Contextual Chat

Contextual Chat enables you to initiate discussions with other users in Zoho Practice around clients, or client requests. This feature is powered by Zoho Cliq, an app that makes collaboration and communication easy for teams.

How Contextual Chat Works

Contextual Chat uses Zoho Cliq’s chat bar to facilitate chat within Zoho Practice. With the chat bar enabled, you can simply create a chat by clicking the Contextual Chat icon and adding your organization’s users as participants. Once that’s done, you can initiate discussions, and make audio and video calls from within Zoho Practice with the contacts of your Zoho Cliq account.

Benefits of Contextual Chat

Discuss about transactions and records with specific participants.
Get instant notifications every time a user initiates a discussion over contextual chat.
Share images and documents.
Initiate audio and video calls with users of your Zoho Practice organization.

Create Contextual Chat

You can initiate a contextual chat from the Clients and Client Requests modules in Zoho Practice.

To create a contextual chat:

Select a module on the left sidebar, for which you want to create a contextual chat (for example, Clients).
Select a client from the list.
Click the Contextual Chat icon in the top right corner of the page.
Click the Create Chat button.
Since Contextual Chat in Zoho Practice is powered by Zoho Cliq, the Zoho Cliq chat bar must be enabled to use this feature. In the following two cases, you will be prompted to enable the chat bar:
1. If the chat bar is disabled in Zoho Practice, you will see a popup to enable the chat bar. Click Enable.
2. Similarly, if you had turned off the use of Zoho Cliq chat bar in other Zoho Apps in your Zoho Cliq account, you will see a popup to enable the chat bar. Click Enable.

Edit Chat’s Title or Delete Chat {#edit-chat’s-title-or-delete-chat}

You can edit a chat’s title, and delete a contextual chat. Here’s how:

Go to the module in which you want to edit or delete a chat (Eg. Clients).
Click the Contextual Chat icon in the top right corner of the client’s profile page. A list of all the active discussions will be displayed.
To edit the chat title, click the Edit icon next to the chat.
To delete the chat, click the Delete icon next to the chat.

Add or Remove Participants in Contextual Chat

You can add or remove participants in a contextual chat. Here’s how:

Go to the module in which you want to edit or delete the chat (Eg. Clients).
Click the Contextual Chat icon in the top right corner of the page. A list of all the active discussions will be displayed.
To add participants, click the Participant icon next to the chat and select the participants from the dropdown.
To remove a participant, click the Participant icon next to the chat and click the Remove icon next to the participant you want to remove.

Note: You will be able to edit a contextual chat's title, add or remove participants in a contextual chat, and delete a contextual chat only in Zoho Practice. You will not be able to perform these actions in Zoho Cliq.

Cliq Features in Contextual Chat

Prerequisites
1. Ensure that users of your Zoho Practice organization are users in your Zoho Cliq organization, or
2. Zoho Practice users who are not part of your Zoho Cliq organization, must be added as a contact to your Zoho Cliq Organization.

Once the prerequisites are met, you will be able to initiate audio and video calls with the users of Zoho Practice directly from the chat bar.

Prerequisite for Group Call: Users in Zoho Practice should have an active account in Zoho Cliq.

You can initiate group audio and video calls from a chat. Here’s how:

Go to a Contextual Chat in which you want to initiate a group audio or video call.
Click Actions button in the chat and then select Open in Cliq option.
Click the Meeting icon in the top right corner of the page. Then select Start Meeting.
Select the mode to host the meeting as Audio or Video, then click Next.
Manage your audio/video settings and click the Start Meeting button to initiate the call.