Integrate Intercom Chat with Pendo

Embed Intercom's live chat in your Pendo Resource Center to provide real-time assistance alongside your contextual guidance and product walkthroughs. This integration removes the activation badge created by the Intercom chat snippet and activates live chat from within the Pendo Resource Center. The Resource Center can be activated from a Pendo badge or a target element in your application.

Prerequisites

• Pendo admin user permissions.
• Intercom admin user permissions or Intercom chat permissions.
• An active Intercom integration for your Pendo subscription. Contact your Pendo customer success or sales representative to add the Intercom integration to your Pendo subscription.
• Engineering resource to install the Intercom Chat snippet.
• A published Pendo Resource Center. For information, see Overview of the Resource Center.
• Pendo agent version 2.93.2 or greater.

Important information

• The Intercom snippet must be installed below the Pendo install script in the page header.
• Installing the Intercom snippet without publishing the Intercom Chat module in the Resource Center loads the Intercom Chat launch badge over your UI.
• The Resource Center only supports one chat integration and only loads the first module listed.

Setup process

Setting up the Intercom Chat integration with your Resource Center involves the following broad steps:

1. Add the Intercom Chat module to your Resource Center.
2. Configure your Resource Center.
3. Publish your Resource Center.
4. Copy the Intercom Chat snippet into your application code.

If the Intercom Chat is installed and the Resource Center module isn't published, the Intercom snippet loads Intercom Chat's launch button over your UI. If the chat module is in the published Resource Center, it doesn't show up in the Resource Center until it detects the installed chat snippet in your application. This install order acts as a fail-safe, only showing the chat module when it's functional.

Step 1. Add the Intercom Chat module to your Resource Center

The chat module must be added to the Resource Center and published before the snippet is installed in your application, otherwise Intercom displays their launch badge until the Resource Center module is added.

1. Go to Settings > Integrations.
2. Find and open the Intercom integration.
3. Open the Staging Setup tab.
4. Use the toggle to turn on Status (Staging).
5. Edit the details by adding a Title and Description for your Intercom Chat module and choosing a Chat Window Positioning.
6. Select Save in the bottom-right corner of the panel.
7. In the confirmation window that opens, select Publish. This doesn't automatically make the Intercom Chat module visible in your Resource Center. You must still configure your Resource Center, as described in Step 2 of this article.
8. In the Product tab, check the setup and select Click to finish.

This makes the integration available to configure in the Resource Center and, if Intercom Chat is already installed directly on your application, suppresses the Intercom Chat badge.

Step 2. Configure your Resource Center

1. Go to Guides > Resource Center.
2. Find and open your Resource Center.
3. In the Draft tab of your Resource Center, hover over the first page of your Resource Center and select + Add Module.
4. Select Intercom Chat and then Add Modules in the bottom-right corner of the page.
5. Optionally, edit the segment of the module, which is set to Everyone by default. Hover over the Intercom Chat module, select View Module Details and then select Edit in the Segment section. Edit the segment as required.
6. Optionally, reorder the modules in your Resource Center by selecting Manage in my app next to Push to Staging.
7. Select Push to Staging. This allows you to review the new Resource Center and test the integration in your staging environment before pushing to production.

Step 3. Publish your Resource Center

1. After you've tested the new Resource Center, promote your newly configured Resource Center to your production environment by selecting Push to Production.
2. Verify that the Intercom Chat module is now available in your public Resource Center by going to your application and opening the Resource Center.

Step 4. Copy the Intercom Chat snippet into your application code

The Intercom Chat snippet must be installed on any page where the chat module is used.

Intercom has installation instructions for inserting the Chat snippet. The process is similar to installing the Pendo install script. Intercom recommends adding their install script before the closing tag of the <body> but installing in the <head> works also. The Intercom Chat module in the Resource Center doesn't load unless the Intercom Chat snippet is present on the page.

The Intercom Chat snippet must be installed below the the Pendo install script in the <head>. If the Intercom snippet loads before the Pendo install script, Intercom loads their own chat launch button instead of using the Resource Center module.

Using the Intercom Chat module

When an end user selects the Intercom Chat module in the Resource Center, the Intercom Chat window opens and the Resource Center is hidden. This starts the chat with a support agent.

When the user is connected to a support agent, they can have their entire conversation in the in-app chat module.

Selecting the Resource Center badge or activation element ends the chat and closes the chat window. Reopening the Resource Center opens the Resource Center on the home page.