case where the user starts on for example the /government page, and then navigates to /utilities they will not be presented with the new start block and instead continue from their previous conversation.

Note that by using the getQueryParam option as well we can also allow the starting block to be changed based on the URL the user has clicked on. For example, the following URL could open a page and specify a specific block to load.

Using URL Parameters

https://www.wbb.ai/utilities?startBlock=5fa126d6b0622f3854fa8148