Testing Gnatta Chat
- Gnatta
- Abbey Brown
Quick links in this article
In this article, we’ll explore how to test your Gnatta Chat instance in a private testing environment - you can use your own private testing area or website, or the Gnatta test environment.
About testing
In order to test the flows and routing you’ve configured for your Gnatta Chat account before setting it live on your public website, it’s recommended to first publish your Chat account somewhere private. That way you can start a chat, and check the logs to see how your flows are firing.
Typically, clients like to publish their Chat account on a test version of their own website e.g. test.yourcompany.com. This allows them to see how Chat would look like directly on their site, without risking customers reaching it before it’s ready.
This is especially useful if you’re testing a chatbot journey, where there are many paths and interlocking processes to check!
However, if you’re unable to add Chat to your test site for any reason (see Adding Chat To Your Site for guidance), then you can use Gnatta’s private test environment instead: WebChat Test
Using a test site
Whilst a test environment is of course a placeholder for the real thing, the chat window you’ll be interacting with is live - starting a chat via a test site will trigger any connected events and flows you’ve hooked up to that Chat account. We’d recommend putting your own user in the team connected to your Chat account and queues so you can receive your chats whilst testing.
This will allow you to close your test interactions just as an agent would, and prevent tests from clogging up your queues or reports! You might want to add a ‘Test’ option to your reason for contact field so you can filter these tests from your reports: Defining Custom Data
Alternatively, if you want to test your flows and events without affecting a currently live version of your Chat account or hitting live queues etc., we’d recommend setting up a second test Chat account. You can then attach all of your flows and configuration to that second account without interfering with a live version.
Add an Allowed Domain
Before you can test your Gnatta chat account, you must add the domain for the chosen test site in your Gnatta account. Navigate to Configuration > Settings > Channels > Domains and add either ref.develop.gnatta.site if using the Gnatta test environment, or your own custom domain, i.e. companyname.com.
Getting started
In order to use the Gnatta test environment, you’ll need to first collect:
The API Key for your Gnatta domain
The Media Account ID for your chosen Chat account
With those two things, you’ll be able to fill in the form on the test environment and launch your Chat window.
To find the API Key for your Gnatta domain, navigate to Configuration > Advanced > Accounts > Settings > Webchat > Active API Keys.
For security purposes, we’d recommend resetting your API Key periodically to protect your domain from malicious interference.
To find the Media Account ID, go to Configuration > Advanced > Accounts > Webchat > Account name and select the ID from the bottom of the panel. Copy it to clipboard, and you’re ready to go!
With these two pieces of data collected, navigate to the Gnatta test environment here: WebChat Test
Input your API Key and media account ID, and click Submit to get started. Click Chat available to launch your chat window.
Once you’ve completed a chat or tested a particular feature, you can click the Clear button to reset the instance. You’ll then be able to click Submit again and start an entirely new chat conversation, allowing you to quickly and simply run new tests.
Checking test results
After you’ve started a chat to test your Chat account, you’ll likely want to cross-reference how that chat was processed in your Gnatta domain.
Ideally, you’ll have put yourself as the only online team member in a team mapped to the queue and account where your chats are being handled, and therefore the chat will be assigned to your interaction radar! We’d recommend setting the reason for contact to ‘Test’ and setting the status to ‘Closed’ as soon as you’re done, to keep your queues and reports clear.
You can also check how a chat has been processed in Workflow logs.
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