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Hi there

We are testing Freshdesk (on a Sprout plan at the moment) and have implemented SSO from our website, having restricted the creation of tickets to logged in users only.

All that works fine from a ticket creation point of view, however there is an issue with Freshchat.

When a user - who is logged into Freshdesk via SSO (parameters include first name)  - opens up a chat session with an agent; that user's name is not carried through to the conversation. The email address is, but not the first name.


So the agent sees a random name like "Funny Juice" or "Rinsing Truck". I can understand these names are generated when a user is not logged in but these users are actually all logged in.


What is curious - which makes me think this is actually a bug - is that if the user, who has signed in via SSO, then updates their profile in Freshdesk by simply clicking on Save (not changing any fields) - their first name then reflects for the agent in  Freshchat.


Any ideas on how to get the user name to appear correctly in Freshchat without them having to update their profile in Freshdesk?

Thanks in advance! 



Hello Craig,


Glad that you've setup the Freshdesk - Freshchat integration. Here's hoping you'll like the overall Freshworks' experience :) 


You've mentioned that the SSO seem to work for tickets but partially works when the user starts a conversation in Freshchat. Strange enough, the email address of the user gets sent along with the request but not the name of the user.


I believe it has to do with the way you've setup your SSO in Freshdesk, Craig. You've mentioned that the querystring has first name as one of the values but Freshdesk doesn't have separate fields to store first name and last name separately. 


Maybe you can try changing the query string and see if that solves the problem?


Cheers!

Hi Aravind

Thanks for the reply. Actually, although I am passing through the first name from my user database the parameter I am passing is actually just "name":

$user_link = $freshdesk_base_url."login/sso/?name=".urlencode($strName)."&email=".urlencode($strEmail)."&timestamp=".$timestamp."&hash=".$hash;

I got that from github: SSO Login for Freshdesk support portal - PHP Sample Code (Updated)

 
So yeah, I don't think it is that. Is there any thing specific about the format of the "name" that I should know about?  The way I understand it I should just be able to pass through "Craig"?


Cheers, 


Craig




When I said "their first name then reflects for the agent in  Freshchat." this is the first name from my database - should have just said "name"! 




Ah, sorry Craig! I was just trying to see if that could have been the reason. And, given that you've used the script from our Github repo, it should work as intended. The login using the portal credentials or the SSO shouldn't have an impact in the behaviour.


Is there a way I can get user access to your portal? You can add my email address (aravind.s@freshworks.com). This should help us to uncover the reason to an extent.


Cheers!



Hi Aravind

I have added you to our portals.

Cheers, 


Craig 



Sorry Aravind - do you want to be just a normal user in freshchat?



I can remove you as admin and add you in as a normal user if you wish?

Craig,

I'd like to be a normal user in your Freshdesk account. Just to recreate the Freshchat scenario :)


Cheers!

Okay, have created you as a user



Hi there


Is there any follow up on this?



Still keen to see if there is a resolution on this



Hello Craig,


My apologies for the delay. I tried initiating the chat and it seem to work fine with the normal login and also other SSO logins(Google login for example). I tried to recreate this scenario in our test environment but wasn't able to spot an error.


Would you be able to provide me access as an user to your SSO (aravind.@freshworks.com) ? Also, can you please add aravind.sundararajan@freshworks.com as an agent in Freshchat so that I can test both the ends?


Cheers!

Hi Aravind - I will be able to add you in but only a bit later on - will reply again once that is done - will only be in a few hours time though as I am out for a bit.

Just as an aside it seems to only be an issue if a user logs into freshdesk via SSO and then immediately initiates a chat - if the user clicks on any links in freshdesk it seems to populate the  user name and then if they go to chat that name is shown.


Chat later though


Cheers, 


Craig



Craig,


I've managed to recreate the scenario. Let me check with the team on why this happens with the integration. For now, I can suggest another alternative to get the name of the user but that would require the account to be on the Estate plan. Let me know if you'd like to try out the alternate option while we continue to debug the issue.


Cheers!

Hi Aravind

Excellent - glad that it is replicable your side! 

The Estate plan sounds great and is definitely something I would like to upgrade to in the future - especially since the layouts can be tweaked....in fact that could be along the lines of what you are thinking... like have the chat function behind a menu item to force the user to click something first, for example....


Anyway, need to get funding sorted for my project first before any upgrades!

Keep me posted to what the dev guys say....


Cheers, 


Craig 




Craig,

I noticed that my test environment already uses the alternate approach and hence lost my way in recreating your scenario 😞 Sorry about that!


Yes, the Estate plan offers you more customisation options along with a lot of other powerful features. Good luck on getting the approval :=)

I'll get back to you as soon as I hear back from the team.


Cheers!



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