phpLive Tutorial

What is phpLive?

Phplive* is a powerful chat application that allows you to have real-time chat communication with the customers and visitors of your site. PHPlive is PHP/MySQL based and is a highly customizable application that provides a rich set of features. SiteGround uses Phplive chat application for communication with our customers. SiteGround hosting offers hosting services for phpLive users. We provide installation* of phpLive on your website.

PHPLive Features

Phplive have a lot of features, offering to its users, some of them are:

• Real-time chat and support;
• Multiple chat requests at a time;
• Creating different departments;
• Tracking and collecting information for visitors;
• Saving the chat transcripts;
• Rating the customer service;
• Supporting your own chat logos;
• Tracking of the referred urls;
• Multiple language support;
• Knowledge Base (FAQ) Integration;

PHPLive Tutorial includes:

• How to install PHPLive on your website;
• How to create and manage departments and operators in phpLive;
• How to change phpLive themes;
• and more

* Please note that PHP Live! is not freely distributed. SiteGround hosting offers installation of phpLive software only if you have a licence for using PHP Live!.

You may use this tutorial for your own use. You may not distribute it in any form without the express permission of the publisher. You may provide a link to the publisher's web site, where this tutorial can be used from. This tutorial is provided free of charge and without any warranty of any kind.

phpLive Installation

Where to download PHPLive software?

If you want to set phpLive application on your website, you would have to follow a couple of easy steps.

The first, and the most important one actually, is buying the product. Phplive is not free software, so you are not able to download it and use it on your account for free.

The purchase of the application can be made from the main site of phplive, here is a link to it:

http://www.phplivesupport.com/

If you want to test the application there is a free trial registration that you can set and test. The trial account is actually providing you the option to test the latest version of the application on the server of the developers for 10 days. Here is a direct link to the trial account submission page

http://www.phplivesupport.com/trial.php

After filling in the information that is requested, you will receive an activation email with a link to follow. Then you will be able to set a fully operational live chat that you can test.

PHPLive installation

If you decide to buy the product and use it, the next step to make is to install the phpLive application on your website.

The first step of the installation of phplive, is to download the copy that you have purchased and to download it to your own computer.

Once you have downloaded your own copy of phpLive, you need to extract the archive on your local computer and to upload the extracted data to your public_html folder. The extraction of the file can be made with any kind of archive software like WinZip, WinRar or WinAce for example. After the extraction you have to establish an FTP connection to your website (learn how to use FTP) and to upload the extracted files to a folder inside the public_html folder, for example the folder "phplive".

During the upload you can complete another preliminary step. It is the creation of the database that the phplive application will use.

You can do that using the MySql databases option available in the control panel that you have. To access it, please login to your cpanel using

https://yourdomainname/cpanel

with access information:

username: yourusername
password: yourpassword

When you reach the page what you have to do is to create the database that phplive will use. For completing that task use the option for add database.

Then you have to create the user that will use that will have an access to your database.

You can do that from the option of creating a user, you can find that field under the adding database one.

The last and the final step that you have to make in the MySql menu in the control panel is to allow full privileges for the username to the database that you have created. You can do that if you choose the both - username and database from the drop down menu available on the page and click on the button add user to database.

1. Start installation

Once you have uploaded the files and you have created the database and the username that the application will use, you have to access the files that you have uploaded using FTP.

In this example the files are uploaded to a folder inside the public_html one called - phplive, so if you do the same thing the address that you have to use to access the installation files is

http://www.yourdomainame.com/phplive

When you do that the application will automatically redirect you to the first page of the installation procedure. Which will look as it is showed on the picture above.

From that page you can set the languages that installation and after that the application have to use. The supported languages are - English, Dutch, Danish, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, French, German, Romanian, Turkish. The other setting here available is the name of the site that you will use.

2. Setting up website root

On the second step of the installation you are choosing the absolute path to your phplive installation. It will be something similar than

/home/username/public_html/phplive

Actually applications usually detect this setting by default, so you don't have to change anything here (unless, of course, you know what you are doing).

3. Set your Base URL.

In this step you are choosing the complete URL path of the PHP Live! system. For example:

http://www.yourdomainname.com/phplive

Like the step before you can simply agree with the default setting and go ahead to the next step with no worries.

4. Your Company Information.

Here you should add information regarding your company and to set the administration username and password. You can check the picture below for example information that you can fill there

5. Configure Database.

This is actually the last step of the installation that you have to pass. The information that you have to fill in here is regarding the database that you have set up as explained above to the phplive application, so it will be able to use it.

The only supported database from phplive is MySql, so on the first option there is no choice actually available. For the DB Host option by default it is set to localhost and in 99 % of the cases that is the database host that you have to use, the exceptions actually are if you have your database stored somewhere else, not in the account that you have with us and if that is your case what you have to fill in that option is the database server name and port number for access, for example:

DB Host: databaseserver:port

6. Congratulations

The very last page from the installation of phplive is a congratulations page that actually is praising you for the successfully completed installation.

On this page there are four links available. The first three of them actually is leading you back to the settings that you have filled in the previous options in the installation. The last one is the very last thing on the page and it goes to the site setup area.

You can access that area manually with no problems if you type the link from the page on the address bar of your browser, for example:

http://www.yourdomainname.com/phplive/setup/

Once you access the setup page for your phplive installation you will be prompted with a menu that will ask you for your login information,

that information actually is the username and password that you have filled in the installation of the application.

When you login there you will see the configuration options for your phplive application, the screen will look like this:

As you can see on the picture the configuration menu is grouped in different sections vie certain criteria and it is very easy to use, because of the fact that it is leading to every option that you want to manage only by few clicks.

phpLive Departments

Creating Departments in phpLive

Phplive configuration

The first thing you have to do when you access the phpLive configuration is to create Department/s and at least one chat operator account for your phplive. You will also need to generate the html code of the phpLive chat button that you have to place on your site, so the visitors will be able to access your chat operators.

As you can see in your setup page of phplive there are separate group with three buttons that actually are leading you the options that you have to access to complete the steps that I have explained above. The first one of them is:

Creating departments in phpLive

The creation of a deparment can be done from the button called Manage (Create) Departments. When you access that menu you will be prompted with a page that gives you the ability to create your first deparment

Fill the information for your department and then click on the submit button to save that info in the phplive database. Then you will go back to the previous page from where you will be able to access the second required option for starting your phplive system:

Creating operators in phpLive

phpLive Operators

Creating operators in PHPLive

Click on the button Manage (Create) Operators as shown on the picture below and you will see the manage operators menu.

The setting up of an operator is one very easy operation that is requiring two steps.

The first one is - fill the information for your operator and click on the Add/Edit Operator button.

*Note: there is a check box here saying: "Allow visitors to rate this operator's level of support"
If you check the checkbox it will actually provide you with the ability your customers to rate the operators that are assisting them, which is one very usefull option if you want to have a regular feedback from your customers.

The second one - Adding an operator to a Department

To add an operator to a department click on the check box which is on the left side of the operator username and then choose with the left mouse button the department that you want this operator to be added to. (If you want one operator to be added to more than one department, press the "Ctrl" key and select the departments that you want your operator to be member of.)

Generate Chat Button Code

How to generate the Live Chat button html code and add it on your page

Once you are done with the setting up the operators, go back to the home menu and click on the button for generating the html code.

Then select the department that you want that code to be generated (The first option - Generate HTML to display ALL departments - will actually generate this code for each of your departments.)

When you press the button for generation, the code will appear in a box and you will be able to select and copy it.

Then what you have to do with this code is to paste it in the page that you want it to appear.

Now the setting for your phpLive is completed. Well done!

There is no problem to go back and edit the settings that you have placed on this three options at any time using the buttons from the phplive setup page.

Start Chatting

Start Chatting with your Visitors

The next step that you have to make is to login as an chat operator to your site, so the visitors can go and chat with someone. You can do that if you simply click on the link that is inside of the setup menu or if you use the direct link which will be something like:

http://www.yourdomainname.com/phplive/web/admin/

On this page will be asked for the operator login credentials that you want to use, fill the username and password in the boxes

When you do that you will access the operator setup page, and if you are to go online and to be able to chat with the visitors you just have to click on the Go-online button that is on the page.

When you do that, two things will happen, the first and the more important one is that the picture that is on your main page will change the text from offline to online.

The second thing is that the operator monitor page will pop-up.

When a visitor clicks on the button for online chat, on his computer will popup a chat window. The page will ask the visitor for his data.

After filling this the customer will access the chat system and he will be redirecred to available operator from the department that he have requested to access. The operator will be prompted for the new visitor and he will be able to accept or decline the conversation

If he accepts it a new page will pop-up, which is the support chat window page

After finishing of the conversation if you have checked the check box Allow visitors to rate this operator's level of support on the adding an operator page, the visitor will be kindly asked to submit his opinion for the conversation that he have made and is the help that the operator gave him is satisfying him.

phpLive Themes

Customizing phpLive themes

There are a lot of customizations that you can make to your site, here you will find a guide how to make two of them - setting up the theme of the phplive system and setting up the icon that customers will see on your website page. Both of them are very easy to be made.

Setting up a new phpLive theme

If you want to change the template that you made for your site, you have to click on the option for that one available in the setup menu for the application.

Then select the theme that you want to use and click on the dialog box that will appear on your screen

This will change the theme that your site will use.

Here is a link to a site that you can use to download themes for the phplive application

http://chatterbox.branders.com/phplive/themes/

phpLive Icons

Change the icon for your phpLive chat system

At http://www.phplivesupport.com/icons.php you will be able to find chat icons that you can use on your site.

In order to do that you have to save the icon that you want to use to appear on your page, when there is an operator online and the icon that will appear when all of them are offline

When you do that, go back to your setup administration page for your phplive application and click on the option called Chat Icons

Then click on the browse button for the state that you want to change the picture

Then browse to the folder that is containing your image

and as a final upload the image to phplive installation that you have on your account

The use of the chat icons is very flexible option in phplive, since the icons are regular picture files and there is no problem to use a picture that you want no matter file size or real size of the picture.

Please, feel free to contact us if you have any questions or recommendations about this tutorial at: tutorials 'at' siteground.com